House, Senate GOP Seals Agreement On $1.1B Zika Measure

FILE - In this Jan. 27, 2016, file photo, an Aedes aegypti mosquito is photographed through a microscope at the Fiocruz institute in Recife, Pernambuco state, Brazil. Doctors speaking at a U.N. meeting on Global Health Crises said Monday, June 20, 2016, that the Zika virus has already affected 60 countries on four continents and a major outbreak on the Atlantic Ocean island nation of Cape Verde suggests the disease is now poised to enter continental Africa. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana, File)

FILE - In this Jan. 27, 2016, file photo, an Aedes aegypti mosquito is photographed through a microscope at the Fiocruz institute in Recife, Pernambuco state, Brazil. Doctors speaking at a U.N. meeting on Global Health Crises said Monday, June 20, 2016, that the Zika virus has already affected 60 countries on four continents and a major outbreak on the Atlantic Ocean island nation of Cape Verde suggests the disease is now poised to enter continental Africa. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana, File)

WASHINGTON — House and Senate Republicans have reached agreement among themselves on a $1.1 billion measure to combat the Zika virus, but the measure drew immediate opposition from Democrats who signaled they would scuttle it over its spending cuts and "poison pills."

The measure — and the looming partisan battle over it — comes as a deadline to pass the Zika funding into law grows near.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Harold Rogers, R-Ky., announced the agreement as he headed into a closed-door meeting of House Republicans and its release was slated for later in the day. The Zika measure was one of the topics for discussion, though more attention was focused on how Republicans would respond to a floor protest by Democrats demanding votes on gun-related legislation.

An infection by the Zika virus can cause grave birth defects. The $1.1 billion figure is the amount the Senate approved last month. The measure calls for $750 million in spending cuts to offset the funding for Zika efforts, including $543 million in unused funds from implementation of President Barack Obama's health care law and $107 million in cuts to leftover Ebola funding.

"We've been working for a while to get the Zika bill worked out. It is finally worked out," said No. 3 House GOP leader Steve Scalise, R-La.

The Senate measure did not contain offsetting spending cuts and treated the Zika crisis as an official "emergency" like recent funding to battle Ebola and forest fires. It is being paired with a measure funding the Department of Veterans Affairs. Democrats said it is wrong to require spending cuts to pay for a response to a public health crisis while not requiring them for other emergencies such as wildfires, floods and Ebola.

The GOP drafters of the measure were waiting for its official release before commenting on it or defending it.

One of the provisions opposed by Democrats blocks supplemental funds in the measure from going to Planned Parenthood for birth control services for women at risk of becoming infected with the virus. Such services would be instead provided by public health providers such as community health centers. But the GOP move appeared to incite Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid to charge, without foundation, that the bill "cuts off women's access to birth control."

The measure also contains a watered-down version of a provision backed by the House that would ease rules on pesticide permitting requirements.

"Just when you think you've seen it all, Republicans try to leverage a public health crisis to roll back access to health care for women and ram through an ideological agenda," said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. "Republicans are so controlled by their hard right that they are incapable of working with Democrats to solve a public health crisis and actually govern the country."

"Utter and complete nonsense," countered Stephen Worley, a spokesman for Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Thad Cochran, R-Miss. "The conference agreement includes $1.1 billion in 'real emergency funding' to fight the Zika virus, the same amount that Sen. Schumer and the entire Democratic caucus voted for."

A spokeswoman for Reid, D-Nev., predicted that Democrats would successfully filibuster the measure. At the White House, press secretary Josh Earnest said Republicans had again "put political games ahead of the health and safety of the American people, particularly pregnant women and their babies."

What might happen next is uncertain. But time to pass the measure to provide money to battle the virus, which can be spread by mosquitoes common in much of the U.S., is slipping away as Congress is slated to recess for the party political conventions in mid-July.

Four months ago Obama requested $1.9 billion to battle Zika. When Congress failed to act, he transferred more than $500 million in unspent Ebola funding to develop a vaccine, research better tests to detect Zika, help states and localities battle the mosquitoes that spread it, and help foreign countries mount their own defenses against the virus.

The measure also contains a modified provision to permit combat veterans whose wounds have left them unable to conceive children to seek in-vitro fertilization treatments. But it would not permit the use of donor eggs and sperm, according to a summary of the measure prepared by Democrats.

GOP leaders also orchestrated removal of a House-passed provision that would ban the display of the Confederate flag over mass graves in VA cemeteries.

By ANDREW TAYLOR - Jun. 22, 2016 10:00 PM EDT AP

 
 

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