[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 135 (Thursday, September 8, 2016)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5471-S5473]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. RUBIO:
  S. 3301. A bill to amend the Small Business Act to ensure small 
businesses affected by the onset of transmissible diseases are eligible 
for disaster relief; to the Committee on Small Business and 
Entrepreneurship.
  Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I come to the floor again--I believe for 
the 10th time since March--to discuss the Zika virus.
  The first time I talked about this was back in January. There was a 
report out that said Zika, the disease, was being transmitted by 
mosquitoes and

[[Page S5472]]

there was an outbreak in Brazil. Immediately for me alarm bells went 
off because being from Miami, FL, my hometown, if you go to the airport 
and look at the board, the number of flights coming from Brazil to 
South Florida, the numbers are high. There are dozens of flights a week 
back and forth. My immediate thought at that time was that this is 
going to be an issue for Florida and ultimately for America, given the 
amount of travel back and forth.
  I also saw the outbreak in the territory of Puerto Rico, a place I 
have taken a tremendous interest in since my time here. As everyone 
knows, Puerto Rico is not officially represented in this Chamber, but 
I, along with my colleagues Senator Menendez of New Jersey and Senator 
Nelson of Florida, have always looked out for the interests of the 
island and its people who are U.S. citizens. So knowing the link 
between Florida and Puerto Rico and the link between Zika and Puerto 
Rico, I knew as early as January that this was going to be an issue. I 
immediately talked to our Border Patrol folks and our Customs people at 
our airports and seaports about ensuring we are doing everything we 
can.
  In March, when the President came out in February and March and 
talked about the need for $1.9 billion to fight Zika, I believe I was 
the first Republican--certainly in this Chamber--to come out in favor 
of that request because my argument at the time was, we don't know 
fully what we are dealing with here, but let's get ahead of it. Let's 
jump in front of it and let's deal with it. Otherwise it will only get 
worse. Unfortunately, that didn't happen.
  In much of April and March, there was not much attention paid to 
this. So cases started coming up domestically, mostly travel-related. 
The Senate did move, and I am proud of the fact that after some back 
and forth, this place worked. We worked across the aisle, and I worked 
with Senator Nelson on his proposal and other proposals. In fact, I 
believe I am the only Member of Congress who voted in favor of every 
single Zika proposal because in my mind I wanted the money to flow so 
local governments and States could deal with it and researchers could 
develop a vaccine. We passed a law for $1.1 billion. It was a product 
of compromise. It was less than what the President asked for, but it 
began to move. Unfortunately, the House had a different idea and this 
is where we are today.
  When we left in July, there had not been a reported case of a 
transmission of Zika by a mosquito, but as I warned through April, May, 
June, and July, it was only a matter of time. If you spent any amount 
of time in Florida, you know it is hot, it is humid, that it rains, and 
there are a lot of mosquitoes. You have a State which is a key entry 
point between key areas and the continental United States and you have 
mosquitoes. It didn't take a scientist or an expert in Zika to know the 
combination of those two things were going to lead to locally based 
transmission. Sadly, that is what is happening.
  There is a neighborhood in Miami, FL, called Wynwood. This was an 
area that is economically depressed and it has come alive. It is a 
center of art. They have these murals where graffiti artists were 
allowed to come in and put in these extraordinary murals. It is not 
graffiti. It is art. It is a place where the art community is centered 
and has come alive with some of the best restaurants in South Florida. 
This is the Wynwood community.
  It is a magnet for tourists. There are people who fly to Florida, and 
South Florida in particular, and go straight to Wynwood because they 
want to be in that area. It was the first area impacted, and the CDC 
came out with a warning telling people to avoid a neighborhood. This is 
usually the kind of advisory that goes out about avoiding other 
countries, telling Americans and travelers, specifically, to avoid a 
certain part of a certain neighborhood.
  Can you imagine the impact it had on the businesses in that 
community? We talked about the human toll of Zika, of the infection, 
and of what it does to unborn children, but there is also the economic 
impact of having a lead health care agency in charge of public health 
in America issue a warning to Americans to avoid a neighborhood in an 
American city. I promise you that was not good for those businesses. 
Some of these businesses had to close for weeks on end and days on end.
  Then a few weeks later we had reports of the disease being 
transmitted on Miami Beach. I don't need to tell you about Miami Beach. 
Everyone knows about Miami Beach. It is the cornerstone of tourism in 
South Florida. People come to Miami Beach from all over the world to 
enjoy world-class beaches, nightlife, entertainment, and restaurants. I 
want you to put yourself in a position of a small business owner--not 
just a large hotel chain, which is relevant here, but a small business 
owner.
  Imagine if you are a family who runs a restaurant on Collins Avenue 
in Miami Beach. You are depending your whole year, your budget and your 
payroll is built on a predictable pattern of travelers coming in the 
summer and coming in the fall and especially in the winter. You are 
estimating the number of travelers who will come in. They will leave 
money at these restaurants and they are going to go home. Now you have 
a report of these transmissions and similar warnings as well. What you 
learn from this is that this Zika issue is not just a health care 
issue--and that is by far the primary focus of what our attention 
should be--but it is also an economic issue and it is hurting small 
businesses. It is hurting the municipalities. Miami Beach as a city is 
going to see tax revenues go down. It is going to hurt the State of 
Florida because of failed tax revenue and so forth. It is going to hurt 
one of the engines of our tourism sector--the reports of this 
transmission. You know what is hurting it even worse? When people turn 
on the news, people are hearing there are people being infected with 
Zika in Florida and Congress is still haggling and fighting over it and 
can't get anything done. That does not inspire confidence.
  So today I have filed a bill, an additional bill, in addition to 
calling on us to move on Zika. Let me touch on this first. It is 
inexcusable. How did we get to this point? How did a public health 
crisis become a political tool to be played with back and forth? Yet 
that is what Washington has become, a place that has become expert at 
literally turning any issue into a political issue, and it has done so 
again with this issue. That is why people are grossed out and disgusted 
with American politics. When they watch the news and see this fighting, 
they don't get it. They understand there is this problem with Zika, and 
it is spreading and hurting people. We just had a case of a child born 
in Miami Dade County, at the Jackson Memorial Hospital--not with 
microcephaly but with Zika--a child, a baby, starting out life infected 
with Zika. They are asking: How can you guys turn this thing into a 
political issue? That is what Washington has done. Both parties are to 
blame. It took too long for some in my party to come to the realization 
this was important. On the Democratic side, they have come up with 
excuses to be against the proposal, but I will say this: The Senate did 
it. The Senate funded it. I think at this point, that is probably the 
fastest and best way forward, if we are serious about funding this, is 
to go back to what the Senate did. I continue to work with our 
colleagues to make sure that is a part of whatever vehicle we use to 
fund the government and keep it open through most of the rest of this 
year.

  But today I filed a bill to help people being economically impacted 
by it. It is a bill that deals with the Small Business Administration. 
What it does is it basically gives the Small Business Administration 
the authority to give out small business loans to communities 
negatively impacted by health-related travel advisories issued by the 
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As you know, as I said 
earlier, the CDC has already issued those travel advisories to Wynwood 
and for the South Beach areas of Miami-Dade County, but that does not 
mean a week from now there will not be another area added to that, 
including another area in your State, my colleagues. You don't know 
when that is coming. So if they were hit by a storm, they would qualify 
for this. If they were hit by any other disaster, they would qualify 
for this. They have been hit by a storm. It happens to be a health care 
storm. It is hurting them economically. We need to

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make sure they have the flexibility and the ability to provide this 
short-term, low-interest loans to small businesses to be able to 
weather this health care Zika storm.
  I don't know for the life of me why anybody would be against this. I 
don't know what possible way you could try to politicize it. I am not 
sure why anybody would object to it. My hope is, we can move quickly on 
this. It is important.
  I know there is a lot of jurisdictional pride around here and 
committees will say: Well, you have to come through us first because we 
are the chairmen and this is our committee. I hope you can make an 
exception on this issue because these businesses are hurting. They are 
hurting badly because of what has happened, and it is only going to get 
worse for them as these reports come out.
  I hope we can get that passed. Here is another thing people don't 
know. Our service men and women are deployed all over the world. Unlike 
people who travel, they don't have a choice. When the U.S. military 
tells you and your dependents you must now go to Honduras, you are now 
going to be stationed at a base in Guantanamo Bay or you are going to 
be stateside, but you are going to be in Puerto Rico--when they deploy 
you, you can't say: Well, I am not going because there is Zika there. 
You have to go. We need to make sure we are protecting our men and 
women.
  According to the Pentagon, as of today, there are 81 servicemembers 
and 19 dependents who have tested positive for the Zika virus. Three of 
them, by the way, are pregnant. So I have filed a second bill to 
protect our servicemembers from Zika. It is called the Servicemembers' 
Zika Protection Act. It provides U.S. troops with additional 
protections from the Zika virus by authorizing the Secretary of Defense 
to transfer funds within the existing Department of Defense medical and 
health research accounts in order to combat the Zika virus.
  I am hopeful we can unite behind that as well. With over 100 members 
of our military and their families already infected with Zika, we need 
to take specific precautions to help them and to help our foreign 
partners who host Americans on military bases in regions that are 
affected by Zika. So I am also hopeful Congress will ultimately arrive 
at an agreement this month to fund our Nation's response to Zika, but 
also that we ensure that those being deployed on our behalf receive 
every protection we can provide.
  So these, in addition to the broader argument about Zika, these are 
two commonsense approaches giving the Department of Defense flexibility 
to move existing money around, to provide additional protections for 
our service men and women and their dependents who are being deployed 
and impacted by Zika. This is not a theory. We have over 100 people 
now, including 81 in uniform, who have been impacted by it, and 19 of 
their dependents, 3 of them who are pregnant.
  Second, the small business relief. Please put yourself in the 
position of a family-owned business on South Beach or in Wynwood. They 
are being hurt. Instead of having 50 people coming in a day, they have 
5 or 10. They need help. If they had lost power or been hit by a 
hurricane or a tornado, this would not be an issue, but they have been 
hit by a tornado of a different kind, one they did not cause and they 
could not predict and they could not insure against; that is, Zika.
  Let's make sure the SBA has the flexibility to provide them their 
loans. So in addition to funding this--we have to get the Zika thing 
done, it cannot continue to languish--we have to get the SBA 
flexibility built into our law so these small businesses can be 
provided the resources they need to stay open and not close down as a 
result of a travel advisory because of a disease being spread by 
mosquitoes.
  I think we would all agree we have to make sure we are doing 
everything we can to protect our men and women in uniform who are not 
going by choice. They are being deployed to these places where Zika is 
prevalent. They are being infected. There is no excuse for us to not 
help them as well. So these are the three things I hope we will do 
before Congress adjourns at the end of this month: Fund Zika fully, 
give flexibility for our small businesses that have been impacted by 
Zika to get SBA loans, and do everything we can by passing a law that 
gives the Department of Defense the flexibility they need to use 
existing money to protect our men and women in uniform and their 
families from being infected by Zika when deployed.
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