The Honorable Donna F. Edwards
H.R. 897, the Zika Vector Control Act
May 17, 2016
Mr./Madam Speaker, I rise in STRONG opposition to the House considering H.R. 897, the Reducing Regulatory Burdens Act, that House Republicans have incorrectly and misleading renamed the “Zika Vector Control Act.”
In the 113th Congress, this exact legislation with a bill number of H.R. 935 failed under suspension of the rules (253-148). At the time, Republicans subsequently rescheduled it two days later under a closed rule to allow passage. I was the Democratic bill manager during floor consideration on July 30, 2014. In fact, since my statement laid out real substantive concerns with this legislation, I ask unanimous consent that a copy of my remarks at that time be made part of the debate today as part of the Congressional Record.
In this Congress, this legislation was marked up early last year in the Agriculture Committee as the Reducing Regulatory Burdens Act. The Committee of primary jurisdiction, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee has taken NO action on the bill this time around, yet, here we are once again on the House floor. The House Republican leadership has now changed the name of the bill to the “Zika Vector Control Act”. A new name and the inclusion of a sunset date in 2018 are the only differences from previous iterations of this bill.
H.R. 897 is the exact same legislation that pesticide manufacturers and other special interests have been pushing for the past several years. It would eliminate Clean Water Act safeguards that protect our waterways and communities from excessive pesticide pollution. The Pesticide General Permit targeted in this legislation has been in place for nearly five years now and alarmist predictions by pesticide manufacturers and others about the impacts of this permit have failed to bear any fruit.
In March 2015 before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Ken Kopocis, Deputy Assistant Administrator of the Office of Water at the Environmental Protection Agency testified that:
“We have not been made aware of any issues associated with the Pesticide General Permit. Nobody has brought an instance to our attention where somebody has not been able to apply a pesticide in a timely manner . . . [t]here have been no instances.”
Since then, all across the country, pesticide applicators – usually utilities managing their right of ways – are complying with the Clean Water Act permits to protect water quality. The public is getting information that we couldn’t get before about what pesticides are being sprayed into which bodies of water.
Congress should not and must not respond to outdated, sky-is-falling problems that history has shown has never occurred and weaken protections for the water our children drink.
In past Congresses, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have used the public health emergency de jour as rationale to pass and enact this legislation into law. At one time they cited West Nile Virus, the next western wildland fire suppression, and last Congress it was the drought. Now, in nothing less than a purely political move, Republicans are considering this bill on suspension, but under the guise of combatting the spread of Zika.
Let’s be clear, this bill has nothing to do with Zika or trying to stop the threat of the Zika virus. And contrary to the claims made by my colleagues, the permit already in effect allows spraying for Zika or other mosquito control programs.
H.R. 897 is simply another attack on the Clean Water Act as part of the Republican’s anti-environmental, deregulatory agenda.
I urge my colleagues to vote down today’s legislation and let us take up full funding of the President’s $1.9 billion emergency funding request he made in February. If we did so, we would be fulfilling our duty as members of Congress to protect our nation and our constituents’ public health.
