[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 135 (Thursday, September 8, 2016)]
[House]
[Page H5203]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     THE ZIKA VIRUS AND GUN SAFETY

  (Ms. PLASKETT asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. PLASKETT. Mr. Speaker, I rise to echo the pleas of the American 
people, especially those in my own home district of the United States 
Virgin Islands, in calling for this Congress to pass a Zika funding 
bill and to pass commonsense gun safety legislation.
  It has been more than 6 months since the President submitted a plan 
to this Congress and almost 3 months since House Democrats took to the 
floor to call for a vote on commonsense gun safety legislation. Instead 
of passing these bills, Congress has decided to focus its attention on 
politically charged investigations into investigations. While this 
Congress was in its longest recess in 60 years, the number of overall 
confirmed Zika cases and the number of Americans killed and wounded by 
gun violence continued to grow.
  There have been 4,500 lives lost to gun violence in the time that we 
have been out in recess. This number, sadly, includes the lives of 
almost a dozen young men and women in the Virgin Islands, including the 
lives of two police officers and a firefighter. Additionally, there are 
now more than 11,000 confirmed cases of Zika in the United States, 243 
of those confirmed cases being in the U.S. Virgin Islands, and 14 of 
those are pregnant women.
  The lifetime cost of treating a child with microcephaly is estimated 
to be more than $10 million for that child--a cost that will only 
exacerbate the financial woes of this country's and the territories' 
public health apparatus. The lack of funding for these public health 
activities will put hundreds of thousands of pregnant women at risk.
  Mr. Speaker, I call on this Congress to act quickly and fully fund 
the President's emergency request to fight the Zika virus as well as to 
pass lifesaving, commonsense gun safety legislation.

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