On Thursday, the White House and congressional Democrats again called on Republicans to pass a bipartisan measure to secure emergency funds to combat the spread of Zika. The new call comes one week prior to the House of Representatives' summer recess, according to The Guardian.
The political battle over Zika funding has been an ongoing partisan confrontation since February when President Barack Obama asked for nearly $2 billion to be allocated for the Zika fight. In May, the Senate compromised with legislation designating $1.1 billion to the cause free of fiscal offsets, and then the House countered with a proposal for $622.1 million in funds to be offset by funding from other programs.
On June 23, the House passed a funding bill in the wake of a Democratic sit-in inspired by gun control legislation. The most recent House bill would allocate $1.1 billion to the fight against Zika, of which $750 million would be allocated from existing programs including Planned Parenthood. President Obama threatened to veto the bill, and it has since stalled in the Senate.
According to The Guardian, Rep. Kathy Castor, a Democrat from Florida's 11th district, representing Tampa Bay, a region particularly vulnerable to Zika proliferation, said, "We've got one week left. One week left — and if Speaker [Paul] Ryan cannot get a bill to the president's desk it will be a colossal failure to address a crisis."
The House will leave Washington on July 15 and its members will not reconvene until September.
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