[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 104 (Tuesday, June 28, 2016)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4592-S4593]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 ZIKA VIRUS AND VA-MILCON FUNDING BILL

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I don't know what planet my friend the 
Republican leader is living on. This conference report is the most 
irresponsible legislation I have ever seen in my 34 years in Congress. 
That says a lot. I can't think of anything that is close.
  This Zika threat is real. It is serious. Every day more and more 
Americans are being infected. According to the Centers for Disease 
Control and Prevention, right now 2,900 Americans have already 
contracted Zika. There were 700 just last week alone who were added to 
that list. It was 2,200, and now it is 2,900, and 481 women have been 
tested positive for the virus in the United States. Eight pregnancies 
in the United States have resulted in severe birth defects because of 
Zika, and when we talk about severe birth defects, we mean it. They 
have little shrunken heads and their skulls are caved in. Mosquitoes 
have caused problems forever, but never like this.
  In spite of all the evidence of Zika's harm to the American people, 
Republicans are pushing the conference report as nothing more than the 
goodie bag for the fringes of the Republican Party. In April, very 
recently, the Republican leader told reporters:

       We are all very much aware that this is a serious crisis. . 
     . . We'll be working with the administration, with the 
     Democrats.

  That simply hasn't proven to be true. On the conference committee the 
Democrats were locked out of negotiations. Then they jammed through 
this bill. When I say in the middle of the night, it was in the middle 
of the night. It was during the time they had the sit-in on the House 
floor. Chaos was there. There was no debate, no discussion. It was just 
ruled there by the Presiding Officer. It shortchanged the President's 
request by $800 million. It took another $100 million from the Ebola 
funding, which is badly needed. All you have to do is talk to anyone at 
NIH or the Centers for Disease Control, and they will tell you. Ebola 
is not gone.
  Then they proceeded. I don't know if they sat in a room and said: 
Let's do everything we can just to hit every constituency group the 
American people like, and let's just poke in their eyes. That is what 
they did.
  How about women's health? How anti-women's health can they make it? I 
will tell you that we are dealing here with pregnant women and women 
who want some type of birth control. The Republican conference report 
restricts funding for birth control provided by Planned Parenthood. My 
friend says they can go someplace else for it. In America today, there 
are huge segments of the American people where this is the only place 
they can go for help. Women need Planned Parenthood, and what do the 
Republicans do because of their fixation on doing everything they can 
to hurt Planned Parenthood? They do these phony television interviews. 
They have fake cameras. The courts have decided that what they did is 
wrong. They have been sued, but that is OK. Anything they can do to 
whack Planned Parenthood, they are going to do it, and they tried it 
here.
  How about ObamaCare? They have tried to revoke it almost 70 times, 
and it didn't work. So what do they do? They just rescind $543 million 
dollars and stick it in the conference report. I guess that was just to 
get the President's attention. Of course he is going to veto this, but 
they wanted to make sure he was going to have something really 
substantive in order to do it.
  How about the environment? Remember that what we are trying to--in 
addition to all of the things we have talked about--is that we want to 
make sure there is a way of getting rid of these pests--these 
mosquitoes. How do they do that? The only way we have found that is 
really effective is with spraying to kill these little varmints, these 
insects. Well, what do the Republicans do? They exempt pesticide 
spraying from the Clean Water Act. Why? Just because they don't like 
the EPA. They don't like the Clean Water Act. It has been around for 60 
years, and they still don't like it.
  How about this? We know the Democrats have a big constituency with 
veterans. Why not whack them? OK. Let's do that. What we will do is 
take $500 million out of veterans health. That should get the 
Democrats' attention.
  They couldn't stop themselves from coming up with every idea. I guess 
they were waiting around while the chaos was happening on the House 
floor, saying: Can we think of anything else that would just be really 
good to do?
  I have it. Why don't we rescind the order that is in effect saying 
you can't fly the Confederate flag on military cemeteries?
  Great idea--OK, I am glad you came up with that. We are going to 
stick that in there too.
  Under this legislation the Republicans stuck in there a line to 
prohibit the legislation that says you can't fly a Confederate flag in 
a military cemetery. Under their legislation, you can go ahead and do 
it.
  This conference report is disgraceful. It is shameful to use a real-
life public health crisis to push the radical Republican agenda. It is 
radical. I have told you what they are doing.
  There is a point of order against the bill also. We could raise that.
  Republicans were eager to inject politics in this legislation, even 
rescinding $543 million from the Affordable Care Act, making the bill 
rescindable. For these and other reasons, we are going to vote against 
cloture.
  But it is not just Democrats saying this bill is a disaster. No, 
don't leave it to us.
  I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a letter from 
40 public health care groups, including some of these radical 
organizations like the March of Dimes, the American Academy of 
Pediatrics, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 
Easterseals, the American Public Health Association, and 35 more.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                                    June 28, 2016.
     Hon. Mitch McConnell,
     Majority Leader, U.S. Senate,
     Washington, DC.
     Hon. Paul D. Ryan,
     Speaker, House of Representatives,
     Washington, DC.
     Hon. Harry Reid,
     Minority Leader, U.S. Senate,
     Washington, DC.
     Hon. Nancy Pelosi,
     Minority Leader, House of Representatives,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Speaker Ryan, Minority Leader Pelosi, Majority Leader 
     McConnell, and Minority Leader Reid: The undersigned 
     organizations committed to the health and wellbeing of our 
     nation's children and families would like to express our 
     dismay at Congress' failure to produce bipartisan legislation 
     to provide federal agencies, states and localities with the 
     funds necessary to combat Zika virus.
       Let us be clear: Zika is a public health emergency. It is 
     increasingly likely that pregnant women in the U.S. will be 
     infected with Zika this summer and give birth to infants with 
     devastating, preventable birth defects next year.
       The conference committee should reconvene immediately to 
     craft a new bill that:
       Provides appropriate funding levels for all aspects of Zika 
     response, including contraception for women who wish to avoid 
     pregnancy, and to prevent the sexual transmission of Zika;
       Does not draw funds from other important public health 
     priorities, including Ebola efforts;
       Does not place unreasonable restrictions on Zika funding, 
     which would hinder the ability of agencies to respond to the 
     virus given that its course is unpredictable;
       Lays a foundation with FY2016 funding that can be built 
     upon responsibly in subsequent fiscal years, since Zika will 
     be a long-term challenge; and

[[Page S4593]]

       Is capable of garnering bipartisan support.
       The fact that it is already almost July and Congress has 
     failed to act would seem to reflect an appalling indifference 
     to the lives of infants and their families. Our nation is 
     perilously close to the point where it will be impossible to 
     distribute funding to states and localities in order to make 
     a meaningful difference this year. Many at-risk jurisdictions 
     have been forced to lay off trained staff due to cuts and the 
     lack of new resources, even as they are being asked to battle 
     this new threat. Additional resources are needed immediately 
     to protect pregnant women and their infants from Zika and 
     life-altering birth defects.
       CDC Director Tom Frieden has stated that the estimated cost 
     of care for a baby with the severe microcephaly caused by the 
     Zika virus could be up to $10 million per child. If 100 
     babies are born with this severe form of microcephaly caused 
     by Zika, their care will cost the U.S. economy approximately 
     $1 billion--roughly the cost of the bipartisan package passed 
     by the Senate. If the inaction in Congress persists, the U.S. 
     and its territories could easily see dozens or even hundreds 
     of infants born with preventable microcephaly, an outcome 
     that would be not only a human tragedy but a significant 
     economic burden.
       Once again, we urge you in the strongest possible terms to 
     reconvene the conference committee to produce a responsible 
     Zika funding bill that can pass Congress as quickly as 
     possible. If this does not take place, Congress will bear the 
     full responsibility for Zika-related birth defects across the 
     nation in the coming years.
           Sincerely,
         African American Health Alliance, AFSCME, American 
           Academy of Pediatrics, American Association of Colleges 
           of Pharmacy, American College of Nurse-Midwives, 
           American College of Preventive Medicine, American 
           Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, American 
           Public Health Association, American Society for 
           Clinical Pathology, Association of Maternal and Child 
           Health Programs, Association of Public Health 
           Laboratories, Association of State and Territorial 
           Health Officials.
         Association of Women's Health, Obstetric and Neonatal 
           Nurses, Big Cities Coalition, Children's Environmental 
           Health Network, Coalition for Health Funding, Easter 
           Seals, Every Child By Two, Genetic Alliance, Healthcare 
           Ready, HIV Medicine Association, Infectious Diseases 
           Society of America, March of Dimes, National 
           Association of Community Health Centers, National 
           Association of County and City Health Officials.
         National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners, 
           National Birth Defects Prevention Network, National 
           Coalition of STD Directors, National Environmental 
           Health Association, National Hispanic Medical 
           Association, National Network of Public Health 
           Institutes, National Organization for Rare Disorders, 
           Public Health Institute, Racial and Ethnic Health 
           Disparities Coalition, RESOLVE: The National 
           Infertility Association, Society for Healthcare 
           Epidemiology of America, Society for Maternal-Fetal 
           Medicine, Trisomy 18 Foundation, Trust for America's 
           Health.

  Mr. REID. These organizations are blasting this Republican conference 
report because they want real legislation to fund Zika. They call on 
Congress to pass a bill that ``provides appropriate funding levels for 
all aspects of Zika response, including contraception for women who 
wish to avoid pregnancy, and to prevent the sexual transmission of 
Zika.''
  They want a bill that ``does not draw funds from other important 
public health priorities, including Ebola efforts.''
  They want a bill that ``does not place unreasonable restrictions on 
Zika funding, which would hinder the ability of agencies to respond to 
the virus given that its course is unpredictable.''
  They want a bill that ``lays a foundation with FY2016 funding that 
can be built upon responsibly in subsequent fiscal years, since Zika 
will be a long-term challenge; and is capable of garnering bipartisan 
support.''
  The letter continues: ``The fact that it is already almost July and 
Congress has failed to act would seem to reflect an appalling 
indifference to the lives of infants and their families.''
  These are not Democrats saying this, these are these public health 
organizations. They are aghast at what Republicans are doing.
  Instead of accepting their bill is a failure that is going nowhere, 
Republicans are making these threats. Yesterday the assistant 
Republican leader came to the floor and said Republicans are going to 
abandon Zika funding negotiations after this vote. The Republican 
Senate is on pace to work the fewest days the Senate has worked in more 
than 60 years. Sixty years ago, the country was much smaller. There was 
a lot less people and a lot less business, but even with that, we are 
working less than they did 60 years ago. In 2 weeks, the Senate plans 
to leave Washington for 7 weeks, which is the longest summer recess 
since we can remember. Is it too much to ask Republicans to work until 
we have done our job in giving States and territories the resources 
they need to fight Zika and protect women? Public health organizations 
don't think so and we don't either. Republicans need to get serious 
about sending President Obama the full $1.9 billion that doctors, 
researchers, nurses, and public health experts say is needed to fight 
Zika. Every moment Republicans delay, there are other cases of Zika in 
innocent women, which affects their children more than one can imagine.
  Mr. President, will the Chair please announce the business of the 
day.

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