Zika Virus

Floor Speech

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Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, there are already nearly 900 cases of the Zika virus in the United States and its 3 territories, including actually 2 confirmed cases in my home State of Washington. A recent survey showed that 40 percent of adults in our country see this virus as a reason to delay starting families. Those are disturbing statistics. They make it clear that the Zika virus is a public health emergency, and there is no good reason for the delay we are seeing from our Republican colleagues in addressing this.

Months ago, the administration put forward the strong proposal that Senator Reid introduced today. Republicans refused at the time to even consider it, and I am disappointed again this morning that they weighed in on the side of further delay rather than acting on this. As a result, we are getting closer to the summer and to mosquito season, but we still here in this body have not moved on emergency supplemental funding that would put much needed resources into preventing and treating this frightening virus.

Too many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle still don't seem to see Zika as an emergency. Some Republicans are insisting we shouldn't give the administration a penny in additional funding to support the response we need to make. Others are saying that action on Zika can wait--wait for weeks or months. Republicans in Congress might be able to simply wait, but families across this country cannot.

Addressing this Zika virus shouldn't be controversial. With women's and children's health and well-being on the line, it certainly should not be a place for partisanship.

Democrats are at the table. We want to get this done as soon as possible. In fact, as recently as a few days ago I was hopeful Republicans were truly interested in working with us to get this done and to be able to find an actual path forward. We had some good conversations last week. But I am worried that in the last few days it has become clear once again that the extreme right, like the Heritage Foundation, is in control, and Republican leaders have been unable to demonstrate to this point a path on how we can get a bipartisan deal signed into law. This issue is far too important to have Republican infighting hold it up. So I urge my Republican colleagues to join us. We are ready to be at the table to work with them. We need to address this as an emergency.

Then I hope we can move on to work on the other really critical issues before us: the opioid epidemic that so many have been here to talk about; the families in Flint who are suffering; ensuring our Supreme Court nominee gets a fair consideration--a hearing, even. There is so much work to be done.

I am here to urge our colleagues on the other side of the aisle to recognize this is an emergency. It cannot wait. Families are waiting for us to act. We need to get the research. We need to have an understanding of what this disease is. We certainly need to put into place prevention, and we certainly need to work on the important path forward in making sure we have the right kinds of education out there as well as a solution to this problem that is rapidly becoming an American problem.

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