The Zika Virus and Gun Safety

Floor Speech

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Ms. PLASKETT. Mr. Speaker, I rise to echo the pleas of the American people, especially those in my own home district of the United States Virgin Islands, in calling for this Congress to pass a Zika funding bill and to pass commonsense gun safety legislation.

It has been more than 6 months since the President submitted a plan to this Congress and almost 3 months since House Democrats took to the floor to call for a vote on commonsense gun safety legislation. Instead of passing these bills, Congress has decided to focus its attention on politically charged investigations into investigations. While this Congress was in its longest recess in 60 years, the number of overall confirmed Zika cases and the number of Americans killed and wounded by gun violence continued to grow.

There have been 4,500 lives lost to gun violence in the time that we have been out in recess. This number, sadly, includes the lives of almost a dozen young men and women in the Virgin Islands, including the lives of two police officers and a firefighter. Additionally, there are now more than 11,000 confirmed cases of Zika in the United States, 243 of those confirmed cases being in the U.S. Virgin Islands, and 14 of those are pregnant women.

The lifetime cost of treating a child with microcephaly is estimated to be more than $10 million for that child--a cost that will only exacerbate the financial woes of this country's and the territories' public health apparatus. The lack of funding for these public health activities will put hundreds of thousands of pregnant women at risk.

Mr. Speaker, I call on this Congress to act quickly and fully fund the President's emergency request to fight the Zika virus as well as to pass lifesaving, commonsense gun safety legislation.

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