[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 84 (Thursday, May 26, 2016)]
[House]
[Pages H3270-H3280]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
RELATING TO CONSIDERATION OF THE SENATE AMENDMENT TO H.R. 2577,
TRANSPORTATION, HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES
APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2016
Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call
up House Resolution 751 and ask for its immediate consideration.
The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:
H. Res. 751
Resolved, That upon adoption of this resolution--
(a) the House hereby takes from the Speaker's table the
bill (H.R. 2577) making appropriations for the Departments of
Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development, and
related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30,
2016, and for other purposes, with the Senate amendment
thereto, and concurs in the Senate amendment with an
amendment consisting of the text of Rules Committee Print
114-56; and
(b) it shall be in order for the chair of the Committee on
Appropriations or his designee to move that the House insist
on its amendment to the Senate amendment to H.R. 2577 and
request a conference with the Senate thereon.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Kelly of Mississippi). The gentleman
from Oklahoma is recognized for 1 hour.
Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the
customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr.
McGovern),
[[Page H3271]]
pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During
consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose
of debate only.
General Leave
Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may
have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Oklahoma?
There was no objection.
Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Rules Committee met and reported
a rule to expedite consideration of legislation that would deal with
the imminent threat of the Zika virus. The rule provides that the House
concur in the Senate amendment with a further amendment consisting of
the text of H.R. 4974, H.R. 5243, and H.R. 897, as passed by the House,
and provides a motion from the chair of the Committee on Appropriations
to request a conference with the Senate.
Mr. Speaker, as I said last week, the debate between Republicans and
Democrats is not over whether or not to address the Zika threat, but
whether to pay for it or just to add it to the national credit card.
This rule would provide for a conference between the House and the
Senate on the Zika response legislation, as passed by the House. As
opposed to the Senate approach, which adds an additional $1.2 billion
to the national debt, the House approach acts responsibly by using
existing funds designated for Ebola and other infectious diseases to
pay for our response to the looming Zika threat.
{time} 0915
Mr. Speaker, many of my friends on the other side have claimed that
the House Republicans' response to the Zika threat has been wholly
insufficient. Frankly, I disagree with that view. In our view, our
response is, really, the second of three tranches of funds directed at
Zika.
First, Chairman Rogers, Chairman Granger, and I directed the
administration to use existing funds for Ebola and other infectious
diseases to deal with the immediate threat. Thus far, the
administration has used nearly $600 million to support efforts to
combat Zika.
The second tranche of money that is included in this legislation
would provide an additional $622 million for Zika.
Finally, I want to assure my colleagues that we will commit
additional resources in the FY 2017 appropriations process to ensure
that the administration request is fully fulfilled, providing nearly
$1.9 billion, which is the amount requested by the administration to
combat Zika.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I think it is important to reiterate that
I do not disagree with my friends about the need to confront the Zika
virus quickly. In fact, I have been to Brazil. I have been to
Argentina.
I have visited the infected areas and have spent a lot of hours in
talking to our people on the ground there who are both investigating
the disease and working with local governments to try and take care of
some of the outbreak down there.
We have visited extensively with our friends up here at the National
Institutes of Health and at the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention. The only difference I have with my friends is whether or
not we pay for the activity.
I believe, Mr. Speaker, that, if we already have the resources to
confront the crisis, which we do, we should do so within our existing
capabilities as opposed to adding to the deficit.
I look forward to working with my colleagues in conference, through
regular order, to ensure a bipartisan agreement can be reached. I urge
my colleagues to support the rule and the underlying legislation.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume,
and I thank the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Cole), my good friend, for
yielding me the customary 30 minutes.
(Mr. McGOVERN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, let me start by saying how disappointed I
am by the inadequate and long overdue response by this Republican
majority to the Zika crisis.
With nearly 1,400 Americans, including more than 275 pregnant women
who are currently infected with the virus and well over a million cases
expected before the end of the year, it is absolutely shameful that
this House has failed to act on legislation to adequately fund a
response to this potentially devastating crisis.
Mr. Speaker, Zika is not coming to the United States. It is here. As
summer arrives, along with mosquito season, the mosquito that carries
the Zika virus will be active and knocking on the doors of our southern
States and territories.
This is an emergency, and it should be treated as such. But my
friends on the other side of the aisle have spent months in delaying
action and in making excuse after excuse after excuse about why we
don't need to provide the full funding that our Nation's public health
experts say we need.
I appreciate the fact that my friends on the other side of the aisle
consider themselves public health experts, but there are people who are
trained to be public health experts who tell us that what we are doing
here today is underfunding an adequate response to this crisis.
I suppose I shouldn't be surprised by this, as my friends in the
majority have made it a habit of ignoring the advice of scientists and
of experts in favor of appeasing a small group in their Conference on
the extreme right.
In February, President Obama requested $1.9 billion to address the
public health threat that is posed by the Zika virus. Instead of taking
the swift action that was needed to confront this crisis, the House
delayed and delayed and delayed as the Zika crisis continued to spread.
We should have sent a bill to President Obama's desk months ago, but,
instead, this leadership allowed months to go by without there being
any action on this issue until last week, when they brought to the
floor a completely inadequate $622 million package that provides only
one-third of the funds that have been requested by the administration.
House Democrats, under the leadership of Leader Pelosi and
Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Lowey, have tried to bring to
the floor meaningful emergency funding to address Zika, only to be
blocked by House Republicans five times.
While the administration has taken significant steps to help keep
Americans safe from the Zika virus, significant additional
appropriations are needed. In a letter to Speaker Ryan, OMB Director
Shaun Donovan and National Security Advisor Susan Rice said, without
emergency supplemental funding, mosquito control and surveillance may
need to be suspended.
State and local governments that manage mosquito control may not be
able to hire personnel for mosquito mitigation efforts, and vaccine
developments, which require multiyear funding commitments, may be
jeopardized.
To make matters worse, Mr. Speaker, House Republicans sent to the
floor last week and again this week a bill to undermine the Clean Water
Act and protections for our waterways under the guise of helping to
contain the Zika virus.
But the truth of the matter is that the legislation is nothing more
than a carve-out for pesticide special interests and it would have
absolutely no effect on spraying pesticides to combat the spread of the
Zika virus.
It is a bill my friends have brought to the floor in the past, but
they just couldn't help themselves in using this crisis as an excuse to
further undermine environmental protections.
Instead of working with Democrats to address this public health
emergency in a serious bipartisan way that puts the health and safety
of the American people first, the Republican leadership has once again
brought to the floor partisan legislation that will not adequately meet
the needs of the CDC, of the NIH, of the USAID, and of other
governmental agencies that are on the front lines in responding to this
crisis.
Let me close, Mr. Speaker, by saying that I have great respect for
the gentleman from Oklahoma. When he says that he intends to support
every effort to make sure that adequate funding is available, if I
thought this whole decision were up to him alone, I don't
[[Page H3272]]
think I would be as nervous as I am at this particular point, but his
party that is in control has shut this government down.
We have seen them lurch from one crisis to another crisis and
underfund one priority after another priority. Quite frankly, I don't
trust the people who are running this House to do the right thing, to
be able to get a majority of their majority to go along with providing
the appropriate funding.
Yes, we all want to be fiscally responsible, but let me tell you
this: if all you are worried about is the bottom line--and that is the
cost--by not adequately funding what is needed to combat this crisis,
the costs that will result if this crisis gets out of control will be
prohibitive. You ain't seen nothing yet.
So we can nickel-and-dime this all we want, but we do so at our own
peril. We ought to be concerned primarily with the safety and well-
being of the citizens of this country.
But if that is not enough to prompt my friends on the other side of
the aisle to support the President's request, I would suggest that the
cost of ignoring this problem of not adequately funding an appropriate
response will be a cost like you have never seen before.
I urge my colleagues to defeat this rule and to bring up strong
bipartisan legislation that will fully fund the administration's
request. This is a public health emergency, and we must act now.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I begin by pointing out to my good friend that, actually, we are
doing, in a sense, what he is urging us to do right now. We are moving
expeditiously to go to conference with our friends in the Senate, who
have passed one version of the Zika response.
We will have our version. We will sit down and work out a compromise,
and I suspect we will be able to move pretty smartly through this. What
we are doing here today is exactly what I know my friend wants us to
do, and that is to move and respond.
I also point out--and it gets lost in the rhetoric sometimes around
this issue--that there is not one thing the Federal Government has
proposed to do about Zika that it has been unable to do because of a
lack of money. The Federal Government has had every cent that it has
asked for.
Frankly, it was Hal Rogers, the chairman of the Appropriations
Committee, who solicited Ms. Granger, the chairman of the Subcommittee
on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Agencies, and I, as the chair
of the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and
Related Agencies, to write the administration and tell them to start
spending money immediately from the things they had. Then that money
would be backfilled as needed during the normal appropriations process.
That is exactly what has been done. No measure has failed to be
implemented because of a lack of money. There has been no delay in
money for the Zika response, and there are substantial efforts to move
ahead in this regard.
My friend made the point that we sometimes seem to ignore the advice
of scientists. That is just simply not true. For Ebola last year, the
administration got the response it wanted out of this Congress
immediately. Frankly, it has gotten an immediate response out of Zika.
I point out to my friend--he may not be aware of this because he is
not on the Appropriations Committee--that last year the President of
the United States asked for $1 billion for additional research at the
National Institutes of Health. We gave him $2 billion.
He asked for a certain amount of money--forgive me for not
remembering the exact figure--for the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention. We gave him more money than he asked for. This year we will
do that again. He has made requests for additional money.
We will go beyond what he has requested at both the National
Institutes of Health and at the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention. So in suggesting we are not funding these efforts robustly,
the truth is, if you look at the numbers, we are actually spending more
money than the President asked for because we think these are national
priorities.
While we listen to scientists, we also listen to economists. They
tell us that running up a national debt willy-nilly is not a very good
thing to do. In this case, we have the money and we have the time to
deal with this in a thoughtful and prudent way and to advance the
efforts without running up the national debt. It is the appropriate way
to proceed.
I would just ask my friend to think back. When we hear this figure,
this is only a third of the response. Somehow my friends on the other
side have forgotten that the first third is already done. That was the
first $600 million that is being deployed as we speak. This is the next
third.
Frankly, it reaches not only the balance for the remainder of this
fiscal year, but it reaches into next year. This is more money, once we
pass this, than the administration has proposed to deploy in this
fiscal or even this calendar year.
Then, in the normal appropriations process, which is underway right
now--the bill will probably be presented sometime in the middle of June
to the Appropriations Committee--you will see additional money in both
the State and Foreign Operations bill and in the Labor-H bill that is
targeted toward Zika. The one difference is it will all have been paid
for.
I think that is what shocks my friends the most. They would much
prefer to save that money so as to spend it someplace else. We think it
is a crisis. We have the money. We ought to spend the money right now
and take care of Zika.
We are going to continue to work with our friends, and I think we
will arrive at a good place. My hope is that that measure that we enact
at the end is fully paid for. That is what we are trying to achieve
here.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I think what we are concerned about on this side of the aisle--and I
know some thoughtful Republicans are also concerned about this--is the
fact that, without certainty, a lot of the research projects and a lot
of initiatives that need to be done at the Federal and State levels
will not happen because no one knows whether the money is going to
follow for what is needed.
I think there is a lack of certainty because we are in a House of
Representatives that has shut the government down before. If people
don't get their way, people have a tantrum and they shut the government
down. That is the history of this House of Representatives.
I quote here from Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Director of the National
Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes
of Health, whom I actually have a great deal of trust in.
He says:
If we do not get the money that the President has asked
for--the $1.9 billion--that is going to have a very serious,
negative impact on our ability to get the job done.
That is Dr. Fauci. That is not I. That is a highly respected
scientist, whom I think we all have a great deal of respect for in this
House. We ought to listen to him more than to the Tea Party wing of the
Republican Party.
Mr. Speaker, I ask my friends to defeat the previous question. If we
do, I will offer an amendment to the rule that modifies the House
amendment by replacing the Zika virus provisions with the text of H.R.
5044, which is the Democratic alternative that fully funds the
administration's request.
The Republican majority's current plan is to pass creatively named
bills that have nothing to do with Zika and to offer short-term
spending commitments that will, unfortunately, fail to properly
incentivize the private sector to help develop a vaccine.
{time} 0930
Our alternative would give our scientists and our doctors the
resources they need to mount a longer-term, robust response to the
growing Zika crisis.
Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the
amendment in the Record, along with extraneous material, immediately
prior to the vote on the previous question.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Massachusetts?
[[Page H3273]]
There was no objection.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, to discuss our proposal, I yield 4 minutes
to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey), the distinguished
ranking member of the Committee on Appropriations.
Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Speaker, before I make my statement, I just want to
respond to our distinguished chair of the Subcommittee on Labor, Health
and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies.
Has the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations introduced
subcommittee allocations for either the Subcommittee on Labor, Health
and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies or the Subcommittee
on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs?
The answer is no.
Has the chairman set markup dates for either the Subcommittee on
Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies or
the Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs
bill?
The answer is no.
So there is no chance that Congress will send either appropriations
bill to the President by September 30. This really is a charade. CDC
Director Tom Frieden says 3 months is an eternity for control of an
outbreak. There is a narrow window of opportunity here, and it is
closing.
So, Mr. Speaker, I rise to urge my colleagues to defeat the previous
question so we can support a robust and aggressive response to an
imminent public health emergency.
Researchers at Harvard and CDC reported that pregnant women who
contract the Zika virus in their first trimester face as high as a 13
percent chance that their baby will have microcephaly. Nearly 300
pregnant women in the United States and its territories are terrified
that their child will have a devastating birth defect, and that number
increases every day. Every day we learn more about the devastating
virus, and each piece of news is more alarming than the last.
That is why President Obama acted responsibly and requested $1.9
billion to research and develop vaccines and diagnostic tests, invest
in mosquito vector control, and implement an aggressive public
education and outreach campaign.
Yet, the House Republican Zika bill would provide a mere $622
million, which is less than one-third of the $1.9 billion that public
health experts tell us is necessary to protect American communities. To
make matters worse, the bill robs Peter to pay Paul, stealing funding
still needed to protect against Ebola and increase public preparedness
at home.
The spread of the Zika virus is taking a severe toll on Brazil and
other South and Central American countries. It has spread to Puerto
Rico, and the outbreak is knocking at our door.
Why are my friends in the majority acting more like bureaucrats and
accountants than responsive representatives of hardworking Americans?
Protecting American communities is the foremost responsibility of the
Federal Government. Yet, the majority has failed to lead the way to a
response worthy of this emergency.
If the previous question is defeated, Mr. McGovern will amend the
rule to offer my bill, H.R. 5044, as a substitute, providing the full
$1.9 billion the administration requested, without offsets, to ensure
an adequate response to Zika that doesn't rob our Ebola response.
I urge me colleagues to vote ``no'' on the previous question.
Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from
Pennsylvania (Mr. Dent), the chairman of the Appropriations
Subcommittee on Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related
Agencies.
Mr. DENT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. He is
obviously a very thoughtful member of the Committee on Rules and a fine
member of our Committee on Appropriations.
I believe we have something really important to discuss today, and
that is that today really does mark a return to regular order for our
appropriations bills and process. That statement is so significant that
we need to pause and recognize it as a tremendous achievement. This has
been the intense focus of Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers
for more than 5 years. And the committee's esteemed ranking member,
too, Mrs. Lowey, has been equally determined to have regular order
restored. They have worked relentlessly to get us to this place, which
is, in fact, a better place. So I commend Chairman Rogers and Mrs.
Lowey and appreciate the support of the House leadership to make this
happen. This is the best way to serve our citizens, our Federal
agencies, our veterans, our military services, and the members and
their families.
It is also my honor to have the Military Construction, Veterans
Affairs, and Related Agencies appropriations bill move forward as part
of the conference committee. That is very significant to me as chairman
of that subcommittee. Of course, we are also going to deal with the
Zika threat as we must and as we should, and that will be part of these
discussions. I am sure we are going to be able to come to an agreement
with the Senate just on how we will proceed on that very important
issue, and I think everybody here is committed to moving forward both
on the MILCON piece of this as well as Zika.
H.R. 4974--and that is the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs,
and Related Agencies bill--demonstrates our firm commitment to fully
supporting our Nation's veterans and servicemembers. Our investment of
$81.6 billion for Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related
Agencies, at $1.8 billion over last year's level, is unprecedented. The
bill will address issues to help veterans in every part of the country,
every congressional district, and our troops throughout the world.
The bill provides comprehensive support for servicemembers, military
families, and veterans with $7.9 billion. It supports our troops with
facilities and services necessary to maintain readiness and morale at
bases here in the States and, again, overseas. It provides for the
Department of Defense schools and health clinics that take care of our
military families.
For the VA, this bill includes $73.5 billion in discretionary
funding. The bill funds our veterans healthcare systems to ensure that
our promise to care for those who sacrificed in defense of this great
Nation continues as those men and women return home. We owe this
support to our veterans and we are committed to sustained oversight so
that programs deliver what they promise and taxpayers are well served
by the investments that we make.
So I certainly support this motion to go to conference. I certainly
urge adoption of this motion so we can deal with taking care of our
servicemembers, our veterans, and their families. We must do this. Of
course, we must also deal with the Zika threat that is affecting so
many of us. I commend everybody involved in that issue.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.
Mr. DENT. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to commend Chairman Cole for his
efforts on this issue. I serve with him on the Subcommittee on Labor,
Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies. I know he
has been in constant communication with our friends at the NIH and the
CDC to make sure we get the resources necessary to them so they can
help us deal with this very real threat.
Again, I am very pleased that we have returned to regular order and
that we are going to conference this bill on Military Construction,
Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies, and on Zika. It is great for
the Congress, great for the country, and we need to move forward.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I have great respect for the gentleman from Pennsylvania, and I agree
with him that there are a lot of issues that he has championed here.
He used the words ``regular order.'' We have no allocations, no
budget resolution. We know that many of the appropriations bills will
never see the light of day on the House floor. There will be this mad
rush after the election to put together some big omnibus package that
most people will never be able to read. If that is regular order, we
have a very strong difference of opinion of what regular is all about.
Mr. Speaker, I insert into the Record a letter that was sent to the
House leadership signed by close to 70 health organizations--every
major health organization in the country--calling for
[[Page H3274]]
new funding rather than repurposing money from other high-priority
programs to combat Zika, also supporting the President's request. It
talks about how we have a brief window of opportunity to slow the
spread of the Zika virus and avert a wave of preventable birth defects
and urging Congress to act certainly in a much more aggressive way than
what we are doing here today.
April 5, 2016.
Hon. Paul Ryan,
Speaker, House of Representatives, Washington, DC.
Hon. Fred Upton,
Chairman, Committee on Energy and Commerce, Washington, DC.
Hon. Hal Rogers,
Chairman, Committee on Appropriations, Washington, DC.
Hon. Nancy Pelosi,
Minority Leader, House of Representatives, Washington, DC.
Hon. Frank Pallone,
Ranking Member, Committee on Energy and Commerce, Washington,
DC.
Hon. Nita Lowey,
Ranking Member, Committee on Appropriations, Washington, DC.
Dear Speaker Ryan and Minority Leader Pelosi, Chairman
Upton and Representative Upton, and Chairman Rogers and
Representative Lowey: The undersigned organizations committed
to the health and wellbeing of our nation's families and
communities urge you in the strongest terms to immediately
provide emergency supplemental funding to prepare for and
respond to the Zika virus here in the United States. We also
urge that Congress provide new funding rather than repurpose
money from other high priority programs at the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other federal
agencies that ensure our health security and public health
preparedness.
As you know, the Zika virus has been linked to
microcephaly, a serious birth defect of the brain, in babies
of mothers who contracted the virus while pregnant. Thousands
of devastating birth defects have been observed among infants
born in South and Central America in recent months. Zika has
already been diagnosed in travelers returning to the U.S.
from these areas. As the summer months approach and we enter
mosquito season, our nation can expect to be exposed to
mosquitos that can spread this virus. Over four million
babies are born in our nation each year, and many of their
mothers could be at risk for contracting Zika during
pregnancy.
With emergency supplemental funding to respond to the Zika
virus, state and local public health professionals would have
access to increased virus readiness and response capacity
focused on areas with ongoing Zika transmission; enhanced
laboratory, epidemiology and surveillance capacity in at-risk
areas to reduce the opportunities for Zika transmission and
surge capacity through rapid response teams to limit
potential clusters of Zika virus in the United States.
Moreover, supplemental funding will assist the CDC and USAID
in efforts to contain the Zika virus in Zika-endemic
countries and ensure that there are resources for
surveillance, vector control and services for affected
pregnant women and children.
If we take immediate action, we may be able to dramatically
slow the spread of Zika, giving scientists time to develop
and test a vaccine. Without action, however, we fear the
number of newborns born with debilitating birth defects will
only continue to rise. In addition to the human toll on
children and families, the CDC estimates that the average
lifetime cost of caring for each child born with microcephaly
will likely be millions of dollars per child. For hard-hit
communities, an epidemic of severe birth defects could
quickly overwhelm health care and social services systems,
and put extreme pressure on educational and other
institutions.
The President has requested emergency funding to educate
Americans about protecting themselves, reduce the mosquito
population, and accelerate Zika vaccine research. Each of
these steps is vital to reducing the likelihood that pregnant
women will be exposed to the Zika virus.
Our nation has a brief window of opportunity to slow the
spread of the Zika virus and avert a wave of preventable
birth defects. We urge you to act immediately to provide the
emergency resources necessary to protect pregnant women,
infants and children from this devastating infection.
Sincerely,
Academic Pediatric Association, American Academy of Family
Physicians, American Academy of Pediatrics, American
Association for Clinical Chemistry, American Association for
Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus, American College of
Nurse-Midwives, American College of Preventive Medicine,
American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists,
American Medical Association, American Nurses Association,
American Pediatric Society, American Public Health
Association, American Sexual Health Association, American
Society for Clinical Pathology, American Society for
Reproductive Medicine, Association for Professionals in
Infection Control and Epidemiology, Association of Maternal &
Child Health Programs, Association of Medical School
Pediatric Department Chairs, Association of Public Health
Laboratories, Association of Reproductive Health
Professionals, Association of Schools and Programs of Public
Health, Association of State and Territorial Health
Officials, Association of Women's Health, Obstetric and
Neonatal Nurses.
Children's Environmental Health Network, Children's
Hospital Association, Commissioned Officers Association of
the U.S. Public Health Service, Inc., Cooley's Anemia
Foundation, Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists,
Easter Seals, Every Child By Two, First Candle, GBS/CIDP
Foundation International, Healthcare Ready, HIV Medicine
Association, Infectious Diseases Society of America,
Intrexon, Johnson & Johnson, March of Dimes, National
Association of County and City Health Officials, National
Birth Defects Prevention Network, National Association of
Pediatric Nurse Practitioners, National Council of La Raza,
National Environmental Health Association, National
Foundation for Infectious Diseases, National Hispanic Medical
Association, National Medical Association.
National Network of Public Health Institutes, National
Organization for Rare Disorders, National Partnership for
Women & Families, National Recreation and Park Association,
Novavax, Inc., Nurse Practitioners in Women's Health, OraSure
Technologies, Inc., Oregon Public Health Association,
Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society, Pediatric Policy
Council, Public Health Institute, Research!America, Resolve:
The National Infertility Association, Save Babies Through
Screening Foundation Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of
America, Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine, Society for
Pediatric Research, Society for Women's Health Research, The
Arc, The Newborn Foundation, Trisomy 18 Foundation, Trust for
America's Health.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from
Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz), the ranking member of the
Appropriations Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, I urge the House to take
meaningful action to address the public health crisis that the Centers
for Disease Control recently called scarier than we originally thought,
and to support the President's request for supplemental funding for the
Zika virus as outlined in H.R. 5044, the FY16 Zika supplemental
appropriations.
I thank Appropriations Ranking Member Nita Lowey and Labor, Health
and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Subcommittee
Ranking Member DeLauro for their ongoing leadership to help protect our
constituents.
More than 120 Floridians now have the Zika virus, including 36
pregnant women. Last week there were an estimated 157 pregnant women in
the continental United States and 122 more in the territories who have
contracted Zika.
The House must take real action to protect our citizens. It is an
outrage that we are not adequately responding to the calls of public
health officials at the Federal, State, and local levels who are
clanging the alarm bells, imploring Congress to act.
Last week the House approved a Zika bill that is absolutely
unacceptable. The bill the House passed would raid existing public
health accounts, a dangerous precedent to set for appropriately
responding to public health crises. This is an approach that Dr. Fauci
of the National Institutes of Health, the so-called Zika czar, has
called illogical. Furthermore, it only authorizes use of funds through
September 30th. Let me assure you that mosquitos carrying the Zika
virus do not adhere to a congressional calendar.
The Republican bill does nothing to specifically help Puerto Rico
where Zika is wreaking the most havoc and where close to 1,000 people
have been infected.
We need more funds now to equip our local health centers with testing
kits. We need to assure the National Institutes of Health that there is
sustained funding to develop a vaccine as well as a cure, and we need
to protect our constituents. That is our responsibility.
It continues to baffle and frustrate so many of us that the majority
wishes to address this crisis, this public health crisis, by combatting
Zika through robbing Peter to pay Paul. That is irresponsible. It is
immoral. And the majority will have to look in the eyes of the mothers
who have contracted the Zika virus beyond the point of which we will
have lost control of the ability to contain this virus and this public
health crisis, look those mothers in the eye and explain why they did
nothing to ensure that their babies were not born with birth defects.
It is unconscionable, and we need to act now.
[[Page H3275]]
I urge the House to support the full request for funds and vote
``no'' on the previous question.
Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, what is unconscionable is to make charges that are
simply untrue, and to suggest that there is money that has not been
deployed that would otherwise have been spent is untrue. Everything the
administration has wanted to spend, it has been able to spend.
Now, we hear a lot of talk about raiding funds. Let's talk about
raiding funds. The administration took $500 million out of emergency
response money--I believe in December or earlier this year--and
redirected that to the global climate fund. That is money that was set
aside that could have been used for Zika. Instead, it is in a global
climate fund. The administration, in its own budget, took $40 million
out of the Ebola fund and directed it into a worthy cause, malaria
suppression. So we don't have objection, but the idea that this money
isn't used is untrue.
Now, when we hear discussions about the Ebola money, that is money
that was not to be spent in the next weeks or the next months, but in
future years. We don't even know if it is enough or if it is too much.
So the idea that using some of it now in an immediate emergency is
wrong with the idea and the commitment that that would be replenished
later, as needed, is the responsible thing to do.
As for NIH funding, in the Zika bill that this House passed, there
are $230 million that fully funds the NIH's request for vaccination
research for all of next year. So, again, the idea that money is not
available and they don't know what to do if we pass this legislation is
untrue.
{time} 0945
So I would just suggest again we look at the real difference here. It
has nothing to do with Zika response. It has everything to do with
whether or not you want to pay for it when you have the money available
or you just want to add another $1.9 billion to the national credit
card.
It is thinking like that that got us into a situation where we were
running $1.4 trillion deficits when my friends were in control on the
other side. Where we still have a $450 billion, roughly, deficit for
this fiscal year--and it will go up next year--we ought to be doing
this in a prudent way.
Now, Zika response does not happen in a single day. It is something
that will last, frankly, over multiple months and years. The
administration's request for $1.9 billion is not for just today. It is
for at least a period of 2 years.
So they have the money they need right now. The bill provides the
next amount of money they need, and we will provide additional money in
the course of the appropriations process.
I want to assure everybody that nothing will not be done because the
money was not available. To date, the administration has been able to
do everything it wanted to do. This debate that we are having here
today is actually another step in that process.
This moves us toward conference. My friends probably look on the
Senate bill with more favor than they do the House bill. Fair enough.
We will go to conference with the Senate. So the process is underway.
It is moving as it should.
When the administration asked for emergency funding, they immediately
got a response from Chairman Rogers, saying: Spend whatever you need to
spend right now. We will back you up. We have made good on that
commitment. We are going to continue to make good on that commitment.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from
New York (Ms. Lowey).
Mrs. LOWEY. As my colleague knows, I have great respect for the
distinguished chairman of the Labor-HHS Subcommittee, for which we
don't even have a number right now, so we don't know how much we have
to spend.
But I also would like to respond to your comments about we have
enough now, we may have enough next year. We don't in the United States
of America respond to crises on the installment plan. As you well know,
Dr. Frieden and Dr. Fauci have said: This is the request. We need the
money.
This isn't extra money that we are requesting. This is what the
experts have requested to address this crisis now.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, let me just again make clear so that
everybody understands this that this House Republican Zika bill
provides less than one-third of the funds requested by the President to
respond to the Zika threat. The House bill also cuts the request for
research and development of vaccines, treatments, and diagnostics by
$132 million, or 28.4 percent.
The House bill does not replace the more than $40 million taken from
States and cities for public health and emergency preparedness that HHS
was forced to move into the Zika response due to the inaction by
Congress. The House bill also does not replace the more than $500
million taken from Ebola funds that HHS was forced to move into Zika
response due to Congress' inaction.
Finally, to make matters worse, the House bill rescinds $622 million
to pay for the Zika package, including taking an additional $352
million from Ebola. So the total being taken from Ebola efforts under
the House Republican approach reaches nearly $900 million.
Now, I appreciate the fact that we don't want to keep on adding to
our national credit card, but we have no problem adding tens of
billions of dollars to the national credit card for war.
Well, this is also a war, a war for the health and welfare of the
American people and for the health and welfare of many women and
children in this country. This is a big deal. This is an emergency.
Shame on us for not stepping up to the plate and doing what is right.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, there has been a great deal of discussion this morning
about the Ebola fund and how it is being used and in what ways it is
going to be used. Let me just go back and make a few points to clarify
that situation.
When Congress acted, it appropriated almost $6 billion for Ebola.
That money was to be spent over years. It wasn't really clear whether
it was too much or, frankly, not enough. We simply didn't know.
Now, the reality is, even after the amounts of money that my friend
has talked about that have been shifted from Ebola to deal with Zika,
that fund still has over $1.7 billion in it, more than enough to
finance all the planned activity not only for this fiscal year, but all
of next fiscal year.
This is a multiyear fund. When you are in an emergency, it makes
sense to take money like that and move it over, particularly with the
assurance that that money will be replaced, as needed, in the regular
appropriations process.
The administration itself is doing the same thing. In its own budget,
it proposed taking money out of the Ebola fund and spending it on
something else that it thought was more immediate. So the idea that
this is somehow unprecedented or different than what the administration
is doing is simply not true.
Now, the reality is--again, my friends seem to imply or perhaps
believe that there is something that hasn't been done to date that the
Federal Government wanted to do on Zika. That is not true.
They have had the funds to do everything they have wanted to do. They
will continue to have the funds to do everything they want to do. So to
suggest that somehow they are not being funded is just not the case.
Frankly, we have effectively in the Zika bill advance funded money
for the NIH to actually begin research and have given them all the
money in that bill they asked for for next fiscal year on the vaccine
side of this.
So we will continue to work the process. We will continue to make
sure that the resources are available to fight Zika because we all
believe it is a danger. We will continue to do it in a responsible way
by using the funds that are available, putting them on an immediate
problem, and replenishing accounts as we need to.
Again, I remind my friends that that is something the administration
itself has been doing not only with Ebola funds, but with other funds,
when it has moved emergency response money to the global climate fund.
I mean, goodness, that was $500 million that,
[[Page H3276]]
had it been left there, would have been available right now for Zika
for the response in other parts of the world.
So it is easy to get lost in the thicket of numbers here and this
much from this pot and this much from that pot.
The reality is, number one, everything that the Federal Government
has wanted to do to date they have had the money to do.
Number two, it has been paid for.
Number three, we are proposing to continue that, making sure they
have all the funds that are needed, as needed, but we pay for them.
Number four, we are actually moving the process forward to sit down
with the Senate by passing this rule and the underlying legislation and
going to conference and actually hammering out a common bill that will
be acceptable to all sides.
I appreciate the concern. I know it is genuine, quite frankly, but I
also know that we are acting and acting effectively to deal with the
problem.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from
California (Ms. Pelosi), the Democratic leader.
Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding and for
his forceful arguments against this reckless rule that is before us
today.
I rise, Mr. Speaker, in strong opposition to the rule and, really, in
a state of wonderment, wonderment about how on earth this Congress of
the United States can be so insensitive to a challenge to the American
people.
It is our responsibility to honor our preamble to the Constitution,
to promote the general welfare. That is in the preamble of our
Constitution, which we take an oath to defend.
The distinguished gentleman from Oklahoma, whom I respect, said just
be patient. No. No. Ninety-four days since the President of the United
States asked for the amount of resources necessary to address the Zika
crisis, an amount of money that was requested by the scientists,
documented by the urgency of this challenge for the research and for
the prevention and for the resources needed to address this public
health emergency.
I rise not only as the House Democratic leader, I rise as a mother
and a grandmother, and I speak to parents and grandparents in this body
because that is all I am allowed to speak to.
The questions that I have for you are: How can we ignore the
President's scientifically based request expressed in the words of Dr.
Fauci, the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious
Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, a person, a healthcare
leader in our country, a researcher, a scientist who has been described
by President George Herbert Walker Bush as a hero--as a hero--in his
work for the American people and their public health?
Dr. Fauci says: If we don't get the money that the President has
asked for, the $1.9 billion, that is going to have a very serious
negative impact on our ability to get the job done.
Another scientist, Dr. Tom Frieden, Director of the Centers for
Disease Control, the public health agency to stop this threat, said:
Never before in history has there been a situation where a bite from a
mosquito can result in devastating fetal malformation.
Testimony went on to say that we are talking about children with
irreversible brain damage who will never be able to walk, talk, see, or
hear, children whose care over a lifetime is estimated to cost more
than $10 million.
The money is one thing. The devastation to that child and to that
family is far more consequential. So the $1.9 billion is a great deal
of money.
It is an emergency. It is a small price to pay to prevent
irreversible brain damage in our children. It is a small price to pay
instead of saying to families: Don't think about having children now
because of this epidemic.
The Republicans are treating the threat of Zika with so little
seriousness that they decided to use the crisis as an opportunity to
eliminate protections for the water that our children drink.
The so-called Zika Vector Control Act the Republicans are adding to
this package this morning that they are asking you to vote for is
nothing but a longstanding and craven repackaged Republican effort to
gut the Clean Water Act. It is a pesticide Trojan horse that will do
nothing to protect Americans from Zika.
This is really a dishonoring of our responsibility to protect and
defend our fellow Americans. As our distinguished member of the
Committee on Rules mentioned, this is a defense issue. It is about
protecting the American people.
This proposal today puts forth one-third of what the President has
asked for--one-third. People say: Aren't you happy with one-third of a
loaf? It is not one-third of a loaf. It is one-third of a shoe. You
cannot get there from here with one-third.
It is really an insult to the scientists who have spoken out.
Actually, it is one-third of the President's request, but it is one-
fifth of what the CDC has requested for the public health activities.
We must elevate the importance of the public health responsibility
that we have. If we had a natural disaster, FEMA has funds to come to
the rescue of the American people. That is our compact with the
American people, to help them in ways that they could never help
themselves because of the scope of the challenge.
This is no less a challenge. In fact, it would probably result in
more loss of life, malformation of unborn children. On top of that,
think of the negative impact it will have, distrust to travel to
certain regions in our country.
This is so reckless. Just when I thought I had seen it all on the
part of the Republicans in the Congress to disregard meeting the needs
of the American people, along comes this incomprehensible explanation
to anybody why this might be a proposal worthy of the floor of the
House, worthy of the public health challenge to the American people,
worthy of our concerns about the American people.
{time} 1000
My Republican colleagues, you have outdone yourselves today. What you
are doing is reckless. In this bill, we should be meeting this
challenge the way we meet emergencies: with adequate resources, which
will end up saving money because they will be an investment in the
health of the American people. It has been over 90 days since the
President has made the request.
I will just say this one other thing. It is not our role to instill
fear, but we have to face the challenge in a very clear-eyed way. The
virus from this mosquito is sexually transmitted. We have no idea--it
could be as long as 18 months--how long it would reside in a gentleman
who might be bitten by the mosquito. It could be over a year, it could
be shorter, but it is not one night.
Secondly, if you get bitten by this mosquito when you travel
someplace where it might be pervasive, you not only get bitten
yourself, you bring it home. Again, it is sexually transmitted.
It is transmitted in even more pervasive ways. Any other garden
variety mosquito that would bite you, who have already been bitten by
the other mosquito, now is a carrier of that virus. We turn garden
variety mosquitoes into an army on the assault of the public health of
the American people.
So, again, as a mother and a grandmother, as a parent, and for the
fathers and grandfathers who serve here, think of the children, think
of the risk, think of the responsibility that we have. Think of the
irresponsibility of this bill before us today and the reckless
disregard for public health in our country that the Republicans are
putting forth in this legislation, and vote ``no.''
Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time we have
remaining?
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Oklahoma has 13 minutes
remaining. The gentleman from Massachusetts has 11 minutes remaining.
Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by saying I also have a great deal of
respect for the distinguished minority leader. She used in her remarks
and made the point that the President had asked for a number of things.
Last year, the President asked for a billion dollars more for the
NIH. We said: You know, we didn't think you asked for enough, so we are
going to give you $2 billion.
Somehow, that seems to get lost.
Last year, the President sent down his request for the Centers for
Disease
[[Page H3277]]
Control. We said: You know, we don't think you are spending enough on
public health, Mr. President. We are going to spend more money than you
asked for.
This year, when the President submitted his budget, he decided: I am
going to take a billion dollars of discretionary spending away from the
National Institutes of Health and spend it someplace else.
We said: No, Mr. President; we think that is pretty reckless.
By the way, my Democratic friends agreed with that, too.
We said: We are not going to let you take a billion dollars of
discretionary money away from the NIH and spend it someplace else. We
are going to keep it right there. And, by the way, we are going to put
more money than you asked for in this agency when the bill comes out,
and we are probably going to do the same thing for the Centers for
Disease Control.
So, to suggest that the President hasn't gotten what he has asked for
is to, frankly, misstate the facts.
We have had a great deal of mention that the President has had the
request for 94 days. What we have not had is one shred of evidence
that, in those 94 days, he has not had the money to do every single
thing he wanted to do. Indeed, the chairman of the committee urged him
to start spending money immediately to do that. So there has been no
loss of effort, and the bill in front of us now funds it for the rest
of the fiscal year. It also funds the research on the vaccine at the
NIH into next year.
So, again, I am just going to simply disagree with my friend that
money has not been available. It has been available; and, frankly, to
the appropriate agencies, more money has been available than the
President has asked for. More money will be available next year than he
asked for.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr.
Sessions), the distinguished chairman of the Rules Committee and my
good friend.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman, not only a
member of the Rules Committee, but an appropriator who is directly in
line with and understands the needs of not only the American people as
it relates to the NIH, but also the funding mechanisms.
Mr. Speaker, I stand up to really disagree with the gentlewoman from
California. To call my party and our efforts reckless and
irresponsible, I believe, is unfair.
I believe it is unfair because, last night at the Rules Committee, we
had this virtually same discussion. And the discussion started with me
when I said that I had Republicans and Democrats, only Monday, with the
Director of NIH, Dr. Francis Collins, and the Director of the Institute
of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and we talked
directly about this issue.
What we learned, Mr. Speaker, is that there was a request for
additional money and that the NIH had some $600 million that was
sitting in a fund from Ebola that had not been completely used. A
determination was made--including the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr.
Cole), Hal Rogers, and Nita Lowey, who were engaged in the decision--
that said we will allow the money to be switched over if you would like
to do that. Switch it over and use that money for this specific event
that we are now looking at. What happened is they used the money very
quickly. They accelerated spending the money--that is fine; we want
them to do what they need to do--some $600 million.
As soon as that was known, the gentlewoman Mrs. Lowey, the gentleman
Mr. Rogers, and the gentleman Mr. Cole went about looking at a request
to fill for the next 5 months what would be some $1.2 billion that
would be spent just this year remaining--we are in May--just until the
end of September.
The President asked for $1.9 billion for 5 years, and we gave $1.2
billion of that $1.9 for 5 months. We are accelerating the money that
is necessary to NIH.
The minority leader outlined how terrible this destructive behavior
can be to a child, to an embryo. We agree. But to suggest that
Republicans are reckless is not fair.
What is fair to say is that we are responding appropriately, we are
responding immediately, and we are putting it together before we are
gone next week on a district work period. We are doing it this week. We
are moving it as quickly as possibly. If we weren't, we would be
accused of the reverse, evidently.
Mr. Speaker, the Republican Party, the gentleman Mr. Cole, the
gentleman Mr. Rogers, and our Speaker care about people. We are doing
the right thing.
Now, in the Rules Committee, the gentleman Dr. Michael Burgess,
acknowledged some other frailties that he sees from the
administration's point, and that would be: Where is the alert to
cities? Where is the administrative action to say let's do something
about alerting travelers? Where is the information that is going to
public health officials? Where are we preparing ourselves to look at
what would happen in Brazil? What is the administration doing other
than just accusing us of not spending more money?
Mr. Speaker, we all live in glass houses. We need to look at this the
same way, and calling each other names is not a way to get there.
So, Mr. Cole will be responsible and reasonable; Hal Rogers, the
chairman of our Appropriations Committee, will responsible. I said to
my committee last night, as quickly as we need to get together, the
Rules Committee will come in, even if it is on an emergency basis, to
handle this, based upon a request. And that is what we are going to do.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from
Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro), the ranking member of the Appropriations
Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and
Related Agencies.
Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, I just will say, what my colleague, Mr.
Sessions, just said: that the NIH had $600 million in unused Ebola
money, that really is false. The NIH has used all of its Ebola funds
that Congress allocated. So the statement of the gentleman from Texas
is not factual.
The Zika virus is a public health emergency. It is a crisis, and we
must treat it as such. As of last week, there were almost 1,400
confirmed cases of Zika in the United States and its territories.
Nearly 300 of them are pregnant women. And one person has died.
This Congress, when we appropriate money for defense or defense
spending or for wars, Republicans say: Listen to the generals in the
field; they are the ones who know best. Well, we are in the midst of a
war against the Zika virus, and we should be listening to the generals
and the experts in the field. And who are they? They are at the Centers
for Disease Control; they are at the National Institutes of Health; and
they are the scientists in our country.
We need to give them the resources that they need, and they have told
us that they need $1.9 billion. We should do the right thing. We should
fund their request. One-third of that request, which is what the House
Republicans have proposed, is not adequate.
Typically, microcephaly occurs in 0.02 percent to 0.12 percent of all
U.S. births, but The Washington Post reported yesterday that, among
Zika-infected pregnant women, that risk is as high as 13 percent.
This summer, every woman who is pregnant or trying to get pregnant
will be afraid: afraid to go out on the patio, afraid to take your kids
to the Little League, afraid to go to a barbecue. It is our duty here
to do everything that we can to ease those fears, to stop this disease
from spreading any further.
We must not put American women in a predicament of choosing whether
or not they should get pregnant or, if they are already pregnant,
wondering whether or not their baby is going to be okay.
Ron Klain, the Ebola czar, wrote in The Washington Post: ``It is not
a question of whether babies will be born in the United States with
Zika-related microcephaly--it is a question of when and how many. For
years to come, these children will be a visible, human reminder of the
cost of absurd wrangling in Washington, of preventable suffering, of a
failure of our political system to respond to the threat that
infectious diseases pose.''
According to the CDC, pregnant women are already facing unacceptably
long delays in learning Zika results. CDC Director Tom Frieden has said
that experts estimate a single child with birth defects can usually
cost $10 million to care for--or more. That says
[[Page H3278]]
nothing about the life of that child with microcephaly. They cannot
eat; they cannot speak; they cannot walk.
I do not often quote Senator Marco Rubio, but last week, he said:
It is a mistake for Congress to try to deal with the Zika
virus on the cheap. If we don't spend money on the front end,
I think we are going to spend a lot more later, because this
problem is not going away.
We could not agree more. We have stolen $44 million from our States
to deal with this crisis, and the Republican bill does not reimburse
our States for the money that they need for dealing with emergencies
such as this.
We should defeat the previous question, and we should consider the
Lowey-DeLauro-Wasserman Schultz amendment and fully fund the
President's request of $1.9 billion. It is the responsible and moral
thing to do.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Lucas). The time of the gentlewoman has
expired.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentlewoman an additional 30
seconds.
Ms. DeLAURO. Months from now, when the results of our inaction become
apparent, we will ask ourselves: Why did we delay? Why did we wait?
We must take appropriate action now. We must reject the previous
question. We must do what is the morally right thing for the people of
this country who put their faith and trust in us to come and represent
their best interests and the public health.
Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time remains?
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Oklahoma has 7 minutes
remaining. The gentleman from Massachusetts has 6\1/2\ minutes
remaining.
Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from
Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the Democratic whip.
{time} 1015
Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
I want to thank Ms. DeLauro, the ranking member of the Subcommittee
on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies.
Mr. Speaker, this is the story in The Washington Post. It is front
page. It is about the crisis that we confront, about the danger to
Americans' health, about the dangers that young children will be born
with microcephaly.
Dr. Frieden, the head of our communicable disease operation and
defense force, if you will, says it will cost $10 million per baby born
with microcephaly; $10 million per child. That does not count the
heartache that will be counted.
I want to tell my friend, Mr. Cole--and he is a dear friend and a
good legislator--the action you take today belies the representation
you have made.
What do I mean by that?
If there is enough money now, as Mr. Cole argues, why take this
action?
This was not scheduled earlier this week. This was not have a rule
until 9:30 last night. So if the gentleman's proposition is correct,
that there are sufficient funds right now, we don't need to act on this
bill today.
So why, my friends, are we acting on it today?
Because the public believes we ought to act. And the Republicans are
trying to protect themselves against the attack, that they took no
action until 94 days into the President's request because, if Mr. Cole
is right, we need not worry: there is plenty of money available.
But they know the American people don't agree with that. So 9:30, in
the dead of night, they passed this rule, brought it to the floor so
that they can say: Oh, we have acted.
Nothing, my friends, will happen as a result of what we do today. The
Senate passed a bill with 69 votes, $1.1 billion, not taking from Ebola
defense, not taking from the other health needs of America, as our bill
does, but saying: this is an emergency.
Now, very frankly, my friends on your side of the aisle, Mr. Cole,
when you want $18 billion from defense, you have no problem not paying
for it. You take it from OCO, which is not scored. No problem. But when
the President asks for $1.9 billion, about a tenth of that, well, my
goodness, this is a problem. It is, after all, not the Taliban. It is
not Iran. We have to protect against that. It is a health crisis in
America, and we have fiddled for 94 days.
If, in fact, Mr. Cole's representation is correct, there is no need
to act. But if the actions that they are taking speak loudly that, yes,
there is a need to tell the American people: we get it; there is a
crisis; we are going to act, the problem is nothing will happen as a
result of this action, other than a bill will go over to the Senate,
with which the Senate does not agree. They passed a bill with 69 votes.
Half of the Republicans, all of the Democrats, said we need the $1.1
billion.
Now, the President asked for $1.9 billion, but what they didn't do is
steal from Ebola, steal from other health priorities.
And I hear the gentleman talking about how much money is out there,
but if that is true, why did we need to act in the dead of night last
night and today, just as we walk out the door?
We have not dealt with Zika. We will not have dealt with Zika.
We haven't acted on the Puerto Rican debt. We haven't acted on a
budget resolution. We haven't acted on the Flint water crisis. We
haven't acted on criminal justice reform. And we haven't acted on the
Voting Rights Act.
This is a cover vote. Vote ``no.''
Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I want to reply to my very good friend from Maryland,
whom I have not only great esteem for, but, frankly, great personal
affection for, and I want to respond to his question. This is not a
cover vote.
First of all, the main item here is actually veterans and military
construction that is over $83 billion; that, through normal order, is
moving forward. Now, to also move the Zika bill with it makes a lot of
sense.
Frankly, one of the things in this bill--and I disagree with my
friend's characterization--we want to make sure that misguided
environmental regulations don't stop us from deploying pesticides that
we may need. That is in this bill. That is pretty important to move
forward.
The funding is also important. Now, my friends seem to forget, again,
the long record here of who has been willing to support the NIH and who
has been willing to support the CDC. We gave the NIH twice what the
President asked for in additional new money last year. That is being
spent right now, by the way. We also gave the Centers for Disease
Control more money than the President asked for. This year, when the
President tried to take $1 billion of discretionary money away from the
NIH, both Republicans and Democrats on the Appropriations Committee
said: No, Mr. President, we are not going to let you raid NIH and take
money away and weaken the healthcare apparatus of the United States.
I made the point then--and I can assure my friends we will be happy
to back it up--that we will put more money into NIH this year for next
fiscal year than the President actually requests.
Now, in terms of Zika, the moment there was a crisis, the chairman of
this committee, Hal Rogers, immediately sent a letter to the President
and said: Spend all the money you need. There are whole pots of it in
different spots. We will replace the dollars as they are needed.
So taking money out of funds that were meant to be spent over years
and using them in immediate crises is not unusual. Indeed, the
administration itself has done this twice in recent months: once taking
$500 million from the Emergency Response Fund in the Department of
State and spending it on climate change, instead of an emergency
response; $40 million in their own budget out of Ebola money that they
were going to spend on malaria money.
I don't condemn them for that, by the way. They just simply were
using something and they said: This is an account that is going to take
several years. We want to deal with malaria right now. Let's take some
of that money. If we have got a problem later, we will fix it.
That is all that is going on here. At the end of the day, the amount
of resources that are necessary will be made available. The only
difference here is one side wants to pay for it and not add to the
national debt. The other side really doesn't think that is a big
consideration. That is a debate worth having. I don't mind having that
debate.
[[Page H3279]]
But we heard the word ``reckless'' earlier. It is also shameless to
exploit a crisis for political gain, and I think we are seeing some of
that here today. Some of it is sincere, but some of it is great
theatrics. It doesn't change the fact that when the President made his
request, he has had every dime he has needed for that 94 days.
When my friends say the Republican bill only provides a third of the
money, they somehow forget a third had already been provided. This is
the second third. The rest of it will come. The money is to be spent as
the administration requested, not over weeks or days, but over months
and years. That is how they have proposed to deploy it. So giving them
the money as they need it instead of writing them a blank check and not
even paying for it ahead of time seems to us to be the prudent and
responsible thing to do.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, Dr. Thomas Frieden, the Director of the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention, just recently said in response to the
way this House has handled funding for the Zika crisis:
``This is no way to fight an epidemic. Three months is an eternity
for control of an outbreak. There is a narrow window of opportunity
here and it's closing. Every day that passes makes it harder to stop
Zika.''
So whether it is Dr. Frieden, or Dr. Fauci, or any of our Nation's
leading scientists or medical experts who all say that what is going on
here today is grossly inadequate, my friends on the other side of the
aisle seem to think that they know more than our scientists and medical
experts; at least they have convinced themselves that they know more.
Well, they haven't convinced me and they haven't convinced the
majority of the American people who are watching this in disbelief.
This is an emergency. This is a crisis. Why aren't we acting more
aggressively?
I include in the Congressional Record a letter to Congress from the
Director of the Office of Management and Budget, and our National
Security Adviser, in which they talk about the importance of multi-year
funding, long-term funding because they have multiyear commitments that
they need to make to the private sector in order to prioritize Zika, in
order to develop vaccines and other prevention to protect the American
people.
The White House,
Washington, DC, April 26, 2016.
Hon. Paul D. Ryan,
Speaker, House of Representatives,
Washington, DC.
Dear Speaker Ryan: As you are aware, on February 22, the
Administration transmitted to Congress its formal request for
$1.9 billion in emergency supplemental funding to address the
public health threat posed by the Zika virus. Sixty-four days
have passed since this initial request; yet still Congress
has not acted.
Since the time the Administration transmitted its request,
the public health threat posed by the Zika virus has
increased. After careful review of existing evidence,
scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC) concluded that the Zika virus is a cause of
microcephaly and other severe fetal brain defects. The Zika
virus has spread in Puerto Rico, American Samoa, the U.S.
Virgin Islands and abroad. As of April 20, there were 891
confirmed Zika cases in the continental United States and
U.S. territories, including 81 pregnant women with confirmed
cases of Zika. Based on similar experiences with other
diseases transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito--believed
to be the primary carrier of the Zika virus--scientists at
the CDC expect there could be local transmission within the
continental U.S. in the summer months. Updated estimate range
maps show that these mosquitoes have been found in cities as
far north as San Francisco, Kansas City and New York City.
In the absence of action from Congress to address the Zika
virus, the Administration has taken concrete and aggressive
steps to help keep America safe from this growing public
health threat. The Administration is working closely with
State and local governments to prepare for outbreaks in the
continental United States and to respond to the current
outbreak in Puerto Rico and other U.S. territories. We are
expanding mosquito control surveillance and laboratory
capacity; developing improved diagnostics as well as
vaccines; supporting affected expectant mothers, and
supporting other Zika response efforts in Puerto Rico, the
U.S. territories, the continental United States, and abroad.
These efforts are crucial, but they are costly and they fall
well outside of current agency appropriations. To meet these
immediate needs, the Administration conducted a careful
examination of existing Ebola balances and identified $510
million to redirect towards Zika response activities. We have
also redirected an additional $79 million from other
activities. This reprogramming, while necessary, is not
without cost. It is particularly painful at a time when state
and local public health departments are already strained.
While this immediate infusion of resources is necessary to
enable the Administration to take critical first steps in our
response to the public health threat posed by Zika, it is
insufficient. Without significant additional appropriations
this summer, the Nation's efforts to comprehensively respond
to the disease will be severely undermined. In particular,
the Administration may need to suspend crucial activities,
such as mosquito control and surveillance in the absence of
emergency supplemental funding. State and local governments
that manage mosquito control and response operations will not
be able to hire needed responders to engage in mosquito
mitigation efforts. Additionally, the Administration's
ability to move to the next phase of vaccine development,
which requites multi-year commitments from the Government to
encourage the private sector to prioritize Zika research and
development, could be jeopardized. Without emergency
supplemental funding, the development of faster and more
accurate diagnostic tests also will be impeded. The
Administration may not be able to conduct follow up of
children born to pregnant women with Zika to better
understand the range of Zika impacts, particularly those
health effects that are not evident at birth. The
supplemental request is also needed to replenish the amounts
that we are now spending from our Ebola accounts to fund
Zika-related activities. This will ensure we have sufficient
contingency funds to address unanticipated needs related to
both Zika and Ebola. As we have seen with both Ebola and
Zika, there are still many unknowns about the science and
scale of the outbreak and how it will impact mothers, babies,
and health systems domestically and abroad.
The Administration is pleased to learn that there is
bipartisan support for providing emergency funding to address
the Zika crisis, but we remain concerned about the adequacy
and speed of this response. To properly protect the American
public, and in particular pregnant women and their newborns,
Congress must fund the Administration's request of $1.9
billion and find a path forward to address this public health
emergency immediately. The American people deserve action
now. With the summer months fast approaching, we continue to
believe that the Zika supplemental should not be considered
as part of the regular appropriations process, as it relates
to funding we must receive this year in order to most
effectively prepare for and mitigate the impact of the virus.
We urge you to pass free-standing emergency supplemental
funding legislation at the level requested by the
Administration before Congress leaves town for the Memorial
Day recess. We look forward to working with you to protect
the safety and health of all Americans.
Sincerely,
Shaun Donovan,
Director, The Office of Management and Budget.
Susan Rice,
National Security Advisor.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, what we are doing here today represents a
failure, a miserable failure. This represents a failure of this
Congress to do everything humanly possible to protect the people of
this country. It is shameful. It is unbelievable.
A rigid, right-wing ideology is trumping common sense, is trumping
doing what is right, what I think most of my colleagues on the other
side of the aisle understand.
We need to aggressively fight this crisis. And here is the deal: if
we don't get this right, all the talk about fiscal responsibility and
controlling the debt goes out the window because the cost of this
crisis getting out of control is astronomical.
Mr. Speaker, my friends on the other side of the aisle can explain
away or rationalize or justify this inadequate response all they want,
but it is reckless and irresponsible.
And for the life of me, I can't understand why on this issue, as we
are confronted with this health crisis, we all can't come together and
do what is right.
When it comes to wars halfway around the world, nobody cares about
paying for it; but when it comes to a war to confront a healthcare
epidemic, crisis, to confront an epidemic, my friends can't find the
money.
Please vote ``no'' on the previous question so we can actually have
an amendment to properly fund this. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no''
on the previous question and ``no'' on the rule.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
[[Page H3280]]
I want to respond quickly to some of my friend's points, Mr. Speaker,
and I want to go back to the essential reality that we are facing.
Number 1, last year, when the President asked for $1 billion more for
NIH, we said: That is not enough. We are going to give you two.
Last year the President submitted a request for CDC. We looked at it
and said: You know, it is not enough. You evidently don't care enough
about public health, Mr. President. We are going to spend more money.
This year he brought us a request to try and take $1 billion of
discretionary funding away from NIH. My friends on the other side were
as appalled as we were. We said: No, Mr. President, you are not going
to take $1 billion out of NIH in a dangerous time of disease. We are
not only going to keep that money there, we are going to put more
money, additional money than you asked for.
We said the same thing about the CDC, and so we will do it.
In terms of what has been done, the minute the Zika virus appeared
and the administration asked for emergency money, Hal Rogers, the
chairman of the committee, responded and said: Spend whatever it takes.
And, indeed, the administration has done that.
My friends seem to suggest that there is something that hasn't been
done, yet they never tell us what that one thing is.
The reality is the administration has had the money to do everything
it has wanted to do. This bill provides more money on top of that. Our
Senators are proposing even more, so we go to conference to figure out
the appropriate amount and whether or not and to what degree it should
be paid for. I would hope it is all paid for. It should be because we
have the funds to do that.
So to suggest that there is some sort of failure of funding is simply
not true, and my friends know it is not true. To suggest that we are
not willing to put the money here would suggest that recent history has
no relevance, because we have put more money here than the President
asked us to put, and we have committed to put even more going forward.
The only difference here, and what drives my friends into a frenzy,
is that we actually want to pay for this. They simply don't. They
think, let's just put another $1.9 billion on the national credit card.
This is a great excuse to do that.
Well, we are not prepared to do that, but we are prepared to respond
to the legitimate needs of the American people and use the resources
that we have.
So, Mr. Speaker, in closing, I agree with my colleagues on the other
side. We should address the issue. We disagree with the other body on
how to do it, and we will go on from there.
Mr. Speaker, I look forward to working with my colleagues in
conference on these important issues.
The material previously referred to by Mr. McGovern is as follows:
An amendment to H. Res. 751 Offered by Mr. McGovern
On page 2, line 4, insert ``as modified by the amendment
specified in section 2 of this resolution'' before the
semicolon.
At the end of the resolution, add the following new
section:
Sec.2. The amendment referred to in section 1(a) is as
follows: Strike divisions B and C and insert the text of H.R.
5044 as introduced.
The Vote on the Previous Question: What It Really Means
This vote, the vote on whether to order the previous
question on a special rule, is not merely a procedural vote.
A vote against ordering the previous question is a vote
against the Republican majority agenda and a vote to allow
the Democratic minority to offer an alternative plan. It is a
vote about what the House should be debating.
Mr. Clarence Cannon's Precedents of the House of
Representatives (VI, 308-311), describes the vote on the
previous question on the rule as ``a motion to direct or
control the consideration of the subject before the House
being made by the Member in charge.'' To defeat the previous
question is to give the opposition a chance to decide the
subject before the House. Cannon cites the Speaker's ruling
of January 13, 1920, to the effect that ``the refusal of the
House to sustain the demand for the previous question passes
the control of the resolution to the opposition'' in order to
offer an amendment. On March 15, 1909, a member of the
majority party offered a rule resolution. The House defeated
the previous question and a member of the opposition rose to
a parliamentary inquiry, asking who was entitled to
recognition. Speaker Joseph G. Cannon (R-Illinois) said:
``The previous question having been refused, the gentleman
from New York, Mr. Fitzgerald, who had asked the gentleman to
yield to him for an amendment, is entitled to the first
recognition.''
The Republican majority may say ``the vote on the previous
question is simply a vote on whether to proceed to an
immediate vote on adopting the resolution . . . [and] has no
substantive legislative or policy implications whatsoever.''
But that is not what they have always said. Listen to the
Republican Leadership Manual on the Legislative Process in
the United States House of Representatives, (6th edition,
page 135). Here's how the Republicans describe the previous
question vote in their own manual: ``Although it is generally
not possible to amend the rule because the majority Member
controlling the time will not yield for the purpose of
offering an amendment, the same result may be achieved by
voting down the previous question on the rule . . . When the
motion for the previous question is defeated, control of the
time passes to the Member who led the opposition to ordering
the previous question. That Member, because he then controls
the time, may offer an amendment to the rule, or yield for
the purpose of amendment.''
In Deschler's Procedure in the U.S. House of
Representatives, the subchapter titled ``Amending Special
Rules'' states: ``a refusal to order the previous question on
such a rule [a special rule reported from the Committee on
Rules] opens the resolution to amendment and further
debate.'' (Chapter 21, section 21.2) Section 21.3 continues:
``Upon rejection of the motion for the previous question on a
resolution reported from the Committee on Rules, control
shifts to the Member leading the opposition to the previous
question, who may offer a proper amendment or motion and who
controls the time for debate thereon.''
Clearly, the vote on the previous question on a rule does
have substantive policy implications. It is one of the only
available tools for those who oppose the Republican
majority's agenda and allows those with alternative views the
opportunity to offer an alternative plan.
Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I
move the previous question on the resolution.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on ordering the previous
question.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that
the ayes appeared to have it.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further
proceedings on this question will be postponed.
____________________