Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2016--Conference Report

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I rise because I want to share a few words on the Zika component of the conference report on the MILCON-VA appropriations bill, which will be on the floor shortly.

Unfortunately, but maybe not surprisingly, my friends on the other side of the aisle very well bowed down to their friends on the hard right and riddled this bill on Zika with poison pill provisions. If there was ever a bill designed to fail, it is what the Republicans have put together on Zika today. This bill is not only going to fail, it was designed to fail from the very beginning.

Democrats have pushed for over 4 months for legislation on Zika, ever since the CDC and the administration requested $1.9 billion in emergency funding to deal with the threat. We tried to work with our friends on the other side of the aisle, but after we compromised at $1.1 billion, after we reached a supposed agreement, and passed it in this body with 89 votes--the overwhelming majority from both parties-- Republicans turned around, without any consultation with Democrats in the House and Senate, and rammed through a wish list of poison pill riders that defeat the very purpose of the effort. Rather than working with Democrats to produce something both parties can support, Republicans abandoned compromise in favor of an extreme rightwing bill.

These changes reflected in the conference report have poisoned the bill. It now cuts Ebola funding by $107 million. It cuts funding for the Affordable Care Act by $543 million. It sets a precedent that emergencies have to be funded when, in the past, they have not been. Worst of all, it restricts funding for family planning services provided by health centers and providers like Planned Parenthood.

We know Zika can be sexually transmitted. We know it poses the biggest danger to pregnant women and their unborn children, many of whom rely on health centers and Planned Parenthood as their primary health care provider, but Republicans cannot miss a chance to whack Planned Parenthood, even if their services are exactly what can help prevent the spread of this debilitating virus.

I listened to my friend, the majority leader. Two words never passed his lips as he talked about the bill--Planned Parenthood. Why? Because he knows saying don't fund Planned Parenthood is a poison pill if there ever was one. He knows it was a poison pill last year when we were negotiating a short-term budget agreement and there would be no budget if it was in there.

Our Republican leaders are engaged in a cynical game. They have to have assure the hard right they are not funding anything, even something as important as Zika, but they know the American people demand funding, and so they put in these poison pills. It is a cynical game and it shall not stand.

My prediction is Republicans will come back after this amendment, as they know this proposal will be defeated--they knew it--and they will come back within a few weeks with their tail between their legs saying: Let's pass something. We know we have to do something on Zika.

Why they don't avoid that embarrassment is beyond me. To say that this Zika legislation is a day late and a dollar short would be a drastic understatement. It is 4 months late, $800 billion short, and now, to boot, it cannibalizes health care funding from other important priorities.

Then, after all of this, the distinguished majority leader came to the floor yesterday to accuse Democrats of playing politics with the bill because we were concerned with these changes. What a cynical and hypocritical thing to do. All Democrats have ever asked for on Zika was to give the CDC and the other agencies the funding they said they needed to do the job of protecting the American people, pregnant mothers, and their babies from this dangerous virus.

It wasn't Democrats who said: Let's give CDC only about half the money they said they need. No, Republicans did that. It wasn't Democrats who tried to jam through poison pill amendments to the bill in the dead of night with no debate. No, Republicans did that. It wasn't Democrats who dithered for months on end until mosquito season was already upon us to bring a bill forward. No, Republicans did that. And it wasn't Democrats who loaded up the bill with partisan plums, saying that unless the other side passes this bill, they are playing politics. Oh, no, it was Republicans who did that.

Moreover, these tactics mean one thing: Our Republican colleagues and particularly the Republican leadership, in both the House and Senate, are not taking the Zika threat seriously. It is no way to handle an urgent public health crisis.

We will shortly hear from my friend from Florida who can document what is happening in his State and what will happen in many other States as the warmer summer season moves on. There are 2,600 Americans who have been diagnosed with the virus, including over 400 pregnant women. Six pregnancies have already been deemed to have birth defects as a result of Zika. Americans in Puerto Rico are especially impacted with 1,800 locally acquired cases. It is a tragedy, and we should be doing something in a bipartisan way--Democrats and Republicans together--working to solve an emergency. But, no, we get a bill riddled with poison pills done by one party, designed to fail in obeisance to the rightwing, which doesn't want to spend any money.

Our public health and safety is at risk. I hope my Republican colleagues will stop this partisan gambit and come around to work with us on the issue in a serious bipartisan way. We are willing to compromise, as the great leadership of the Senator from Washington showed when she came to compromise with the Senator from Tennessee on a proposal that didn't do everything we wanted, but we voted for it. I hope that can happen again. If saner heads are going to prevail, it has to be in this body. I hope Leader McConnell would rethink the strategy of going along with the cynical House bill so we can negotiate something that will do good for America.

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