DeLauro Implores Republicans to Act Now to Fight the Zika Virus
WASHINGTON, DC (April 13, 2016) — Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (CT-03) today joined Congresswoman Nita Lowey (NY-17) and Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL-23) to offer an amendment to the FY2017 Military Construction-VA Appropriations bill. The amendment would provide the Administration’s $1.9 billion emergency supplemental funding request to respond the Zika virus. DeLauro noted the critical need to address the virus before it develops into an epidemic in the United States.
Click here to watch the remarks.
Here are the remarks, as delivered:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I quite honestly don’t know what data that the Committee or others have not received from the Administration. A document that I have—which is in the public domain—just to give you for instance here, this is with regard to the Centers for Disease Control. One of the pieces is domestic response for $453 million. This funding is requested to prevent, detect, respond to the Zika virus, other infectious diseases, and to strengthen state and local response.
Let me move further down in the explanation. Provide grants to southern states and other at risk states with the known Aedes aegypti populations, to support the following activities: Improve vector control in these areas that have experienced periodic Dengue transmission and are at risk for Zika transmission, including Florida, and Texas.
Now I can go on with a further explanation of that piece of it, but then let me talk about CDC and Puerto Rico activities. We now have almost 300 and some odd cases in Puerto Rico, which is from the mosquitos in Puerto Rico. This is not a travel issue there. And they’re very detailed about vector control, deployed targeted population, education strategy, improve the lab capacity, expand surveillance. Let me move on beside that.
CDC international response: $150 million to expand the field epidemiology training program, provide international capacity.
NIH: Advance research and development, $130 million for research rapid advance. I quite frankly don’t know what information you are all looking for from the Administration. It is pretty detailed as to what this would encompass.
(Chairman: Will the gentle lady yield?)
Sure. Absolutely, Mr. Chairman. Absolutely.
(Chairman: In answer to your question about what information do we need. How much do we need this year, as opposed to 17? How much goes to NIH, How much goes to CDC? How much goes to states?)
We have that. How much goes to NIH? CDC? They’ve asked for $1.9. They’ve come up with over $500 million based on the many conversations that I’ve been in with yourself, Mr. Chairman, with Mr. McCarthy, and others to talk about how we might address this issue.
(Chairman: Will the gentlelady further yield?)
Sure.
(Chairman: How to fix the language requested by the Administration? That’s extremely broad. It provides money in excess of what’s need to target Zika. It covers practically anything that a bureaucrat wants it to cover. We need detailed information.)
This is detailed information, Mr. Chairman. I don’t know what else you’re looking for.
There are cases of Ebola in West Africa right now. Right now. That public health crisis has not gone away. And we know that. I was in these meetings here, in this body, where we spoke of quarantining people from coming to the United States because of Ebola. And one of the pieces of that effort is how we prepare our states. Money is coming from—that they’ve already shifted over—because this Congress, this Committee is holding back the states preparedness to deal with it.
Every single state in this nation—I pulled all my hospitals together, the doctors together to talk about how we were going to deal with Ebola. And we looked at this in an effort to look at how we can strengthen the public health infrastructure. We committed. We committed. Mrs. Lowey spoke about Liberia, Sierra Leone, et cetera. We committed our obligation as a donor country along with other donor countries to make sure that we help to put that public health infrastructure together in these countries. We pull out of that effort, let me tell you, all of those other countries are going to pull out of the effort and we’re going to watch one more time in this committee about how we quarantine people, how we shut down the border and not allow them to come here because of an Ebola crisis. It is penny wise and pound foolish.
The administration has been very clearly detailed on what they need this for and they have been so responsive. Mr. Chairman, you know that—in terms of Secretary Burwell, looking for the money that might be able to be reprogramed in order to start to deal with it. If you don’t want to listen to me listen to Dr. Fauchi. And I just got off the phone with Dr. Fauchi. 200 they gave him—he has no obligated funds. It is about the global health security fund. That is not something that we ought to be tampering with, especially when this crisis is at our border.
(Chairman: The gentle lady’s time has expired)
We have young men and women going to Brazil and athletes who are there. We have women who are pregnant around the United States.
(Chairman: The gentle lady’s time has expired)
I understand can I get time from one of my other colleagues?
(Chairman: The gentle lady’s time has expired. Ms. Wasserman-Schultz.)
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(Mr. Bishop: Mr. Chairman, in opposition to the substitute, I’d like to yield the balance of my time to Ms. DeLauro.)
I want to thank my colleague Mr. Bishop and I think Ms. McCollum’s comments are right on point—that this substitute really ought to be withdrawn because it would go through this regular process of an appropriation and would wind us up, god knows when this process is done. And if I follow to my dear friend there to tell you this that, my gosh, that if we were following the letter of the law here and regular order we would not be marking up this bill today because we have—there is a 302B balance allocation for this bill and not for anything else so, let’s— regular order is truly not being followed as we proceed here today.
Back to the Ebola funding money. We appropriated funds for a number of purposes at that time, to address the threat in West Africa, to strengthen healthcare systems in the United States, to develop a vaccine for Ebola, to help poor countries to detect and prevent outbreaks in the future. So that we could stop future pandemics before they reach the United States. The threats still exist; the threats have not gone away; there are recent cases. And my point is, it is so short sighted and irresponsible of us to shift the funds to another crisis. And it sounds good what is being said here, but the wrangling over this in the face of a public health emergency which is going to face - is now facing – people in this country is really incredible.
There isn’t a wall for the mosquitoes. They’re travelling. It is not only the southern states, the Gulf States, they are moving north. You’ve got Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, large concentrations of the primary carrier of the Zika virus. 783,000 births in 2014. Along the gulf coast temperatures are already beginning to move into the 80s; by May and June we are going to see these mosquitos in large numbers. Let’s move now to pass this supplemental.
You’ve got plenty of details. There are questions that can be asked that can be answered. Anybody who has sat down with the Secretary of HHS and people in this room have, and I’ve been in meetings with them, regard her as a very responsible person who is looking for a way to be able to have her agency function in the way that it should function.
This is Dr. Peter Hoteth in Houston. He says ‘that if I were a pregnant women in Houston I would be nervous’. Marco Rubio this week: ‘the Zika virus is impacting Florida. We must be prepared for what is predicted to be an even more explosive outbreak.’ We are sending blood supply to Puerto Rico. What happens when that blood supply, when we are looking at our southern states and also others who are going to be facing the same kind of a situation?
The dismissal of this as an emergency and the $1.9 billion which has been identified as to what this money is for. And in response to members of this committee the Administration came back and said $589 million is there, it’s not going to be enough, when somebody like Dr. Fauchi tells you he’s not going to have enough money to deal with the circumstances, when the CDC tells you that the money isn’t going to be enough to make it, what is it about our process that won’t let us appropriate the dollars necessary to deal with a public health emergency.
(Chairman: The time for the gentle lady is expired)
Thank you. My colleague from Georgia.
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(Chairman: Ms. DeLauro)
Thank you very much Mr. Chairman.
I find the discussion a little perplexing because we just had a very vigorous discussion here about the lack – we couldn’t vote on a supplemental, we can’t address the President’s request for a supplemental, and we can’t have a Republican version of a supplemental because we don’t have any information and in that case we can’t vote without any information. That is what we’re being asked to do right now, is to vote without any information.
I think we’re living in a—the level of surreal here is more than perplexing. We have no information. None. Information about where we’re going. We know about this bill. We don’t know anything about Ag or Energy and Water and by god, we certainly know what happens with Labor-HHS at the end of this process and we’ll find that there isn’t any money left for HHS. It is not the regular order. I think, Mr. Chairman, that you know that. We need to have a picture. We need to have a picture. The way you would like a picture of what is in the supplemental, we would very much like a picture of what is in the sub-allocations for all 12 of these subcommittees. That is what the regular order is all about.
I’m concerned. You know I’m always concerned about Labor-HHS being shortchanged as we were the last time, since we are 32% of the non-defense discretionary budget. Last year we reached an agreement, $66 billion. If the committee had allocated those funds on a proportional basis the Labor-HHS committee would have received $10.5 billion. Instead, we received $5.4. God only knows what we’re going to get this time around, and we may never know what is going to happen here because people can’t come together on a budget or a budget resolution. But that issue is, how can we stand before us today and said we’re going to vote on this process with no information. We just had a discussion about a lack of information that would allow us to respond to a national emergency where people’s lives are at stake. It really flies in the face of reality.
I urge my colleagues to vote against this, this—what is it? It’s an imaginary, ephemeral effort and we go down a path that no one knows where the end of it is. That’s not the way you appropriate, that’s not the way you govern, that’s not what we ought to be doing on behalf of the American people.
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