WASHINGTON, June 28 (UPI) — President Barack Obama asked for $1.9 billion. Senate Republicans offered $1.1 billion. But Tuesday, the Senate didn’t approve a dime for the fight against the spreading Zika threat.
The upper chamber rejected the $1.1 billion proposal by Republican lawmakers to comply with Obama’s request for emergency funds. The money was attached to a military spending bill.
The Senate blocked the plan by a vote of 52-48 Tuesday — eight votes shy of the number needed to advance the legislation.
It will likely be at least weeks before any new proposal can be approved. Congress takes its holiday recess next week.
After the vote, some Senate Republicans blamed the bills’ failure on Democrats.
“The first TV picture of a woman, an American woman, bearing a child with a birth defect caused by this virus will be on them,” Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas, said. “We shouldn’t risk it.”
Before the vote Tuesday, Florida officials announced its first confirmed case of Zika-linked microcephaly, in a newborn to a Haitian immigrant who contracted Zika overseas. Scientists have said microcephaly, a developmental condition in the brain, can be caused by Zika.
Democrats said they opposed the $1.1 billion plan because it’s attached to a bill that’s loaded with provisions they called “poison pills,” including taking away funding for birth control and veterans.
Minority Leader Harry Reid said the measure had no chance of passing, and Obama even promised to veto it if it had gotten through Congress.
Republicans have objected to Obama’s $1.9 billion request because there have been no proposed cuts in other areas to offset the cost. Last month, the House proposed $622 million to fight Zika — money that would have come from unused funds originally intended to fight Ebola two years ago.
