Water Resources Development Act of 2016
Floor Speech
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Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I am pleased to report that we had some encouraging news yesterday with the announcement of the Senate majority leader that additional money to fight the Zika virus would be included in the continuing resolution, which is the budget document that will help to move us forward at least through December and that hopefully will be moving through the Senate very soon.
Throughout my time in the Senate, I have regularly opposed these short-term spending bills because I don't think funding government on a month-to-month basis is the smart way to run the government of the most powerful and important Nation on Earth. But with Zika becoming a public health emergency the way it has, this is a necessary exception for me to make. All of us, obviously, will reserve to see all the other details of this budget document, but assuming it is as reported--as I am aware in the conversations that are ongoing--I will be supporting this continuing resolution. It is worth making an exception for something like this when the Zika funding is in it. At this point, I just really believe we need to get Zika funding approved and moving. We need to make sure that the fight for Zika doesn't run out of money by the end of this month. For me, that is the most urgent priority.
We can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. The perfect, I believe, is still the full funding that was originally requested--the $1.9 billion, which I supported. The good is what, hopefully, will be finalized soon and, hopefully, will pass quickly. But the unacceptable would be to do nothing and to let the money run out on the ongoing efforts to fight Zika.
Even the $1.9 billion the administration requested months ago will not ultimately be enough. We do not know for sure how much more will be needed to win this fight, but the $1.1 billion for Zika that is being negotiated would be a step in the right direction and would mean more resources for my home State of Florida, which is in the continental United States and has been disproportionately impacted. Just yesterday, there were another six cases of confirmed transmissions in the State and not travel-related, and of course there is the suffering that is ongoing on the island of Puerto Rico, where a significant percentage of the population has now been affected and/or infected by Zika.
I have been talking about this issue since January, and it has been frustrating to see it tied up in Washington's political games. As I said repeatedly, I believe both parties are to blame for our getting to this moment. On the one hand, I believe Members of my own party have been slow to respond to this, and there were efforts, I believe, to try to cut corners on funding, which will cost us money in the long term. But on the other hand, you have Democrats here inventing excuses--just making it up--in order to oppose it, and they do so for purely political reasons. You have an administration playing chicken with this issue by claiming that money would run out in August, only to discover that they had more money that could be redirected from other accounts. Now, thanks to the lack of action by Congress and by the administration, we have nearly 19,000 Americans who have been infected, including 800 in Florida and 16,000 on the island of Puerto Rico. We have 86 pregnant women in the State of Florida who have tested positive for the virus, which we know carries the risk for heartbreaking birth defects. As I said, the Florida Department of Health announced that it wasn't 6; it was 8 new non-travel-related cases, bringing that total to 64. That means there are 8 new cases of people who got Zika somewhere in America, probably in Florida.
Zika has also had a devastating economic impact on Florida. The Miami Herald reported that Miami hotel bookings are down, airfare to South Florida is falling, and business owners in affected areas are reporting steep losses. Polls show many visitors would rather stay away. As tourism takes a hit, so will the entire economy in the State of Florida, since tourism is one of our cornerstone industries. That is why we see all of us from Florida working together across the aisle to get this done. For example, I have worked with my colleague Bill Nelson, the senior Senator from Florida, from the very beginning. I will be meeting with our Governor Rick Scott later today about the same issue.
The bottom line is that at the national level, like at the State level in Florida, there is no excuse for this issue to be tied up in politics any longer. My colleagues, Zika is not a game, and we need to pass this funding as soon as possible so that our health officials and experts have the resources they need to conduct the vital medical research that will lead us to a vaccine and ultimately help eradicate Zika in Florida, across the United States, on the island of Puerto Rico, and beyond.
So yesterday's announcement is encouraging. We are closer than we have ever been to getting something done, and now I hope will be the time for action. Hopefully, we will have something soon that is public and that we can get passed right away. I sincerely hope that Senate Democrats won't once again make up or find some excuse to oppose it, and I hope that Members from our party will work cooperatively as well. I hope, ultimately, that the House will also do the right thing so that we can get this done and we can move forward on the research necessary for the vaccine, on the money needed to eradicate these mosquitoes, and, ultimately, on the treatments that people will desperately need to deal with Zika once and for all.
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