Jenna Buzzacco-Foerster
Sen. Bill Nelson is urging Senate leaders to bring back a $1.1 billion proposal that would help fight the spread of Zika.
The request comes just one day after the Florida Department of Health announced 11 new cases of Florida, bringing the total number of travel-related cases in the Sunshine State to 263.
In a letter Thursday, the Florida Democrat asked Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to bring the bipartisan $1.1 billion bill the Senate passed back to the floor for a vote as a standalone bill. Last week, the Senate voted down a $1.1 billion House proposal.
Democrats blocked the GOP-drafted measure 52-48, short of the 60 votes required to advance it. The party faulted Republicans for packing the bill with provisions designed to deny new funding for Planned Parenthood clinics in Puerto Rico and ease rules on pesticide spraying.
Nelson reminded McConnell “both sides of the aisle came together on the Senate floor” to pass its version of the $1.1 billion funding proposal.
“I strongly urge you to advance a bipartisan bill that provides emergency funding, and is free of misguided policy riders,” said Nelson in his letter. “Time is of the essence.”
Don Stewart, a spokesman for McConnell, said Nelson is asking Senate leaders to do something that already exists. The Senate already passed its proposal, and the House passed a much lower funding proposal. The $1.1 billion plan approved by the House was the result of negotiations and can’t be amended.
“What he’s asking to do today would not get the bill to the president’s desk,” said Stewart. “There’s only one bill that can go to the president right now, and you can’t amend it.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there have been more than 930 cases of travel-related cases of Zika reported in the United States. So far none of the cases have been locally transmitted.
Last week, the Florida Department of Health announced it had confirmed its first case of microcephaly in an infant born in Florida whose mother had a travel-related case of Zika. The mother contracted Zika while in Haiti.
In his letter, Nelson said lawmakers need to stop using funding as a vehicle to advance politics and take a bipartisan approach to funding.
“Funding our nation’s Zika response is something that simply cannot wait any longer and it cannot be used as a vehicle to advance partisan, ideological positions,” he said. “Surely, this is something that members of both parties can agree to.”
Sen. Marco Rubio announced Thursday he will convene a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Transnational Crime, Civilian Security, Democracy, Human Rights, and Global Women’s Issues next week to discuss Zika. The hearing is scheduled for 2:30 p.m., Wednesday.
McConnell is expected to bring House-approved funding proposal for a vote next week before its August recess.
