The US House of Representatives has passed a bill aimed at awarding up to $25 million a year to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum in a controversial funding program.
The bill designates the twin pools at the site of the fallen Twin Towers, where the names of 9/11 victims are engraved on bronze panels, as a national memorial. It also sets up a seven-year grant program — the first time federal funds would go for operations, officials said.
The bill passed 387 to 12, despite opposition by the Obama administration, which said it would have no control over how the money is spent, and some 9/11 family members who contend the memorial and museum should be run by the National Park Service, not the private nonprofit foundation chaired by former Mayor Mike Bloomberg.
Some families object to the “exorbitant” salaries of officials — such as CEO and President Joe Daniels, who got $489,266 in salary and benefits in 2014 — as well as museum fees and the storage of unidentified victims’ remains with the exhibits.
“It dismisses those who opposed having the ‘Pay to Pray’ option whereby American citizens must . . . pay a $25 entrance fee to pay homage and pray before the remains stored in the lowest level,” said Robert Meehan, whose 26-year-old daughter, Colleen, was a Cantor Fitzgerald employee killed on Sept. 11. Family members are admitted for free.
The bill was introduced after memorial officials asked Congress for cash on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks last year in a sparsely attended hearing in Washington while the names of victims were being read aloud at Ground Zero.
The memorial and museum collected more than $134 million in 2014, its latest financial filings show. That included $41.9 million in museum fees, $26.5 million in donations and $5.3 million in souvenir sales. Government grants brought in $58.1 million, which officials say was used for construction only. Operations cost $70 million a year, they said.
More money is needed, in part, to heighten security at the prime terror target, argued a family member who favors the bill.
“Our security costs are exorbitant, and we have to ensure that when people enter it’s safe,” said Virginia Bauer, a memorial trustee whose husband, David, 45, was killed at Cantor Fitzgerald.
A 2012 bill to get $20 million a year in federal funds died. But this time, the memorial paid $120,000 a year to notorious Washington lobbyist Rick Alcalde to push for funding, records show.
But the $25 million figure was omitted from the final version to avoid the appearance of an earmark, or funding for a specific project. Congress banned earmarks in 2011.
Rep. Dan Donovan, R-Staten Island, supports the bill, which will now go to the Senate. “The folks who run this thing have done a remarkable job. I see no reason to take it out of their hands,” he said.
