Congressional Republicans urged President Obama on Monday to immediately accept GOP legislation that would make it easier to spray pesticides to help fight the Zika virus, after administration officials have said more spraying would help slow its spread.
Republicans from the House and Senate told Obama in a letter that the House-passed bill would lift a permit requirement that delays the spraying of pesticides that kill mosquitoes that carry Zika. They pointed to administration officials who have called for aerial spraying in Puerto Rico, and said lifting the permit requirements would help states and territories fight the virus more quickly.
The letter, led by Rep. Bob Gibbs, R-Ohio, also said failing to support the House bill would pose an immediate threat to all Americans this summer.
“If the administration does not work with Congress to address this potentially life-threatening issue, the Zika crisis in Puerto Rico will certainly spread to the continental United States, threatening the health and safety of all Americans, especially women of childbearing age and millions of unborn children,” they wrote. “As [CDC] Director [Tom] Frieden said, the continental U.S. would have sprayed months ago if we had the alarming wide-spread Zika epidemic Puerto Rico is experiencing today.”
“We must take action this week to quickly and appropriately commence a thorough mosquito abatement program, as included in the Zika conference package, immediately before the virus spreads further,” they added.
The permit was created under the Clean Water Act. It requires anybody who is spraying pesticides that may get into the water supply to get a permit.
The permit requirement “adds time-consuming, costly red tape that discourages regular aerial spraying for mosquitoes,” Republicans wrote. “Pesticides used to kill mosquitoes are already regulated by the [Environmental Protection Agency].”
House Republicans have tried to eliminate the permit before. The chamber passed a bill in May that was rebranded as the Zika Vector Control Act. Democrats fought the House bill, which passed by a 258-156 vote in May but has not advanced in the Senate, by saying it was a veiled attack on environmental regulations.
But the effort has found new life after the heads of the Environmental Protection Agency and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said last week that Puerto Rico needs to take up aerial spraying to kill mosquitoes. Almost 2,500 cases have been found in the U.S. territory.
“With growing number of reports of pregnant women contracting Zika and concerns about the island’s mosquito abatement programs, both administration officials encouraged aerial spraying, with [EPA] Administrator [Gina] McCarthy emphasizing that spraying was the ‘most important tool’ at our disposal,” the lawmakers wrote.
Still, Democrats have said the bill is not the right way to fight the virus.
“This bill has nothing to do with Zika and everything to do with Republicans’ relentless special interest attacks on the Clean Water Act,” said Drew Hammill, spokesman for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. “It will do nothing to stem the growing threat of the Zika virus.”
The letter comes at a critical point in the fight over funding for Zika. House and Senate lawmakers brokered a $1.1 billion funding package that takes $720 million from other programs and the rest in new funding. It passed the House but stalled in the Senate, as Democrats are angry over policy riders that cut funding to Planned Parenthood in Puerto Rico.
More than 1,100 cases of the Zika virus have been found in the U.S., but almost all are from travelers who got the virus in a country where it is spreading via mosquitoes.
The federal government is not aware of mosquitoes spreading the virus in the continental U.S. so far, but officials are worried that limited outbreaks could occur during the summer.
Read the letter here:
Zika Letter by Joshua Gray on Scribd
