Conflict over Zika swarms D.C. ahead of summer recess

WASHINGTON—Leonard Felix, owner of a Colorado pesticide company, has sprayed for West Nile virus for years. He stopped in 2012 because he feared fines under a new permit system mandated by the Environmental Protection Agency. Felix said during that first summer without spraying, two people from the now-untreated area in Colorado contracted West Nile and died from the disease.

“One of the widowers called us to find out why we had quit spraying when it had done so much good,” Felix said. “That was a tough concern—that our concern for liability had maybe caused someone’s death, or ailments. But that’s one of those things you don’t know at the time.”

Pesticide regulations are one of several contentious issues threatening congressional efforts to combat a looming Zika virus outbreak this summer. Although massive funding differences between House and Senate legislation have dominated headlines, lawmakers face other hurdles, ranging from whether to prohibit funding for abortion and loosen environmental regulations for pesticides.

Researchers first discovered Zika in Uganda in 1947. The virus generally spreads through mosquitoes and causes only mild symptoms, except when contracted by a pregnant woman. In this case, it can cause a serious birth defect called microcephaly. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) currently reports 618 travel-related cases of Zika in the U.S. So far, no one has contracted the virus from a mosquito in the continental 48 states.

The House has approved $622 million to fight Zika through Sept. 30, while the Senate has approved $1.1 billion for use through September 2017. Reconciling the two numbers—and possibly taking broader actions—falls to a conference committee comprised of members from both chambers.

Other Zika-related legislative tasks could prove equally difficult.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., touted the Mosquito Vector Control Act as the solution to the duplicative pesticide permitting that prompted Felix to close parts of his spraying business. Rep. Bob Gibbs, R-Ohio, introduced similar legislation in the past, calling it the Reducing Regulatory Burdens Act, but Republicans re-branded the bill to address Zika concerns.

House Democrats protested the newly named bill when it passed last week, accusing Republicans of “egregious dishonesty” for associating it with Zika. Democrats say the bill allows pesticides to be spread too close to water sources.

While the Senate has not yet considered the Mosquito Vector Control Act, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee passed similar legislation in the past. The Zika conference committee is expected to include it in a final bill.

Democrats also loudly opposed the $622 million House funding bill for containing a prohibition on using federal money for abortion—even though such a provision has been included in spending bills for the last four decades. In February, CDC director Thomas Frieden promised in congressional testimony to maintain the ban.

Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., who is on the Zika conference committee, told me the panel should have sufficient votes to insist on the pro-life language—commonly referred to as the Hyde Amendment.

Congressional leaders hope to complete the conference process quickly, but that seems highly unlikely: Congress has only 20 legislative days remaining before the party conventions in July. Dates have not been set for conference meetings, and as of Tuesday, the Senate had not even appointed its members. But Cole said lawmakers are committed to the task: “Most of us want to deal with this issue and provide some certainty.”

The most optimistic projections show Congress passing a Zika package on July 18, the final scheduled work day before the August recess. But mosquito season already will be in full swing by then.

If the conference committee reaches a compromise, the bill would have to pass the House and Senate again before it could land on President Barack Obama’s desk. The president threatened a veto when the House passed its first $622 million package, but it would be highly unusual for him to veto a conference-passed bill.

In 2014, Obama requested $6.18 billion in Ebola funding and eventually signed into law a compromise package that contained only $5.4 billion to fight the disease.