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Emergency Funding for Zika Virus in Senate’s Hands, Amid Discord
Senate Votes to Advance Emergency Funding to Fight Zika Virus
(about 3 hours later)
WASHINGTON — The Senate is expected to begin casting votes on Tuesday on aid to combat the Zika virus, one day after House Republicans rejected a demand by the White House for new emergency funding.
WASHINGTON — The Senate voted on Tuesday to advance $1.1 billion in emergency financing to combat the mosquito-borne Zika virus — less than the $1.9 billion requested by the White House and setting up a confrontation with House Republicans who have put forward a plan with just $622 million reallocated from other programs.
House Republicans instead put forward legislation on Monday that would require the Obama administration to reallocate $622 million from existing health programs to fight the mosquito-borne disease, which causes severe birth defects.
The action in the Senate was a sign that even in a contentious election year, compromise is still possible, at least in that chamber. Senate Republican leaders called three votes on different plans for financing the fight against the virus. A proposal to grant the full White House request failed, as did a proposal that would have appropriated the money, but with offsetting spending cuts.
A number of Senate Republicans, particularly from southern states that face the most immediate threat from Zika virus, spoke out forcefully in favor of government action, putting added pressure on House Republicans who have accused the Obama administration of using the Zika threat to demand a “slush fund” from Congress.
But Senator Johnny Isakson, Republican of Georgia, said he recently spent four hours at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention looking at models of how the virus could spread.
“If anybody in the audience or in this room doesn’t think this an emergency, you should have been with Senator Collins and I two weeks ago,” Mr. Isakson said, referring to Susan Collins, Republican of Maine. “There have already been one million cases in the Caribbean and Central America and South America, 500 cases in the United States of America and it’s going to grow.”
“The faster we get our arms around it, the better off the American people are going to be,” Mr. Isakson continued. “This is a lot of money but it is only a pittance compared to what it would cost if the epidemic got out of control and we didn’t stop it and we didn’t defeat it.”
On Monday, however, House Republicans put forward legislation that would require the Obama administration to reallocate $622 million from existing health programs to fight the mosquito-borne disease, which causes severe birth defects.
In announcing their proposal, House Republicans said in a statement that they were supporting “critical activities that must begin immediately, such as vaccine development and mosquito control.”
In announcing their proposal, House Republicans said in a statement that they were supporting “critical activities that must begin immediately, such as vaccine development and mosquito control.”
But the White House swiftly condemned their refusal to consider the Zika virus a health emergency that warrants new spending without corresponding cuts. The administration is seeking $1.9 billion from Congress to fight the virus.
But the White House condemned their refusal to consider the Zika virus a health emergency that warrants new spending without corresponding cuts.
Senate Republicans have scheduled votes beginning on Tuesday on three proposals, including a compromise measure that would provide $1.1 billion on an emergency basis without requiring cuts to cover the cost. The other two Senate proposals — one granting the administration’s full $1.9 billion request, and another requiring offsets — are expected to fail.
While the political arguments have focused on the broad numbers, federal health officials have been parsing the fine print of the legislation to get a sense of the implications of each proposal.
In the House, the Republican legislation highlighted a core philosophical dispute that has frequently paralyzed Washington in recent years: a refusal by some hard-line rank-and-file Republicans to support any new federal spending, even as President Obama and his fellow Democrats insist that the government’s involvement must grow to meet expanding needs.
Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which is in charge of overseeing efforts to develop a vaccine, and other Zika research, said that his policy decisions would hinge on the amount of money approved, with efforts to develop vaccines against the virus taking precedence.
The same dispute resulted in a government shutdown in 2013, and last year it led to the resignation of the House speaker, Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, whose willingness to cut deals with the White House spurred a revolt by conservative hard-liners. Mr. Boehner’s successor, Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, has hit the same roadblock, as the deficit hawks have refused to provide the votes needed to pass a budget resolution.
“You’ve got to look at the relative distribution of the cuts,” Dr. Fauci said. “I asked for $270 million of the $1.9 billion. If they give me the lion’s share of that, I can keep my vaccine efforts on track and cut down the size of the natural history study.”
For Mr. Ryan, who built his reputation as the architect of ambitious Republican budget plans, the failure to cobble together the votes to adopt a budget resolution is a stinging embarrassment, particularly in a presidential election year in which he has promised to articulate an agenda that would help the Republicans win the White House.
He was referring to a study that would track groups of pregnant women infected with the Zika virus and their babies over a long period to determine how the virus has affected them over time, and also gauge the effectiveness of different treatments.
Traditionally, a budget plan is the majority party’s clearest statement of its policy priorities, but the hard-liners in the House have refused to abide by an agreement reached last fall between Mr. Boehner and the White House that called for modest increases in government spending in 2017.
The measure advanced by the Senate on Tuesday allocates $200 million to the National Institutes of Health, which Dr. Fauci described as “not catastrophic.”
The refusal by the House hard-liners to approve new spending has also contributed to a deadlock over money to combat a nationwide opioid epidemic. Both the House and the Senate approved legislation in recent days to help states fight opioid addiction, but Democrats and even some Republicans say the proposals are pointless without money to put them in place.
“Even in my worst-case scenario, I will be able to do most of my vaccine stuff,” he said, adding: “I have to do those vaccine studies. That’s my highest priority.”
The House Republicans’ stance on the Zika virus is exacerbating the internal rancor that has afflicted the Republican Party in Congress.
In the House, the Republican legislation highlighted a core philosophical dispute that has frequently paralyzed Washington in recent years: a refusal by some hard-line conservative Republicans to support any new federal spending, even as President Obama and his fellow Democrats insist that the government’s involvement must grow to meet expanding needs.
Senator Roy Blunt, Republican of Missouri, reached the $1.1 billion compromise proposal in negotiations with Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington. By contrast, House Republicans bought forward a partisan initiative that drew immediate condemnation from Democrats.
”Our friends on the other side of the aisle need to wake up and realize the world is changing,” Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, shouted at a news conference on Tuesday at the Capitol. “We have new crises. It takes some money to fix them, whether it’s Zika, the crisis in Flint or opioids, we have to invest some dollars in the fights if we’re going to solve the problems. They’re — they’re in the past. They’re just saying cut — cut everything. Don’t spend, even when there’s a national emergency.”
The House initiative, announced by Representative Harold Rogers, Republican of Kentucky and chairman of the Appropriations Committee, would require the administration to redirect $622.1 million from other federal health programs, much of it money that had been approved to fight the Ebola virus.
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The White House has already redirected more than $500 million that had been set aside to counter Ebola, and Mr. Ryan’s office said that, as a result, the Republican legislation would provide a total of $1.2 billion for Zika.
The White House press secretary, Josh Earnest, disputed that math and essentially scoffed at the proposal, saying it constituted only about one-third of what was needed.
Mr. Earnest said that public health officials had been reduced to “the bureaucratic equivalent of digging through the sofa cushions to try and come up with the necessary money.”
In babies born to infected mothers, the Zika virus can cause unusually small heads and brain damage, a condition called microcephaly, as well as other neurological abnormalities.
The virus has been spreading in Latin America and Puerto Rico, and already hundreds of American travelers have been infected. Officials fear a wider outbreak because of the large number of spectators expected to attend the Olympic Games in Brazil this summer and have issued warnings, especially to pregnant women. Medical experts also expect infected mosquitoes to soon spread throughout the Southern United States.
The administration first began demanding emergency money for Zika in February. Republicans complained on Monday that the White House had never provided a sufficient explanation of how it would use the $1.9 billion it was seeking, a claim that Mr. Earnest disputed.
Republicans said that they had their own estimates of how much money was urgently needed, and that additional funds could be provided through the regular annual appropriations process.
“Given the severity of the Zika crisis and the global health threat, we cannot afford to wait on the administration any longer,” Mr. Rogers said in a statement.
In the Senate, the Zika funding would potentially not be available until agreement is reached by the House, Senate and White House on broader fiscal policy (the start of the new fiscal year, on Oct. 1), which the White House says could well be too late.
