In Senate split, $1 billion for Zika falls by wayside

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (foreground), joined by (from left) Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo.; Sen. John Thune, R-S.D.; and Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn of Texas, faces reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington on Tuesday about the Zika virus proposal.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (foreground), joined by (from left) Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo.; Sen. John Thune, R-S.D.; and Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn of Texas, faces reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington on Tuesday about the Zika virus proposal.

WASHINGTON -- The Senate split along party lines Tuesday and left a $1.1 billion proposal to fight the Zika virus in limbo.

Democrats blocked the GOP-drafted measure by a 52-48 vote Tuesday -- short of the 60 votes required to advance it. Arkansans John Boozman and Tom Cotton, both Republicans, voted in favor of the measure.

Democrats accuse Republicans of packing the bill with provisions designed to deny new funding for Planned Parenthood clinics in Puerto Rico and to ease rules on pesticide spraying.

Zika is spread mainly by a tropical mosquito and is causing an epidemic in Latin America and the Caribbean. The virus can cause birth defects and is likely to spread farther this summer. Although there has been no transmission by mosquitoes in the continental U.S., the country is handling about 800 cases from people who traveled abroad.

The 800 cases include almost 300 pregnant women at risk of delivering children with severe deformities.

Democrats pressed to resume negotiations, while Republicans insisted, for now at least, that the measure negotiated by House and Senate Republicans is the best that President Barack Obama's administration is going to get. The administration in February requested $1.9 billion in emergency funds.

"There's not going to be another opportunity to deal with this in the near future," said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., insisted that it was impossible to reopen the House-Senate agreement or begin new talks.

"The negotiations have already occurred," McConnell told reporters. "I would say to my Democratic friends there are some disadvantages to not being in the majority. You don't get everything exactly the way you want."

The White House has threatened to veto the legislation.

The House-Senate measure matches the $1.1 billion measure approved in the Senate last month, but Democrats oppose a handful of provisions designed to mollify conservatives in the House, as well as the attachment of companion spending cuts to defray costs.

The House passed the measure along party lines last week.

Democrats particularly oppose a provision that restricts the use of $95 million worth of federal grants to provide services such as birth control to women in Puerto Rico who are threatened by the virus. Democrats said the restrictions were targeted at Planned Parenthood, a group opposed by many anti-abortion Republicans.

In addition, the bill would temporarily lift Clean Water Act permitting requirements on pesticide spraying for municipalities and other large-scale users.

Even as Democrats pressed for compromise, they said Republicans soon would reconsider their stance.

"They come back with their tail between their legs saying 'Let's pass something,'" said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.

Republicans controlling Congress have been slow to act on Obama's request, instead forcing the administration to redirect more than $500 million in unspent Ebola-fighting funds to fight Zika.

After Tuesday's vote, Cornyn appeared on the Senate floor with a poster of a baby born with microcephaly, a severe deformity in which children are born with poorly developed brains and small skulls. Florida recently reported its first case of microcephaly linked to the virus, from a Haitian woman who went to the state to give birth.

"I wonder what the senators who voted against this bipartisan Zika funding bill would tell the mother of this child," Cornyn said.

"What a cynical and hypocritical thing to do," Schumer said. "All Democrats have ever asked for on Zika was to give the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] and the other agencies [the funding] to protect the American people, pregnant mothers and their babies from this dangerous virus."

A Section on 06/29/2016

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