[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 138 (Tuesday, September 13, 2016)]
[House]
[Pages H5432-H5433]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
ZIKA FUNDING
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Mimi Walters of California). Under the
Speaker's announced policy of January 6, 2015, the Chair recognizes the
gentleman from California (Mr. Garamendi) for 30 minutes.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from California
for the opportunity to speak this evening. We have just been listening
to a very lengthy discussion on the part of the healthcare issues in
the United States, and, undoubtedly, the family or the small community
pharmacist is a piece of the solution to the problems. But I want to
spend the next 10 minutes or so, maybe a little longer, talking about a
problem that currently affects some 19,000 Americans and a problem that
is growing every day.
This is the new four-letter word that we fear. We are accustomed to a
lot of four-letter words, but this one begins with a Z. This is the
Zika crisis. This is a very, very real problem for some 1,600 pregnant
women in the United States. This is a problem that men and women that
intend to have a family, women that intend to bear children, get
pregnant in the days and months ahead have a gut feeling of fear--a
deep, deep fear--and husbands, spouses, and lovers similarly.
This is the Zika crisis. We have heard a lot about it during the
Olympics. It hasn't passed off the radar screen except here in
Congress. I know it is on the minds of Californians, over 500 in
California, and nearly 15,500 Americans in Puerto Rico. They have that
fear. They have Zika.
So all across this Nation, this new four-letter word is not used as a
cuss word. It is a word of fear, and it is a word of trouble.
Apparently, in the Halls of your Capitol, in the Halls of the United
States Congress, it is ignored. Several months ago, we did pass a piece
of legislation that was supposed to deal with this. But understand
this: The Centers for Disease Control is about to run out of money at
the end of this month and will have to stop research on Zika, on the
virus, on vaccines, and on how it is spread.
We know that the mosquito is a piece of this, and we know it is prime
mosquito time across much of the United States. Let me show you a map--
a lot of blue on that map. That doesn't mean Democrat. That means Zika.
Where you see the bright blue, that is where the Zika mosquito--the
aedes--is found, and this is where we presently have cases.
South Florida, the only time in American history that there has been
a travel alert for health reasons within the Continental United States
is now found in south Florida. Why? Because now we have mosquitos that
are spreading the virus.
In other parts of the Nation, we know that this mosquito is present,
and we know it is going to happen, if not this year then next year.
This is not something that is going to go away in the next few months
as winter approaches. It will come back next year, and it will come
back with a greater vengeance, just as the West Nile virus that spread
across the United States is now found in most every State. But that is
not an illness that leads to the tragedy of children being born with
severe injuries that will affect them the rest of their lives, which
may be a very short life.
This is a problem. This is a problem that your United States Congress
is ignoring. There is a bill bouncing around, and it is loaded with a
bunch of riders that are: What are you talking about? Riders that
prevent women's health clinics from providing assistance to women. It
is the women, after all, that bear the great burden of this. They are
the ones that are going to be pregnant. They are the ones that will be
carrying the children. But those women's health clinics cannot allow
access to the money. What in the world is that all about? What
foolishness. What meanness.
By the way, none of the money can be used for contraception. Give me
a break. What do you mean? That is the legislation that is being
proposed here in the United States Congress. Even the Pope has
suggested that because of this crisis in Brazil that the steadfast
opposition of the Vatican to contraception may need to be pushed aside.
But not here in the House of Representatives. Come on. Let's get real.
Let's understand the nature of this crisis.
The Zika virus is not transmitted only by mosquitos. We are
discovering that the transmission can come in
[[Page H5433]]
many, many different ways--many different ways. So what are we doing
about it? Nothing. We are spending time talking about impeaching the
IRS Commissioner. Come on. In the history of this Nation, only one
person other than a President has been impeached, and that was back in
the 1870s, a Secretary of War. An IRS Commissioner is not even a
Cabinet member. We are spending our time on that.
We are where, 20 days, a little less, from the end of the fiscal year
when we have to fund government? We are less than what, 17 days away
from the ability of the Centers for Disease Control to continue to
research and to address this issue? Look at the map, Americans. Every
State. And Puerto Rico is not on this map, and they are Americans.
There are over 15,000 cases there and more than 1,000 women who are
pregnant and many, many more who will become pregnant. So what is your
United States Congress doing? Dithering would be an insufficient word
to address this crisis.
This is a public health crisis. This is a crisis that the solution
presented to us a few months ago was to take money out of the Ebola
program. Did we forget about Ebola? Did it go away? No, it did not.
That money was being spent on monitoring the travelers from those areas
of Africa where Ebola still exists. So that money is gone. So I
suppose, in the next months or year ahead, we will go back into the
Ebola problem once again.
Money was taken from the public health programs in counties
throughout the United States. The proposal that moved out of this House
of Representatives swept from the counties and the States money that
the public health departments in those areas needed to deal with public
health emergencies, one of which was Zika. And there are other public
health emergencies that are always before us. I mentioned the West Nile
virus. California has a whooping cough problem that is ongoing, and
that is a public health crisis. Children die of that.
So what is the solution? Not what we normally do when we have a
crisis, which is to go to the Federal Treasury and say: America has a
problem. Americans will solve that problem or address that problem and
try to deal with the effect of it by appropriating money so that we can
address it.
When the terrible floods occurred recently in Louisiana, did we raid
other agencies to deal with it? No. We go to FEMA, and we go to the
emergency funding, as we did with Katrina, as we did with Sandy, and as
we do with the fires, hurricanes, and tornadoes. But not with Zika.
Somehow Zika is different.
If you are a grandmother or a grandfather and your granddaughter is
about to get married, what is on your mind? The wedding to be sure. But
you are also thinking about that pregnancy that might be following, and
you are thinking: will my daughter or my granddaughter acquire the Zika
virus? What will it mean?
Apparently, that thought is not found in my fellow colleagues here on
the floor of the House of Representatives, even though they have
children, even though they have daughters and granddaughters, even
though within their families there will be pregnancies. We have got to
think about this. Maybe there are 16,000 affected in the United States
today. But this virus is not going away. This virus is going to be with
us years ahead, and the effects of it are going to be felt in the next
generations. It is already here in the United States.
{time} 2130
We have had babies born with serious defects as a result of Zika. It
is already with us. And there will be more. There will be many, many
more.
This public health crisis must be met by the full power of the
Federal Government, just as we meet other crises. It is our
responsibility. 535 of us and the President.
The President has asked for $1.9 billion to deal with this health
crisis. The response by my colleagues on the Republican side of the
House of Representatives, a little over $6 million, most of which is
stolen from other public health programs. Disgraceful. Dereliction of
responsibility.
The Senate is talking about a $1.1 billion program. Good. Without
riders, without the kind of foolish riders that are being presented
here. Good. Let's get on with it. We will take the Senate bill. Give us
a clean Senate bill so that there is money available for the Centers
for Disease Control to continue its research, so that there is money
available for the public health programs in south Florida, in Texas, in
Puerto Rico, California, and in other States to carry on the fight
against the mosquitoes and to deal with the other methods of
transmission, to warn the public, to prepare the public. We can do it.
Anybody that knows how much money the Federal Government spends every
year knows that $1 billion to address a fundamental public health
crisis is available. It is readily available. We ought to get on with
it. And shame on us if we don't.
I yield back the balance of my time.
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