Administration Sitting on Unspent Funds for Zika
Roll Call
John T. Bennett
August 2, 2016
The Obama administration is struggling to explain why it is pressing Congress for more money to fight the Zika virus while sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars that it already controls and could be used instead.
White House and public health officials on Friday came close to publicly demanding that the House and Senate interrupt a seven-week recess and return to Washington to give federal agencies up to $1.9 billion to counter the mosquito-borne virus.
President Barack Obama and administration officials have for months urged lawmakers to simply approve a $1.9 billion anti-Zika plan they submitted in February. House Republicans balked at its cost, and approved a $622 million measure; the Senate passed a bipartisan $1.1 billion bill.
A compromise bill that Democrats say Republicans worked out among themselves matched the Senate level of funding, but Democrats and Obama said the measure contained unrelated policy provisions. The bill would also offset the Zika dollars with cuts to other federal programs, like the House bill but unlike the Senate version.
The bill died before lawmakers left Washington late last month. In the early days of the congressional break, the White House released $60 million of the $589 million it shifted from other health programs to Zika accounts earlier this year.
In recent days, Florida state health officials have confirmed nearly 15 cases of the virus being transmitted inside the United States. Administration officials say this increases the urgency for more funding. Federal officials on Monday issued an unprecedented warning, telling pregnant women and their sexual partners to avoid an area just north of Miami's downtown.
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