US Senate approves US$1.1 billion emergency money to fight Zika
According to recent reports, a day after the US House of Representatives voted for a US$622.1 million budget to fight the spread of Zika virus, which will be taken from cuts in existing programs, the Senate approved US$1.1 billion in emergency money.
The two chambers would have to reach agreement on a spending level before they can send it to President Barack Obama, who in February requested US$1.9 billion. The White House has called the House measure “woefully inadequate” and has threatened to veto it.Democratic Senator Patty Murray of Washington State urged Congress to act quickly, saying, “This is a public health emergency and Congress should treat it like one.”
The Senate will enter negotiations with the House with a strong hand: a bipartisan 68-30 vote in favor of the emergency funds to battle Zika, a virus that has been spreading rapidly through the Americas, with more than 100 confirmed cases in the US state of Florida.
However, the conservative group Heritage Action is lobbying against any Zika funding bill that is not paid for with an equal amount of spending cuts. The Senate’s funding was attached to an unrelated transportation and housing appropriations bill that also passed the chamber on Thursday.
US health officials have concluded that Zika infections in pregnant women can cause microcephaly, a birth defect marked by small head size that can lead to severe developmental problems in babies. The World Health Organization has said there is strong scientific consensus that Zika can also cause Guillain-Barre, a rare neurological syndrome that causes temporary paralysis in adults.
Conservative Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah tried unsuccessfully to kill the Senate funding, saying the Obama administration already had enough money to deal with Zika.
But Senator Susan Collins of Maine, a moderate Republican, countered that US debt problems were rooted in the rapid growth in the cost of huge programs such as Social Security and Medicare and not so-called “discretionary” spending like on Zika.
