[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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