Now that the Senate has advanced a $1.1 billion emergency spending bill to fight the Zika virus, Republican senators are faced with the tough task of striking a deal with their Republican colleagues in the House, where opposition to new government funding is significant.
“What I anticipate is we are going to have a conference to discuss the differences,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Tuesday.
The two chambers are $1.1 billion apart on the question of new funding, and Republicans in the two chambers are barely talking about the legislation, according to GOP aides. McConnell Tuesday rejected the idea of taking up the House bill, which would spend zero dollars in new funding.
Instead, the House GOP has proposed a plan that would designate $622 million to combat the Zika virus by redirecting funds already in the federal budget. Democrats have blasted the bill because it provides no new funding at all, and say new, emergency spending is needed to prevent a summer outbreak in southern states.
But House supporters say it’s plenty to start.
“This legislation will make dollars available to fight the disease now, prioritizing critical activities that must begin immediately, such as vaccine development and mosquito control,” said House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers, R-Ky. “The legislation funds these efforts in a responsible way, using existing resources, including excess funding left over from the Ebola outbreak, to pay for it.”
House Republican leaders point out that the Obama administration has already redirected $589 million to the Zika fight from funds that had been designated to combat the Ebola virus, which has receded. Using another $622 million in existing funds puts total funding at more than $1.2 billion total.
It’s the kind of split that has divided Republicans in both houses for the last few years. Many House GOP lawmakers have pushed for steeper cuts and for more fiscal responsibility, only to see those positions erode in the Senate, where more compromise is needed to reach a deal on anything.
The split also comes at a time when Republicans are looking to work together on an agenda to show voters they can be trusted to move on important issues.
Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., a veteran appropriator, is serving as an informal mediator between House and Senate lawmakers on the Zika differences.
“If you actually look at the amounts, they are awful close,” Cole said. “The difference is, ours are totally paid for.”
But even Senate Republicans are criticizing the House approach because they believe it could potentially strip funding from other important federal health programs.
And Democrats have criticized both the House and Senate legislation. They want Republicans to move a bill that spends $1.9 billion in new funding to fight the Zika virus, which the Obama administration requested in February.
“The Republicans are gambling that we can underfund the public health threats to America and still win,” said Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill.
The House will hold a vote on its funding plan Wednesday. Obama has threatened to veto the bill, and administration officials call the amount “woefully inadequate.”
After that, negotiations among Republicans will be key. Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., who is the chief GOP sponsor of the $1.1 billion measure, said once both the House and Senate pass a bill, “there’s time to get together and see what we can agree on and how quickly we can agree on it.”
Blunt said the House is spending “all the time talking about now what’s the second step with Zika” rather than approving spending that will give the government enough money to work on eradicating the disease for this fiscal year.
The House GOP attempted to take an immediate step against Zika on Tuesday and failed.
Republicans called for a vote on legislation that would make it easier to use pesticide to combat Zika by reducing EPA permitting requirements. The bill was taken up under special rules requiring two-thirds majority for passage.
The legislation failed thanks to Democratic opponents who said it would endanger clean water, and was really a deregulation bill in the guise of a solution to Zika.
“In a brazenly political act, the Republican leadership is trying to mask gutting the Clean Water Act as having something to do with fighting Zika,” said Drew Hammill, a spokesman for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. “This bill has nothing to do with Zika and everything to do with Republicans’ relentless special interest attacks on the Clean Water Act. It will do nothing to stem the growing threat of the Zika virus.”
