Tom Cole

Mr. COLE

Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time remains?

Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I want to reply to my very good friend from Maryland, whom I have not only great esteem for, but, frankly, great personal affection for, and I want to respond to his question. This is not a cover vote. First of all, the main item here is actually veterans and military construction that is over $83 billion; that, through normal order, is moving forward. Now, to also move the Zika bill with it makes a lot of sense. Frankly, one of the things in this bill--and I disagree with my friend's characterization--we want to make sure that misguided environmental regulations don't stop us from deploying pesticides that we may need. That is in this bill. That is pretty important to move forward. The funding is also important. Now, my friends seem to forget, again, the long record here of who has been willing to support the NIH and who has been willing to support the CDC. We gave the NIH twice what the President asked for in additional new money last year. That is being spent right now, by the way. We also gave the Centers for Disease Control more money than the President asked for. This year, when the President tried to take $1 billion of discretionary money away from the NIH, both Republicans and Democrats on the Appropriations Committee said: No, Mr. President, we are not going to let you raid NIH and take money away and weaken the healthcare apparatus of the United States. I made the point then--and I can assure my friends we will be happy to back it up--that we will put more money into NIH this year for next fiscal year than the President actually requests. Now, in terms of Zika, the moment there was a crisis, the chairman of this committee, Hal Rogers, immediately sent a letter to the President and said: Spend all the money you need. There are whole pots of it in different spots. We will replace the dollars as they are needed. So taking money out of funds that were meant to be spent over years and using them in immediate crises is not unusual. Indeed, the administration itself has done this twice in recent months: once taking $500 million from the Emergency Response Fund in the Department of State and spending it on climate change, instead of an emergency response; $40 million in their own budget out of Ebola money that they were going to spend on malaria money. I don't condemn them for that, by the way. They just simply were using something and they said: This is an account that is going to take several years. We want to deal with malaria right now. Let's take some of that money. If we have got a problem later, we will fix it. That is all that is going on here. At the end of the day, the amount of resources that are necessary will be made available. The only difference here is one side wants to pay for it and not add to the national debt. The other side really doesn't think that is a big consideration. That is a debate worth having. I don't mind having that debate. But we heard the word ``reckless'' earlier. It is also shameless to exploit a crisis for political gain, and I think we are seeing some of that here today. Some of it is sincere, but some of it is great theatrics. It doesn't change the fact that when the President made his request, he has had every dime he has needed for that 94 days. When my friends say the Republican bill only provides a third of the money, they somehow forget a third had already been provided. This is the second third. The rest of it will come. The money is to be spent as the administration requested, not over weeks or days, but over months and years. That is how they have proposed to deploy it. So giving them the money as they need it instead of writing them a blank check and not even paying for it ahead of time seems to us to be the prudent and responsible thing to do. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. I want to respond quickly to some of my friend's points, Mr. Speaker, and I want to go back to the essential reality that we are facing. Number 1, last year, when the President asked for $1 billion more for NIH, we said: That is not enough. We are going to give you two. Last year the President submitted a request for CDC. We looked at it and said: You know, it is not enough. You evidently don't care enough about public health, Mr. President. We are going to spend more money. This year he brought us a request to try and take $1 billion of discretionary funding away from NIH. My friends on the other side were as appalled as we were. We said: No, Mr. President, you are not going to take $1 billion out of NIH in a dangerous time of disease. We are not only going to keep that money there, we are going to put more money, additional money than you asked for. We said the same thing about the CDC, and so we will do it. In terms of what has been done, the minute the Zika virus appeared and the administration asked for emergency money, Hal Rogers, the chairman of the committee, responded and said: Spend whatever it takes. And, indeed, the administration has done that. My friends seem to suggest that there is something that hasn't been done, yet they never tell us what that one thing is. The reality is the administration has had the money to do everything it has wanted to do. This bill provides more money on top of that. Our Senators are proposing even more, so we go to conference to figure out the appropriate amount and whether or not and to what degree it should be paid for. I would hope it is all paid for. It should be because we have the funds to do that. So to suggest that there is some sort of failure of funding is simply not true, and my friends know it is not true. To suggest that we are not willing to put the money here would suggest that recent history has no relevance, because we have put more money here than the President asked us to put, and we have committed to put even more going forward. The only difference here, and what drives my friends into a frenzy, is that we actually want to pay for this. They simply don't. They think, let's just put another $1.9 billion on the national credit card. This is a great excuse to do that. Well, we are not prepared to do that, but we are prepared to respond to the legitimate needs of the American people and use the resources that we have. So, Mr. Speaker, in closing, I agree with my colleagues on the other side. We should address the issue. We disagree with the other body on how to do it, and we will go on from there. Mr. Speaker, I look forward to working with my colleagues in conference on these important issues.

Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only. General Leave

Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 751 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Rules Committee met and reported a rule to expedite consideration of legislation that would deal with the imminent threat of the Zika virus. The rule provides that the House concur in the Senate amendment with a further amendment consisting of the text of H.R. 4974, H.R. 5243, and H.R. 897, as passed by the House, and provides a motion from the chair of the Committee on Appropriations to request a conference with the Senate. Mr. Speaker, as I said last week, the debate between Republicans and Democrats is not over whether or not to address the Zika threat, but whether to pay for it or just to add it to the national credit card. This rule would provide for a conference between the House and the Senate on the Zika response legislation, as passed by the House. As opposed to the Senate approach, which adds an additional $1.2 billion to the national debt, the House approach acts responsibly by using existing funds designated for Ebola and other infectious diseases to pay for our response to the looming Zika threat. Mr. Speaker, many of my friends on the other side have claimed that the House Republicans' response to the Zika threat has been wholly insufficient. Frankly, I disagree with that view. In our view, our response is, really, the second of three tranches of funds directed at Zika. First, Chairman Rogers, Chairman Granger, and I directed the administration to use existing funds for Ebola and other infectious diseases to deal with the immediate threat. Thus far, the administration has used nearly $600 million to support efforts to combat Zika. The second tranche of money that is included in this legislation would provide an additional $622 million for Zika. Finally, I want to assure my colleagues that we will commit additional resources in the FY 2017 appropriations process to ensure that the administration request is fully fulfilled, providing nearly $1.9 billion, which is the amount requested by the administration to combat Zika. In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I think it is important to reiterate that I do not disagree with my friends about the need to confront the Zika virus quickly. In fact, I have been to Brazil. I have been to Argentina. I have visited the infected areas and have spent a lot of hours in talking to our people on the ground there who are both investigating the disease and working with local governments to try and take care of some of the outbreak down there. We have visited extensively with our friends up here at the National Institutes of Health and at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The only difference I have with my friends is whether or not we pay for the activity. I believe, Mr. Speaker, that, if we already have the resources to confront the crisis, which we do, we should do so within our existing capabilities as opposed to adding to the deficit. I look forward to working with my colleagues in conference, through regular order, to ensure a bipartisan agreement can be reached. I urge my colleagues to support the rule and the underlying legislation. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I begin by pointing out to my good friend that, actually, we are doing, in a sense, what he is urging us to do right now. We are moving expeditiously to go to conference with our friends in the Senate, who have passed one version of the Zika response. We will have our version. We will sit down and work out a compromise, and I suspect we will be able to move pretty smartly through this. What we are doing here today is exactly what I know my friend wants us to do, and that is to move and respond. I also point out--and it gets lost in the rhetoric sometimes around this issue--that there is not one thing the Federal Government has proposed to do about Zika that it has been unable to do because of a lack of money. The Federal Government has had every cent that it has asked for. Frankly, it was Hal Rogers, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, who solicited Ms. Granger, the chairman of the Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Agencies, and I, as the chair of the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies, to write the administration and tell them to start spending money immediately from the things they had. Then that money would be backfilled as needed during the normal appropriations process. That is exactly what has been done. No measure has failed to be implemented because of a lack of money. There has been no delay in money for the Zika response, and there are substantial efforts to move ahead in this regard. My friend made the point that we sometimes seem to ignore the advice of scientists. That is just simply not true. For Ebola last year, the administration got the response it wanted out of this Congress immediately. Frankly, it has gotten an immediate response out of Zika. I point out to my friend--he may not be aware of this because he is not on the Appropriations Committee--that last year the President of the United States asked for $1 billion for additional research at the National Institutes of Health. We gave him $2 billion. He asked for a certain amount of money--forgive me for not remembering the exact figure--for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We gave him more money than he asked for. This year we will do that again. He has made requests for additional money. We will go beyond what he has requested at both the National Institutes of Health and at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. So in suggesting we are not funding these efforts robustly, the truth is, if you look at the numbers, we are actually spending more money than the President asked for because we think these are national priorities. While we listen to scientists, we also listen to economists. They tell us that running up a national debt willy-nilly is not a very good thing to do. In this case, we have the money and we have the time to deal with this in a thoughtful and prudent way and to advance the efforts without running up the national debt. It is the appropriate way to proceed. I would just ask my friend to think back. When we hear this figure, this is only a third of the response. Somehow my friends on the other side have forgotten that the first third is already done. That was the first $600 million that is being deployed as we speak. This is the next third. Frankly, it reaches not only the balance for the remainder of this fiscal year, but it reaches into next year. This is more money, once we pass this, than the administration has proposed to deploy in this fiscal or even this calendar year. Then, in the normal appropriations process, which is underway right now--the bill will probably be presented sometime in the middle of June to the Appropriations Committee--you will see additional money in both the State and Foreign Operations bill and in the Labor-H bill that is targeted toward Zika. The one difference is it will all have been paid for. I think that is what shocks my friends the most. They would much prefer to save that money so as to spend it someplace else. We think it is a crisis. We have the money. We ought to spend the money right now and take care of Zika. We are going to continue to work with our friends, and I think we will arrive at a good place. My hope is that that measure that we enact at the end is fully paid for. That is what we are trying to achieve here. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Dent), the chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies.

Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.

Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, what is unconscionable is to make charges that are simply untrue, and to suggest that there is money that has not been deployed that would otherwise have been spent is untrue. Everything the administration has wanted to spend, it has been able to spend. Now, we hear a lot of talk about raiding funds. Let's talk about raiding funds. The administration took $500 million out of emergency response money--I believe in December or earlier this year--and redirected that to the global climate fund. That is money that was set aside that could have been used for Zika. Instead, it is in a global climate fund. The administration, in its own budget, took $40 million out of the Ebola fund and directed it into a worthy cause, malaria suppression. So we don't have objection, but the idea that this money isn't used is untrue. Now, when we hear discussions about the Ebola money, that is money that was not to be spent in the next weeks or the next months, but in future years. We don't even know if it is enough or if it is too much. So the idea that using some of it now in an immediate emergency is wrong with the idea and the commitment that that would be replenished later, as needed, is the responsible thing to do. As for NIH funding, in the Zika bill that this House passed, there are $230 million that fully funds the NIH's request for vaccination research for all of next year. So, again, the idea that money is not available and they don't know what to do if we pass this legislation is untrue. So I would just suggest again we look at the real difference here. It has nothing to do with Zika response. It has everything to do with whether or not you want to pay for it when you have the money available or you just want to add another $1.9 billion to the national credit card. It is thinking like that that got us into a situation where we were running $1.4 trillion deficits when my friends were in control on the other side. Where we still have a $450 billion, roughly, deficit for this fiscal year--and it will go up next year--we ought to be doing this in a prudent way. Now, Zika response does not happen in a single day. It is something that will last, frankly, over multiple months and years. The administration's request for $1.9 billion is not for just today. It is for at least a period of 2 years. So they have the money they need right now. The bill provides the next amount of money they need, and we will provide additional money in the course of the appropriations process. I want to assure everybody that nothing will not be done because the money was not available. To date, the administration has been able to do everything it wanted to do. This debate that we are having here today is actually another step in that process. This moves us toward conference. My friends probably look on the Senate bill with more favor than they do the House bill. Fair enough. We will go to conference with the Senate. So the process is underway. It is moving as it should. When the administration asked for emergency funding, they immediately got a response from Chairman Rogers, saying: Spend whatever you need to spend right now. We will back you up. We have made good on that commitment. We are going to continue to make good on that commitment. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, there has been a great deal of discussion this morning about the Ebola fund and how it is being used and in what ways it is going to be used. Let me just go back and make a few points to clarify that situation. When Congress acted, it appropriated almost $6 billion for Ebola. That money was to be spent over years. It wasn't really clear whether it was too much or, frankly, not enough. We simply didn't know. Now, the reality is, even after the amounts of money that my friend has talked about that have been shifted from Ebola to deal with Zika, that fund still has over $1.7 billion in it, more than enough to finance all the planned activity not only for this fiscal year, but all of next fiscal year. This is a multiyear fund. When you are in an emergency, it makes sense to take money like that and move it over, particularly with the assurance that that money will be replaced, as needed, in the regular appropriations process. The administration itself is doing the same thing. In its own budget, it proposed taking money out of the Ebola fund and spending it on something else that it thought was more immediate. So the idea that this is somehow unprecedented or different than what the administration is doing is simply not true. Now, the reality is--again, my friends seem to imply or perhaps believe that there is something that hasn't been done to date that the Federal Government wanted to do on Zika. That is not true. They have had the funds to do everything they have wanted to do. They will continue to have the funds to do everything they want to do. So to suggest that somehow they are not being funded is just not the case. Frankly, we have effectively in the Zika bill advance funded money for the NIH to actually begin research and have given them all the money in that bill they asked for for next fiscal year on the vaccine side of this. So we will continue to work the process. We will continue to make sure that the resources are available to fight Zika because we all believe it is a danger. We will continue to do it in a responsible way by using the funds that are available, putting them on an immediate problem, and replenishing accounts as we need to. Again, I remind my friends that that is something the administration itself has been doing not only with Ebola funds, but with other funds, when it has moved emergency response money to the global climate fund. I mean, goodness, that was $500 million that, had it been left there, would have been available right now for Zika for the response in other parts of the world. So it is easy to get lost in the thicket of numbers here and this much from this pot and this much from that pot. The reality is, number one, everything that the Federal Government has wanted to do to date they have had the money to do. Number two, it has been paid for. Number three, we are proposing to continue that, making sure they have all the funds that are needed, as needed, but we pay for them. Number four, we are actually moving the process forward to sit down with the Senate by passing this rule and the underlying legislation and going to conference and actually hammering out a common bill that will be acceptable to all sides. I appreciate the concern. I know it is genuine, quite frankly, but I also know that we are acting and acting effectively to deal with the problem. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. COLE

Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet at 9 a.m. tomorrow.

Mr. COLE

Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I was not present for the following votes; however, if I had been present, I would have voted ``YEA'' on the following bills: H.R. 4889--Kelsey Smith Act H.R. 4167--Kari's Law Act of 2016, as amended H.R. 3998--Securing Access to Networks in Disasters Act, as amended H.R. 2589--To amend the Communications Act of 1934 to require the Federal Communications Commission to publish on its Internet website changes to the rules of the Commission not later than 24 hours after adoption.

Mr. COLE

Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only. General Leave

Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Rules Committee met and reported a rule for consideration of both H.R. 5243, the Zika Response Appropriations Act of 2016, and H.R. 4974, the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2017. The rule provides for consideration of H.R. 5243 under a closed rule with an hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking member of the Committee on Appropriations, along with a motion to recommit. In addition, the rule provides for an open rule for consideration of the MILCON-VA appropriations bill for FY 2017. It also provides for a motion to recommit on the MILCON-VA bill. Finally, Mr. Speaker, the rule includes three budget provisions, which allow for the enforcement of the OCO firewall, allow for Members to deposit savings from their amendments in a spending reduction account, and provides limitations on advance appropriations consistent with the budget resolution. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present H.R. 5243 to the House for its consideration. As I said in the Rules Committee yesterday, the debate over this legislation isn't about whether or not we provide resources for Zika, it is about whether or not we pay for it through our existing resources or just add it to the national debt. I am pleased that we have chosen the former course. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 5243 provides an additional $622.1 million, for a total of over $1.2 billion to fight the Zika outbreak. H.R. 5243 provides additional money to the Centers for Disease Control for mosquito control and programs for prenatal care, delivery, and postpartum care. In addition, we provide the NIH with the resources needed to develop vaccines and diagnostic tests. In addition, as opposed to the President's request, this legislation maintains important oversight restrictions on the use of these funds. Understandably, they must be used solely for Zika. The President's supplemental request, in addition to not being paid for, would allow the so-called emergency funds to be used for almost anything. Importantly, Mr. Speaker, this legislation is fully offset by using leftover, unobligated Ebola funds and the unused Health and Human Services administrative funding. In addition, Mr. Speaker, this legislation reflects the emergency of this situation by making these funds available through the end of this fiscal year. Yesterday, Chairman Rogers told the Rules Committee that a standalone piece of legislation stands the best chance of becoming law. If we were to attach this measure as part of one of the fiscal year 2017 appropriations bills, as the Senate has done, there is no guarantee that it would be enacted swiftly. In my opinion, the best way to ensure its quick enactment is through standalone legislation, like H.R. 5243. In addition to the Zika response appropriations bill, this rule allows for the consideration of the first appropriations bill considered by the House for FY 2017, the MILCON-VA appropriations bill. I am pleased that the House is, once again, going through regular order and considering appropriations bills under an open process. As a member of the Appropriations Committee, I am always proud that we can bring these bills up under an open process where all Members have the opportunity to bring their ideas for an up-or-down vote by the entire House. H.R. 4974 provides $73.5 billion in discretionary funding for the Veterans Administration, a 3-percent increase over FY16. In addition, it includes important oversight and good government provisions, like preventing the closure of Guantanamo Bay, prohibiting bonuses for all VA Senior Executive Service personnel, and increased oversight, like requiring large-scale construction projects to be managed by an outside entity so that mistakes like the Denver VA health facility, now $1 billion over budget, will never be repeated. I am encouraged by the hard work of Chairman Rogers and Ranking Member Lowey for their commitment to regular order and ensuring that the power of the purse is one that this House can continue to exercise. Both the Zika Response Appropriations Act and the FY 2017 MILCON-VA bill demonstrate our commitment to that end. I urge support for the rule and the underlying legislation. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I want to begin by agreeing with my friend in terms of the appropriations process itself. He is right to celebrate the appearance of one of the bills down here under an open rule, just as I am sure my friend is aware, the Committee on Appropriations, under Mr. Rogers' and Mrs. Lowey's able leadership, has actually produced a series of bills ready and lined up. So I have no doubt this is the first of many bills--I would hope all bills--that we eventually see on the floor that every Member has an opportunity to come down here and amend as they see fit. I also want to appreciate what my friend had to say about the VA and military construction bill. I think he is absolutely correct. That is one of our very best subcommittees. Chairman Dent and Congressman Bishop are chair and ranking member. They work together extremely well. While I know my friend has some concerns with specific provisions of that, again, this is a process. As he knows, this is our opening process. We will see what happens. I think at the end of the day, that particular legislation will garner a great deal of bipartisan support, in part because of the very points my good friend made in talking about the bill. Now let's move to Zika. Here, we obviously have a different point of view. Let me posit some things, Mr. Speaker, that perhaps those watching this debate and discussion aren't aware of. First, $600 million has already been deployed for Zika. That was out of money set aside for both Ebola and other infectious diseases. That money, by the way, totaled over $5 billion originally. There is still close to $3 billion of it left. It was to be spent over several years. So when the President made his request, the initial response from Chairman Rogers was, spend this money now. Don't wait on Congress to act. You have got available resources. The administration eventually agreed with that point of view. So to this point, nothing has been left undone because of money. Everything the Federal Government has wanted to do has been fully funded. And, indeed, in that fund, there is still well over $2 billion, so literally everything it plans to do in the timeframe it plans to do it can be done. So that is $600 million of the $1.9 billion immediately available. This bill would provide another $622 million, which is actually more money than the administration plans to spend in this fiscal year. So they will have more than enough resources. In the bill, there is actually money included for the National Institutes of Health that will not be spent until next year as they work through the process of developing vaccines and diagnostics. So there is more than adequate funding here. Finally, in the remainder of the year, when we get to the Labor-HHS bill and the foreign operations bill, we will put in literally hundreds of millions more money for fiscal year 2017. That $1.9 billion isn't to be used right now. It is to be used over a 2-year period, so you don't need all of it right now. The key difference is not the amount of money. The key difference is, number one, this is offset. My friend is correct about that. It is paid for. Rather than saying we are going to just immediately add an additional $1.9 billion to the national debt, say: Look, we have money set aside; we have got money here we can offset through other unused funds, and we have got money in the regular appropriations process for next year. All of this can and should be paid for. Frankly, it is not like a Hurricane Sandy or a Hurricane Katrina with massive damage, immediate response required. This is actually smaller, more manageable, and these are moneys spent over not a short period of time, but over a couple of years. So this is actually the prudent way to actually move forward on this money. But again, the important thing to know is everything that has needed to be done has been done. There hasn't been anything delayed. Nothing has been set back. Frankly, what Mr. Rogers offers us will actually speed money to the process. The debate, here again, as I said in my opening remarks, isn't about Zika; it is about whether or not you want to pay for the response, and that requires some tough choices to be made. That means other things that aren't emergency might not get as much funding. The administration, like anybody else, if they can have their cake and eat it too, is delighted to do so. The more prudent path is to actually pay for the emergency that you have if you can. If you can't, then you move to something bigger. But in this case, we have the ability to do that, and I think we ought to do it. I would hope our friends work with us on this. We see that this is an emergency. We have provided money immediately. We are moving now, prudently, to provide additional money, more than is needed in the short term and, frankly, as the bills roll out, you will see that there will be additional money yet to come--money that, by the way, was not intended to be spent until next year anyway. So there is no reason to spend it all right now. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Let me begin by thanking my good friend for her wonderful work on that committee. She has had the opportunity to serve on her subcommittee when she was a subcommittee chairman and now to work with her ranking member. There is no better person than Nita Lowey on that committee. However, we are going to disagree a little bit here. First of all, when you say the bill only provides a third, of course, you have already got a third. The first $600 million is the first third. That has already been deployed. It is being spent. This is the next third. The remaining third is money that will be spent--by the way, not this year, but next year--and it will be presented in the normal appropriations bills. I happen to chair one of those committees, the so-called Labor-HHS Subcommittee, the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education. We will have hundreds of millions of dollars in that bill for next year's Zika response. So to suggest that somebody is being shortchanged, the money is just being prudently laid out at an appropriate pace and paid for along the way. That is point number one. Point number two, again, this isn't a debate about the disease. It was this committee and our chairman who immediately responded and said: You have extra money left. Now, by the way, the Ebola money, if you go back and look at the legislation, is Ebola and other infectious diseases. In other words, when Congress appropriated that, they knew they might be appropriating more than was needed for Ebola and there might be other crises to come up. So that money is being used exactly the way it is supposed to be used. The Appropriations Committee has assured that both the CDC and the NIH and the administration that, should additional money be required-- and there is still almost $2 million of Ebola money--and if you need more and you are going to spend it over the next several years, come back and we will sit down and we will work with you and get you the money. So this suggestion that somehow the fight against Ebola has been sidelined or cut short or shortchanged, again, is simply not true. My friends use a lot of rhetoric here, largely to hide the fact that while we have got plenty of available money both set aside in the normal appropriations process and certainly in this bill of Chairman Rogers to pay for things, they just simply want to add it to the national debt. They don't want to use available resources. They don't want to operate within the normal Appropriations Committee, I guess because they want to spend that money someplace else. To suggest that anybody is disingenuous or shortchanging either Zika or Ebola simply doesn't square with reality. It was Congress, after all--a Republican majority in the House and a Democratic majority in the Senate, but, frankly, a genuinely bipartisan effort--that voted the $5 billion-plus for Ebola in the first place. Last year, the President asked for a billion-dollar increase at the National Institutes of Health. We gave him a $2 billion increase. I can't remember the precise number last year, but I do remember we appropriated more for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention than the President requested. So it is not as if these things are not a priority. I think they are a priority on both sides of the aisle. We have proven that by bringing appropriations bills to the floor beyond what the President requested. But we think the prudent thing to do is not just willy-nilly add $1.9 billion worth of debt on the American taxpayer, particularly when the money is at hand to pay for what we need right now and we have an appropriations bill coming up in June where the rest of it can be taken care of and we can actually monitor this thing. On the Ebola crisis, we may well have appropriated more than we needed to. That is why we have the other infectious diseases. In fact, if you look at the administration's budget proposal, they actually were taking $40 million out of this same pot of money to spend on unrelated malaria suppression abroad. I am not quarreling with that--that is fine--but it suggests, again, even the administration thought, ``Well, maybe there is more money than we need in here for Ebola, or we can count on Congress to come back,'' which, by the way, is true if they need more money. This is all about trying to circumvent the appropriations process and trying to add debt when there are sufficient resources available. If there were not, then that would be another matter. I agree with my friends: the response is important. But in this case, because the response is spread out over 2 years, you have plenty of time. And this is a relatively modest amount of money. This isn't like an $80 billion expenditure that we had for Hurricane Sandy. We can do this in a thoughtful and prudent way and avoid the debt that is associated with emergency spending. We want to continue to work with the administration. We have demonstrated in the past that we are willing to fund NIH and CDC above administration-recommended levels. We responded quickly during the Ebola emergency. We think this is the appropriate way to go. The Senate is moving a vehicle, as we all know. At some point, if we pass this--and I think we will--we will sit down with our friends, and we will hammer out a common response. But, again, do remember that nothing is not being done for lack of money. Everything the administration has wanted to do to date, it has had the resources to do. And we will continue to make sure that it does. At the end of the day, we think they ought to be paid for, since we have the ability to do that. And that is what we are trying to accomplish: keep debt off the back of the American taxpayer, if we possibly can. In this case, we can and we should. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by actually agreeing with my friends and, certainly, my good friend from Texas. He is right about the danger that we are dealing with. My friend from Florida is certainly right about the severity of this. I think where they are wrong is the suggestion that nothing has been done; $600 million has been deployed. This bill is actually a response to the very letter that my good friend from Florida read. This does provide the next third of the requested money by the administration. And, frankly, the bill extends this into next year to address the concerns my friend expressed about having a multiyear commitment. The money in here for the National Institutes of Health, which is the lead agency in developing vaccine and diagnostics, is fully funded for what they have asked to be funded for next year. So this actually does that. Now, we will have an additional bill through committee in June where we will provide additional resources for the CDC for next year and whatever other things needed. The total spending here on both sides is about the same. It is being deployed right now. This is a response to some of the concerns. What concerns my friends, I think, is they would just prefer not to pay for it. They would just prefer to add it to the national debt. Well, gosh, that is a great thing to do, but that is probably how we ended up with a deficit of over half a billion dollars for FY 2017 and a national debt of over $19 trillion. If this were something that we couldn't handle any other way--that we only had an emergency--I would agree with my friends. I did that when we had the Sandy relief. There was no other way for something that large. That is not the case here. This is $1.9 billion. Most of that money is coming out of the Labor-HHS bill, which, by the way, spends $163 billion a year. If you can't fund $1.9 billion spaced over 2 years in a bill that provides in that period of time around $320 billion, you are just not trying. This is all about being able to spend someplace else. And, again, not one thing has not been done. Everything that anybody in the Federal Government has wanted to do, they have been able to do. In addition, the Ebola money is not just the Ebola money; it is Ebola and other infectious diseases. That is what it was there for. It was not just meant to be spent only on Ebola. Even after the $600 million, even after the money that is offset in this bill, which is roughly at $350 million, that fund still will have almost $2 billion in it that can deploy any way against infectious diseases that the administration says it needs, and it has the commitment of Appropriations, which has demonstrated again and again that it will do this: If you run short in this area, we will backfill. That is why we have appropriations bills moving now. We can take care of you. But we can do it within the budget limits negotiated with the administration. That is prudent management of the money. So, given the track record here, both in responding on Ebola and putting more money in the NIH and the Centers for Disease Control than the administration expected and now moving quickly to be helpful here, I think we have either a misunderstanding or a manufactured crisis. There is no crisis. There is a real challenge, and money needs to move toward it now. That is exactly what we have done. That is exactly what we are doing in this bill. That is exactly what we will do in the appropriations bills that will be presented in Congress as the appropriations season progresses. With that, I want to reassure my friend that the resources will be there. They have been there thus far. They will continue to be there. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I want to always recognize my good friend from Texas, who is really one of my good friends in this body. But I am not surprised that the Senate bill is twice as much money because it runs for twice the time. This bill runs to September 30th. The Senate bill runs until September 30, 2017, so they are not materially that different. What we have said is we would deal with next year's problem in the appropriations process for this year. Now, again, I know my friend's concern is legitimate. I do. I don't have any doubt about it. But I point out one more time, $600 million has been appropriated or has been made available. This is an additional $600 million. This $1.2 billion for the time of this fiscal year is actually more than the administration had planned to spend in this period. It reaches into next year, but they will have it available for this year if they need it. They have another nearly $2 billion in Ebola/other infectious diseases money, and they have the assurance that additional things are coming. The only difference here is, are you going to pay for it? Or are you just going to add it to the national credit card, another $2 billion, roughly, on the national debt, when you have the resources and the time available to operate within the appropriation system? So this debate, as I have said repeatedly, isn't about Zika. It is about whether you pay to deal with Zika, or whether you would just like to do whatever you want to do and forget about paying for it. Unfortunately, we don't have that luxury indefinitely. So this is a responsible, well-thought-through measure. It is fully paid for. Nobody is short of resources, nobody will be short of resources. The money is available to do whatever the administration wants to do. It is well aware of that fact. And these are additional resources deployed here, with the assurance of other resources that will be deployed during the course of the normal appropriations process. So I fail to see, when the amount of money is essentially the same on both sides over essentially the same period, why we keep going back and acting as if this $600 million is all there is. There is another 600 that has already been spent. There is more coming. It is coming in a regular way. The only thing that upsets my friends on the other side is it is being paid for. I mean, how outrageous: we are actually going to pay for a government activity that is important for us to accomplish, with the assurance that if more is needed, more will be made available. Mr. Speaker, that is the simple difference here, despite all the discussion about the disease, about readiness, is who is willing to pay for what needs to be done and who, frankly, would just prefer to put on it the national credit card. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 736 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. COLE

Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Kentucky for yielding me the time I need. I want to begin my remarks by complimenting our chairman. Quite frankly, I don't know anybody that has spent more time on this issue and devoted more thought to it than Chairman Rogers. He took a codel down to the region. Our first stop was in Peru where we stopped at a Naval research station. It has been there for many decades. Their purpose normally is to look at tropical diseases, which they are doing, but they have now switched their efforts primarily to Zika, just as they should. So we were on top of this early. Then we went to Brazil and, under Chairman Rogers' leadership, we had the opportunity to meet with the Centers for Disease Control's people on the ground and also talk to our colleagues in the Brazilian Government about the appropriate ways to move forward on this that were done thoughtfully and responsibly. What Chairman Rogers has laid before us is essentially a three-part plan that funds all the administration wants to do. The first is the initial $600 million that would not be available had the chairman not directed the administration to immediately use available funds. Now, when we passed money for Ebola, if you go back and look at the legislation, it was not only for Ebola. It was for Ebola and other infectious diseases. Frankly, the money there may well be more than we need for Ebola. But in any case, it is going to be spread over many years. So because the chairman pushed hard on this, we actually have $600 million available immediately, and the message to the administration was to start spending what you need to do now. The second piece of this three-part plan is the bill that is in front of us today. It is over $600 million. As the chairman pointed out, this is two-thirds essentially of what the administration has requested and more than they requested in this fiscal year. Remember, this bill is only for this fiscal year. So the next third will come in the bills that are presented by my subcommittee and by my good friend, Chairman Granger's subcommittee, the Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs. So if you actually look at the total amount provided, it is about what the administration has requested, and it arrives in a timely manner to meet all their needs. The one single critical difference is that what the chairman has provided is fully offset. Now, my very good friend from New York mentioned that, in emergencies, we don't normally offset. The reality is we do offset when we can. She mentioned tornados. Let me give you an example. In 2013, my home community of Moore, Oklahoma, was hit by tornados. There was a question of whether or not there would be money available. There was, in fact, money available. That money was in the FEMA disaster relief fund. There was more than enough money in there that had already been appropriated to use. That is what is true here again today. We have more than enough money in the Ebola funds that we appropriated 2 years ago to actually take care of the initial phase of this action and any other problem that comes up. This is now additional money on top of that. So the wise thing, it seems to me, is to actually use the funds that you have set aside for these purposes. First, $600 million from the Ebola money and infectious diseases. The next would be this. The next tranche of money would be in the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education bill that I am privileged to be chairman of and will bring to this floor in June, and my friend Ms. Granger will also bring forward additional money in her bill to help with the efforts overseas. So the simple fact is this really isn't an argument about Zika. It is an argument about whether you will pay to take care of the needs that we have. We have more than enough funds in what we have already voted, what we will vote for here, and what we will provide next year to actually take care of the problem. The chairman has made an additional commitment that if we need to backfill that money, if we are short for some other infectious disease that none of us can anticipate or for Ebola, we will take care of that during the regular appropriations process. So this is, essentially, I think honestly, a solution in search of a problem. The money is here. We have the money. We are appropriating the money. The administration has not failed to do one thing it wanted to do because of lack of money. The money is available. The real question here is: Are you going to offset that money and make sure that we don't add another $1.9 billion to the national debt by using the money you have got available or are you just going to simply charge it to the national credit card? That is what my friends on the other side--with the best of intentions, I am sure--are actually advocating. Let's just put the country $1.9 billion deeper in debt as opposed to using available resources, appropriating additional resources and offsetting them, and then using the normal appropriations process to go forward. I want to commend the chairman, honestly, for being thoughtful, careful, and prudent with taxpayer dollars. That is what this is all about. If we work together, we can provide all the money that the administration needs without increasing the national debt. If we do what our friends on the other side suggest, we will simply add $1.9 billion more, and at the end of the day, we won't be in any different place than we will be under the chairman's plan. Mr. Speaker, I would recommend that we pass this legislation, build on top of the $600 million we have already provided, and allow Ms. Granger and myself to bring forward to the full Congress the additional funds that they need in the normal appropriations process. Remember, this $1.9 billion isn't needed today. It is needed over a multiyear period. We are providing it over a number of years, and we are doing it without adding to the national debt. It seems to me pretty clear. Actually, both sides have the same aim here. We want to take care of an urgent healthcare problem. The difference is the chairman has presented--first, in the $600 million we have already deployed, and in the $622 million that we will deploy in this bill, and the additional money that will come in the normal appropriations process--everything we need. In some sense, this argument is an argument we don't need to have unless your aim is simply to have $1.9 billion more. I want to thank the chairman for what he has done. I look forward to continuing to work with my friends on the other side of the aisle. At the end of the day, we will have more than enough money. The difference will be we will not have added one cent to the national debt.