Zika Vector Control Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this Zika Vector Control Act and want to commend Congressman Gibbs for his leadership in bringing this forward as we work here in the House to combat Zika.
The House is doing a number of things this week. Number one, we are moving legislation to reprioritize money so that there will be a total of $1.2 billion of moneys allocated to combat Zika.
But, in addition, while we are fighting Zika and giving not only Federal, but local agencies the resources they need to combat this terrible disease from spreading, we know, and CDC has told us, that it is spread by mosquitos. Mosquitos are the agents that spread Zika.
So here we have got Congressman Gibbs identifying a problem where the EPA is making it harder to actually kill mosquitos.
I come from south Louisiana. We have a lot of mosquitos in south Louisiana, and we don't like them. We actually spray using federally approved pesticides to kill mosquitos where they breed. Where do they breed, Mr. Speaker? They breed by water. They breed by sources of water. So you have got federally approved sprays and pesticides that are used to go and kill the mosquitos so that they can't spread Zika, and yet the EPA comes in and has a rule that makes it harder and more expensive to actually go kill mosquitos.
All that Congressman Gibbs is saying is let's block that rule because local governments, by the way, still control this. It is our local governments, our parishes and counties, that are doing the spraying. They understand how to comply with their own local laws. They are not going to do anything to jeopardize groundwater, but what they want to do is kill mosquitos so that the mosquitos don't spread Zika to our constituents.
If you look, this legislation actually was passed. It actually was passed in 2011 when we were responding to West Nile. So the House did pass this legislation already, and it was good legislation then. In fact, it got a wide bipartisan vote. All of a sudden, some people want to politicize it. This isn't a political issue. This is about common sense.
Mr. Speaker, the EPA is just putting additional hurdles in place. It is not like they are saying don't spray these pesticides. They are just jacking up the costs. It is an EPA money grab that makes it more expensive and more difficult to actually go kill mosquitos.
So while we are debating whether or not to prioritize more money for Zika--which we are doing, by the way, $1.2 billion worth--shouldn't we make sure that the money can actually be used to effectively kill the mosquitos that spread Zika? If the EPA has got a rule that makes no sense and makes it harder to kill mosquitos, shouldn't we remove that rule and that barrier and allow and trust our local governments?
There are some people up here who think that Washington knows best, and if your local parish or county knows what they need to do to control the mosquito population in their parish or county, shouldn't they be able to do it? Or you don't trust them; you don't want to give them the ability to go kill mosquitos.
Well, I do trust our local governments, and I want to give them the tools that they need to actually go and kill mosquitos at the source where they breed, and that is near sources of water. It is not in a way that contaminates groundwater at all. In fact, EPA still gives these permits out, but it just costs a lot more money to go and kill the mosquitos. So let's remove that burden so we can kill more mosquitos and stop Zika from spreading.
Mr. Speaker, it is a really good, commonsense piece of legislation, and I urge its adoption.
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