In the House, Representative Jeff Denham, Republican of California, gaveled in the abbreviated, election-season session that will last only about 20 days. But the driving motivation for the GOP leader is to get the two contentious issues – spending and Zika – behind him and let his vulnerable members facing re-election go home to campaign.
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Menendez said that Zika is a national epidemic and that the decision to recess congress of the summer without implementing a plan to halt the spread was a failure on behalf of legislators. She lives in Miami, where the Zika virus is spreading and the Republicans who run Congress refuse to respond without cutting off funds for Planned Parenthood.
“It’s also hard to explain why – despite the array of terror attacks we’ve seen across the world – Senate Democrats chose to block a bill that could help keep the American people safer from threats”.
Speaking to the potential showdown with conservatives in the House, Reid described those provisions as unacceptable “Freedom Caucus bells and whistles”.
While Republicans accuse Democrats of looking for excuses to block the bill, they did not dispute that some of the stipulations they added favored Republican policies and points of view.
For his part, House Speaker Paul Ryan said the House has already passed Zika money, and Democrats in the Senate are preventing it from going to the president for a signature. Another Republican stipulation that met with Democratic disapproval was the disallowance of reallocating $107 million in federal funding that was previously appropriated to fight Ebola.
Set aside the deals and the negotiations. Act.” Biden said. “It’s a health crisis in America. They cut funding for the Veteran’s Administration by half a billion.
That idea will be a non-starter for Democrats. The CDC is working with Florida health officials to investigate what could be the first Zika infection from a mosquito bite in the continental United States.
Senate Democrats blocked the $1.1bn (£820m) bill after Republicans sought to stop funding for pro-abortion group Planned Parenthood.
“Give me a break on this thing”.
As the Senate stalled for a third time Thursday night on funding to fight Zika, leaders from both parties said they are “hopeful” they’ll come to a deal but blasted the opposition for their role in holding up the deal.
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The vote comes roughly seven months after the White House submitted an emergency request for $1.9 billion.
