The Day

Congress heading out with no Zika, Puerto Rico solutions

Island territory faces default next week

- By ANDREW TAYLOR

Washington — Congress headed out of Washington on Friday, accomplish­ing relatively little in a short work period and missing deadlines on the budget and on helping Puerto Rico with its financial crisis.

It left few clues about how lawmakers, when they return next month, would address must-do items such as finding money to counter the Zika virus and a second, even scarier July 1 deadline for averting a fiscal disaster in cash-strapped Puerto Rico.

Democrats called upon House leaders to modify this spring’s three-weeks-on, oneweek-off legislativ­e schedule to keep working.

“It’s very, very hard to get anything done if you are a drive-by Congress,” said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. “We’re barely here. And these deadlines are coming.” However, Democrats later joined Republican­s in sprinting for the Capitol’s exits.

Over the past month, the Senate finally passed a major energy bill and made progress on providing help for Flint, Mich., which is grappling with a water contaminat­ion crisis from lead pipes. But an effort to revive the moribund process of passing more than $1 trillion worth of annual spending bills ran aground, while talks on a $1 billion-plus measure to fight Zika are looking less promising.

An update on Capitol Hill’s unfinished agenda:

Puerto Rico

Having blown a May 1 deadline to help the economical­ly distressed U.S. territory, lawmakers are now focusing on a July 1 deadline, when around $2 billion in principle and interest payments come due.

Puerto Rico expects multi- ple lawsuits to be filed shortly after Monday’s anticipate­d default. The government is expected to keep operating as usual, but economists warn that its access to capital markets will shut down and that eventually this will curtail public services if a debt- restructur­ing mechanism isn’t approved.

A House bill would create a control board to help manage the island’s $70 billion debt and oversee debt restructur­ing. But the legislatio­n has stalled in the Natural Resources Committee, as some conservati­ves and Democrats have objected to the approach.

Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., has pushed the bill, saying the U. S. may eventually have to bail out the territory if Congress doesn’t act soon.

Utah Rep. Rob Bishop, the Republican chairman of the Natural Resources panel, says he hopes the island’s impending default will create more urgency among his colleagues.

Senators have done even less to aid the territory, saying they will wait to see what happens in the House first.

Zika

President Barack Obama’s $1.9 billion request for emergency funding to combat the Zika virus, known to cause grave birth defects, has elicited a lukewarm response Republican­s controllin­g Congress. Many GOP lawmakers insist plenty of money to cover the Zika costs is left over from the largely successful battle against Ebola.

The White House has already transferre­d almost $600 million in previously appropriat­ed money to the Zika fight and would have little choice but to shift more if Congress remains gridlocked. But the administra­tion says new funding is urgently needed to control the mosquitoes that spread the virus, manufactur­e vaccines once they are developed and produce more accurate testing for Zika.

Congressio­nal GOP leaders seem to realize that they face a political imperative to do something on Zika rather than expose themselves to attacks from Democrats for failing to act.

Senate Republican­s may succeed in attaching a smaller Zika package to an upcoming funding bill, and House Republican­s are considerin­g adding an even smaller measure to a spending bill next month.

“It’s very, very hard to get anything done if you are a drive-by Congress. We’re barely here. And these deadlines are coming.” REP. NANCY PELOSI, D-CALIF.

Budget

Both the House and Senate missed an April 15 deadline for producing a budget blueprint, which was a particular embarrassm­ent for Ryan. He produced four such measures as chairman of the Budget Committee, but conservati­ves have hamstrung his efforts in his first year in the House’s top job.

Ryan made a last-ditch appeal on Friday in a closed-door meeting and may be closer to a resolution among Republican­s when they return to Washington next month.

Meanwhile, the Senate has gone directly to the 12 annual spending bills in hopes of avoiding a yearend omnibus measure. But the very first bill, funding popular energy and water programs, hit a snag when Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., unveiled an amendment to undercut the landmark nuclear deal with Iran, so Democrats mounted a filibuster.

It’s too early to give up, but the imbroglio bodes poorly for a successful round of bills.

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