it is listed on the national register of historic places, part of historic district that runs roughly two blocks by three blocks. visitors who choose to spend this independence day in talkeetna will be treated to a rich hometown experience amid the splendor of one of alaska's most picturesque and interesting places. i'm told the talkeetna centennial celebration will provide the opportunity to enjoy the town as the locals do. i will tell you that i was hoping to make it up to talkeetna. i'm probably not going to be able to do so, but i might be able to make the run from wasilla to attend the moose dropping event at 4:00 in the afternoon. it's an annual tradition at 4th of july where you take a collection of moose droppings and you drop them and you bet on them. so got an interesting mayor, have interesting festivals, but

it is the heart of gold that come from the people in this beautifully picturesque and again amazing place. it's a great honor to celebrate talkeetna's centennial today here in the united states senate. and with that, mr. president, i yield the floor. gram mr. president? the presiding officer: the -- mr. graham: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator south carolina program program i wish i could go. i wish to see that before i die. in three minutes the final game of the championship round of the college world series takes place. coastal carolina is playing the university of arizona. coastal carolina is a very relatively small school in myrtle beach. dustin johnson is a graduate. this baseball team is inspiring. arizona and coastal carolina have had a great to games.

tonight is the rubber match, winner take all. i don't know what's going to happen, if coastal carolina falls short, you've won in every way you can win. it has been the most exciting world series i can remember. south carolina won back to back world championships but coastal carolina, i know everybody in south carolina is very proud. all the fans are very excited. the best pitcher is on the mound tonight. so go and i'm going to go home and watch the baseball game. i want to thank senator whitehouse for letting me say that. mr. whitehouse: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: i'm delighted to let senator graham celebrate an achievement by his home state university. i'm pleased to yield him the time. i'm here as the presiding officer knows now for the 142nd time to urge congress to wake up to the threat of climate change. we are asleep at the wheel in congress heading toward climate catastrophe. of course outside this chamber

there is broad support for responsible climate action from the american people and from every major scientific society, indeed 31 of them just sent us a letter this week reminding us to get off our duff and pay attention to what the science is. virtually every one of our home state universities, our national laboratories, nasa, noaa, and the military national security and intelligence leadership of our country. if they are all wrong, that is a heck of a hoax. frustratingly congress is still fogged in by a decades long purposeful campaign of deliberate misinformation out of the fossil fuel industry and its allies. and since citizens united that misinformation campaign is

backed up by unprecedented special interest political artillery. outside the fossil fuel industry, there is of course broad support for action on climate change across corporate america. leading businesses and executives vocally supported president obama on the paris agreement. many are committed to getting on to a sustainable energy path. more than 150 major american firms signed the american business act on climate pledge. many are pushing their commitment outside of their corporate walls and out through their supply chains. but against these american corporate efforts on climate stand two major forces that claim to represent american business. "the wall street journal" editorial page and the u.s. chamber of commerce.

"the wall street journal" editorial page claims to speak for the business community, small business owners, and industry titans alike, but it is way off base from the business communities' commitment to addressing climate change. its editorial page is constantly wrong about climate change from misstating the science of climate change to misstating the costs versus benefits of climate change to misstating the law when it's carrying the industry's water to oppose civil investigations into whether the industry climate denial scheme amounts to fraud. mr. whitehouse: it's not new. the journal has a well worn playbook for defending polluting industries. look at its commentaries over time on acid rain, on the ozone layer, and of course now on climate change. it is always wrong.

and worse there is a pattern, a formula. deny the science, question the motives of those calling for change, exaggerate the costs of taking action, and above all, above all protect the polluting industry. i've said all this before but now there's a study that quantifies it. climate nexus recent analysis of the wall street adjournal's editorial page shows and i quote -- "a consistent pattern that overwhelmingly ignores the science, champions doubt and denial of both the science and effectiveness of action, and leaves readers misinformed about the consensus of science and of the risks of the threat." the analysis finds that the opinion section has and i quote

again "done its readers a disservice by consently ignoring or ridiculing the science consensus on the reality and urgency of climate change." the editorial page's bias which is out off sync with virtually every single major scientific body and i quote the report again, "cannot help but hinder its readers' ability to make accurate assessments of the risk climate change poses to their businesses." specifically the climate nexus analysis found that of 201 editorials relating to climate science or policy dating back to 1997, 201 editorials dating back to 1987, not one explicitly acknowledges that fossil fuels cause climate change. of the 279 op eds pub -- op eds

published since 1995, 40 represent -- a paltry 14%. and of 122 columns published since 1997, just four accept as fact that fossil fuels cause climate change or endorse a policy to reduce emissions. out of 122 columns, four. it is laughable. between april 2015 and may 2016 when global heat records were falling with regularity, the journal published 100 climate-related op eds, columns and editorials. only four op-eds provided information reflecting main stream climate science. 96 pieces in the journal's

opinion section failed to acknowledge the link between human activity and climate change. even exxon-mobil and charles koch admit that link. last january, for example, the page called recent extreme weather -- quote -- business as usual while clinging to the bogus hiatus argument that global temperature increases had halted. the climate nexus report illuminates a series of advertisements which have been placed where? on "the wall street journal" editorial page calling attention to this per post rouse -- preposterous bias. the first one reads "exon's c.e.o. says fossil fuels are raising temperatures and sea levels. why won't "the wall street

journal"?" the copy below goes on to say exxon-mobil has called for a carbon price and they have. the c.e.o.'s of b.p., shell, total, state oil, b.g. group and e.n.i. called climate change -- quote -- a critical challenge for our world and also called for a price on carbon. it is time for the editorial board of "wall street journal" to become part of the solution on climate change. the next one says "carbon dioxide traps heat on earth." and it goes on to say this isn't controversial. the head of exxon-mobil and most major oil companies agree along with every scientific academy in the world. again a fact. the next one, "the ergd is

warmed. and we did it." it goes on to say, we've known for more than a century that adding more heat trapping carbon dioxide to the atmosphere from fossil fuels will warm the planet. we have known that. we've known that since abraham lincoln was president. so it's not surprising that the planet keeps getting warmer although you may not have seen this fact on this page. and of course despite what you may have heard, there has been no pause. all of that is solid, clear science. the next ad that followed that, what goes up doesn't come down. co2 emissions stay in the atmosphere for centuries and do one other thing that this advertisement mentions as well. the co2 emissions when they're in the atmosphere above the oceans react chemically with the oceans. this is a reaction that you can replicate in a high school

chemistry lab. this is not debatable, negotiationable science. this is known, established science. and what it says is oceans are acidifying as a result. and they are. we measure that, and we're measuring the fastest increase in acidification in the ocean in 50 million years. the one that followed that, your assets are at risk. beware the carbon bubble. if you thought the housing bubble and crash of 2008 were bad, consider the carbon bubble, a ticking time bomb for fossil fuel company investors. and that is why so many conservative economists want to put a price on carbon, to speed the clean energy transition while allowing the markets to cushion and adjust. and of course that is true. every single conservative or

republican who has fought the climate change problem through to the solution has come to the same solution which is a revenue neutral price on carbon. and here we go, their most recent ad, the free market solution to climate change. the c.e.o.'s of giant, exxon, b.p., state oil, total, e.n.i., b.g. group have all called for carbon pricing. who have the leaders of many countries around the world. and indeed one "wall street journal" columnist quoted here, holmon jenkins calls a revenue neutral carbon tax our first best policy rewarding innovations by which humans would satisfy their energy needs while releasing less carbon into the atmosphere. so those are the advertisements that have been put on "the wall street journal" editorial page. unfortunately, it takes people paying for space on "the wall street journal" editorial page to get the truth about climate

change told on "the wall street journal" editorial page. these are straightforward, broadly accepted statements of the science of climate change. so if "the wall street journal" editorial page isn't acknowledging the views of cra den naturalled -- credentialed experts, who is it representing? back to the climate nexus report and i quote, "the wall street journal" consistently highlights voices of those with vested interests in fossil fuels presenting only the dismissive side of the climate discussion. that undermines a reader's ability to effect i'll valuate climate risk, objectively assess potential solutions, and balance the two. the report calls the short shrift given to climate change -- quote -- "a failure of journalistic responsibility."

look at its commentary on acid rain, on ozone layer and climate change. always the same. always wrong. you haveto wonder what service l street journal" editorial page is providing to its readership since its record seems to rule out truth or balance or factuality. maybe the short answer is that the service that the "wall street journal" editorial page is providing isn't a service to its readership. let's turn to the other miss cree and the -- miscreant. you might wonder as well what service the u.s. chamber of commerce provides to its members who have responsible climate change policies. the u.s. chamber is the largest lobbying organization in the country, and its ou -- and its power in congress is fully

dedicated to stopping any serious climate legislation. everybody here sees the chamber's hostility to climate legislation everywhere. my and senator warren's offices recently took a look at the lobbying positions of the u.s. chamber of commerce compared with the positions of its own board members, with senators boxer, sanders, brown, merkley, blumenthal and markey, we release add report on our findings. not one -- not one of the 108 chamber board members we contacted would endorse the u.s. chamber's lobbying on climate change -- not one. our investigation found roughly half of the companies represented on the chamber's board actually have strong pro-climate action positions, which contrast sharply with the chamber's lobbying activities.

we also found the chamber's decision making about these policies to be awfully murky. the chamber describes its board as its -- quote -- "principal governing and policy-making body" but not one chamber board member asserted that they were fully aware of and able to provide their input and views to the chamber regarding its actions on climate. there was no sign of a board vote or any formal input. one company indicated that it -- quote -- "was not advised of any campaigns" and was not aware of any processes to lobbying against climate action by the chamber of commerce. another company reported that -- and i quote -- "the issues raised have not been discussed during the short time it has been a member of the organization." the chamber has aggressively lobbied for climate policies

that are directly at odds with science: public health, public opinion, and, with the results of this recent research, it turns out with most of its own board members. so again the question comes, whom are they serving? the center for responsive politics, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research group that tracks money spent on elections and lobbying found that in 2015 alone the chamber spent roughly $85 million on lobbying efforts. that is more than twice the amount spent by the second-highest lobbying spending organization. think for a moment of the progress that we could make here if the chamber's lobbying muscle actually aligned with the

positions of the businesses that the u.s. chamber of commerce purports to represent. but we don't see that. instead, we see the bullying menace of the fossil fuel industry holding sway in these halls. it appears to have captured the chamber. it appears to control "the wall street journal" editorial page. and, on the other side, there is virtually zero corporate lobbying effort for a good bipartisan climate bill. so the result here is not surprising. indeed, it's quite predictable when all the art tillry is on one side of a fight. all the artillery on the side of the fossil fuel industry. and the result is that members of congress who know better are afraid to act.

too many good companies, mr. president, are awol on climate change in congress. too many have farmed out their lobbying to groups like the chamber of commerce that actually oppose their corporate climate policies. and too many won't speak up or answer back when "the wall street journal" editorial page purports to speak for them but emits only polluter nonsense. well, mr. president, duty calls. duty matters. it is time for private-sector leaders to step up and tell congress that those twin appendages of the fossil fuel industry do not represent chanorate america on climate . there is a change that could not come too soon. mr. president, i yield the floor.

and i'd note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

a senator: mr. president, i rise -- the presiding officer: the senate is in a quorum call. a senator: i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. a senator: mr. president, i rise tonight to talk about an issue that is facing every single state represented in this chamber. mr. portman: every community in america. we talked this week about the potential zika epidemic. we have talked about the need for us to address that. i agree. but there's another epidemic that is already here. and that is this issue of prescription drugs and heroin, the addiction that follows, the overdoses that are too often occurring in our communities, the people who are losing their lives. and beyond the overdose deaths, the people who are casualties of this addiction who have seen their families be broken apart because of the addiction and

because the drug becomes everything, unable to go to work. we've seen the devastation in our communities in terms of the crime and the violence connected with the drug trade. and we have seen, unfortunately, babies increasingly being born with addiction in every neonatal unit in america now there are these babies. certainly there are in my home state in ohio in every one of our hospitals, a 76% increase in the state of ohio in the last dozen years. it's gotten to the point where deaths from overdoses from heroin and prescription drugs, opioids, now exceeds deaths by auto accidents, the number-one cause of accidental death in my home state of ohio. based on the latest data i've seen, i believe that is true for our entire country. ohio has been particularly hard hit. we're probably the top five in the country based on the data i've seen, probably number one in the country based on a

particular type of overdose from a synthetic drug called fentanyl. it is devastated, 1289 -- 129 people die every day from these overdoses. this is why this senate over the last three years worked hard to pull together legislation that addresses this issue which specifically says let's figure out smarter and better ways to have better education and prevention, treatment and recovery to help our law enforcement be able to deal with this problem. we worked with 130 groups around the country all of whom have now endorsed the legislation we spent three years putting together. we had five conferences here in washington bringing experts in from around the country. we didn't do it in a bipartisan way. we did it in a nonpartisan way. in other words, we didn't care who had the idea. democrat, republican, independent. it didn't matter. what mattered was whether it was a good idea and whether it would help to address this growing epidemic we're facing in our states around the country.

that legislation passed the united states senate. it was on the floor for about two and a half weeks. there was a long debate, but at the end of that debate, after people became familiar with this issue, some of whom already were very familiar, some of who frankly were not in this chamber but they would go home talking about this legislation. they were learning about it their communities, in the schools, in the firehouses. they came back after two and a half weeks of debate and the vote for this legislation called the comprehensive addiction and recovery act, otherwise known as cara, was not close. it was 94-1. that never happens around this place. it happened again because we took our time. we did it right. we focused on evidence-based treatment and recovery and prevention, stuff that actually works to improve what we're doing. it was responsible. but also because it's such a big issue in every state, every

community. 110 days passed since the senate passed cara. by the way i said earlier 129 people are dying on average every day. this means in the 110 days since the senate passed the legislation over 13,000 of our fellow americans have succombed, have died from an overdose of opioids. think about that. think of those numbers. so why isn't it done yet? it's not done yet because the house needed to move its own process. i totally understand that. you should know that the house was part of the process for the last three years. we made this not just bipartisan but bicameral. both the house and the senate were involved. we had about 130 is cosponsors of the cara legislation in the house. but the house wanted to do its own process, and they did, and they came up with 18 separate bills rather than one more comprehensive bill. we're now in the process of putting those together. 18 bills from the house and 1 bill from the senate. the conference committee has

been named. today i'm happy to announce that the conference is actually going to meet on wednesday next week and they're going to vote on the final product which having talked to a number of members of the conference committee today and over the past several weeks, i think is going to be a very positive product. it's going to be very similar to the senate bill in terms of being comprehensive but picks up a number of good items the house had. one i like in particular was raising the cap on how many people can be treated by suboxone, one of the ways to have medication assisted treatment in a particular treatment center. that's a good change. we do believe that the provisions that we included in cara over here are necessary because it's comprehensive. it does include prevention and education. we think some of our prevention programs are not in the house are necessary. we think on the treatment and recovery side in particular, especially on the recovery side there are some things that need to be added.

i get very good reports as to the progress of that conference, and i believe it will be something that i cannot only support but enthusiastically support if they can stick to the blueprint that they've worked on. again that vote will be next week. that's a good, positive sign. this is the 11th time i've come to the floor of the united states senate to urge them to act. we have been in session for 11 weeks since the bill passed. every single week i've come to the floor to talk about this and i have the best report yet in the sense that we are moving forward. this week i sent a letter along with my colleague, senator whitehouse, senator klobuchar, senator ayotte. this letter went to the conference committee to insist that the legislation be in fact comprehensive. again, i believe that from what i'm hearing it will be. the prevention grants, the national opioid addiction awareness campaign, law enforcement task forces, education grants to educate those behind bars, other great ideas, again, that came from both sides of the aisle, should

be included. i must say tonight, though, i'm hearing some other troubling reports, and these have now become public so i'm going to talk about them. one is that although the senate passed this bill 94-1, but although this is an emergency and an epidemic in our communities, 130 antidrug groups from across the country have endorsed this legislation, everybody's together, we've worked hard to make it inclusive, again, 13,000 americans have died of overdoses since this legislation passed the senate. despite all that, there are press reports that at the white house they are encouraging us to delay. delay. i hope it's not true. but here's the press report that i will tell you about. national public radio talks about a white house meeting with some democratic members of congress about potentially stalling cara. one white house legislative aide is quoted as saying -- quote -- "we need to slow down the

conference so that the white house can bring it back to the american people. we need help in slowing it down." the petes went on to say -- the piece went on to say democratic members of congress were asked to come to this meeting and they were eager to help to slow it down. slow it down? are you kidding? slow it down? we should have sped it up. and we certainly can't stop now. the senate's only in session for two more weeks and then it goes out of session for the conventions and for the august recess. we should have already done it. let's not slow it down. let's speed it up. i will tell you something else that i learned today which i found amazing. again, i hope that the way i'm looking at it or the way i'm reading about it, it's not accurate. but i heard today that the drug czar for the united states of america, michael botticelli, who has testified in favor of this

legislation, he came to three of our five conferences and testified in favor of it and we took his ideas and his input which were very helpful. he came to the hearing in the judiciary committee, and in response tpo a question from senator whitehouse, a leading democrat on that committee, and my coauthor of this legislation, mr. botticelli said he thought this was a good bill, it was important to be comprehensive. he also went to new hampshire for a hearing and said he supported the legislation in front of senator shaheen and senator ayotte. he was supposed to come to ohio but at the last minute decided that he could not attend our hearing in ohio. i'm told yesterday he held a press briefing with ohio reporters. i've been trying to reach him today unsuccessfully but apparently he thought it was necessary to go to ohio reporters to talk about this issue. among those on the call, by the

way, was at least one democratic local official. maybe a few. i'm not sure because i wasn't told about the call to ohio. i'm from ohio. i'm the coauthor of the bill. in that call, he said things that led the reporters to believe that he thought cara did not go far enough, that it wasn't the appropriate response to this epidemic. now, look, i understand there is an election every two years here in america, and that's fine. but i have known every single drug czar since the first one, bill bennett. all of them. i have worked with every single one of them. many remain close friends. general mccaffrey was the drug czar for bill clinton when i offered a few pieces of legislation for him. the drug for immediate campaign legislation, the drug free work act, the drug free communities program which has generated over $1.3 billion of federal funds,

matching funds, helped spawn more than 2,000 community coalitions including a community coalition in phao*eu hometown that i founded over 20 years ago. i've been at this a long time in terms of addressing this issue of drug addiction and drug abuse. and i've worked with every single one of the drug czars. i've never seen them be partisan. ever. so i'm very disappointed to hear these press reports about the white house wanting to delay. i'm now of course very disappointed to hear that the drug czar is out there saying negative things about the cara legislation when he in fact was part of putting it together. and he in fact testified in favor of it. i don't understand that. i don't get it. let's put politics aside and actually get something done here. perhaps some of those parents

who tell me about having lost a son or daughter need to talk to some other members of the congress and of the administration who think this is somehow a political game. this is about saving lives. it's about saving people from ruining their lives. it's about helping people to be able to achieve their god-given purpose. our legislation is incredibly important. i mentioned some of the specifics of it. it does have grant programs. we know work, evidence-based programs, medication treatment that works better. we know there's a lot of relapses. we're trying to get the money into things that actually work. but it's bigger than that. it's about changing our attitude, about this issue here in the united states senate, in the united states house of representatives. i would think that anybody who follows this closely, certainly someone who is head of the office of national drug control policy, would get that. it begins to treat addiction

like a disease that needs to be treated just like other diseases. that alone, even if we didn't have $100 million in new funding in here, even if we didn't have all these new specific grant programs for these we know work like veterans courts and drug courts, and like all the recovery grant money that goes out including to high schools and colleges for recovery groups that work, it would be significant just because it establishes this new approach saying that addiction is not a moral failure. addiction is a disease. and through this we hope to wipe away the stigma so people do come forward and get treatment, so families who won't talk about the disease feel comfortable in saying you know what? you've got a problem, we're going to support you. we're going to get you into treatment so you can pull your life together, pull your family back together, and so we can

pull our communities back together. that's what this legislation is about. this is an authorization bill. it's not a spending bill. everybody knows that who follows this process. so pearptsly the denier that's been raised is there's not enough additional appropriated money in here. this is not an appropriations bill. by the way, the appropriations committee at the urging of those of us who coauthored this legislation have increased the funding substantially this year and they have made a commitment in the subcommittee and in the full committee to have a 93% increase in funding for this next year. as i said, this authorizes about $100 million more every year going forward in our legislation as well. but frankly the appropriations ought to be greater than that, i think. this is an emergency. but we're going down the right track there with these appropriations commitments that have been made. we need to be sure we have that

commitment all the way to the final spending bills that year because we do need to have adequate funding, particularly to make sure everybody who wants treatment can get it. i had a tele-town hall meeting this week where 25,000 people are on the call at any one time. it is a big, big group of people. and, as usual, people talked about terrorism, they talked about jobs and the economy, but three different people called in on this drug abuse issue. two of them were recovering addicts. one was a parent. and they talked about the importance of the legislation, the importance of treatment, the importance of us to deal with this issue. they talked about the fact that this knows no zip code. it is not an inner city problem. it is not a suburban problem. it is not a rural problem. it is everywhere. i spoke to a woman named leigh. she told me she is now in recovery. he she told me most of the

prisoners are also drug i.r.s. we talked about the fact that in this legislation we have grants that can go to prisoners to deal with this substance abuse issue in prison so when people get out, they have the treatment to be automobile to get their lives back together and get out of the revolving door where most of the half of the people who get out are right back in within a few years. i talked to a man named john from grove city. he told me he lost his son. -- on june 1. just a few weeks ago to an overdose of heroin laced with sympathetic drugs. -- synthetic drugs. i expressed my condolences and thanked him for calling. he was very plain-spoken. he said, my son was addicted to heroin for five years. it meant more to him than his

family. it meant more to him than anything. end quote. unfortunately, there are fathers and mothers all over the state of ohio who are experiencing what john had to experience with his son. he wants us to pass this legislation because he thinks it's going to help, and it will. i think those who are addicted, those families who are being affected by this, have been very patient. they're looking for more help from washington, and they deserve it. washington is noting about to solve this problem. it's going to be solved in our communities and in our families and in our hearts. but washington can help and be a better partner, take the existing funds that we're sphendzing and -- spend and spend them more wisely to actually affect the number of people who get addicted in the first place through better prevention and through better education and then for those who are addicted, better treatment and recovery to let them get back on their feet. washington can help.

that's what this legislation does. it's making washington a better partner with state and local government and the nonprofits who are in the trenches doing the hard work every day. mr. president, i hope that these reports i'm hearing about delay and these tactics that are being used unbelievably by the administration to somehow make it appear as though this legislation isn't what they said it was back when they helped put it together and when they testified in favor of it, i hope that that's scrus a distraction. -- just a distraction. and that people understand the significance of getting this done. getting it done now. it's already past time. we can't wait. again, people have been patient. it's now time for the united states congress to face this issue, to address this through legislation that went through here with a 94-1 vote, to send

it to the president for his signature and for importantly to send it to our communities around our country to begin to help turn the tide. save lives and bring back hope. thank you, mr. president. i yield back. mr. sasse: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from nebraska. mr. sasse: mr. president, i rise today to express my concern about troubling new developments in russia. russia's parliament, the federal assembly, has just approved so-called antiterrorism legislation that actually criminalizes free speech and that attacks religious liberty. if president putin signs this

legislation into law in the coming weeks, it will be illegal for christians to share their faith outside of a church building, as if faith is constrained by the four walls of the structure or belief by a single day of the week on the calendar. in some ways, sadly, this isn't a surprise. there's a lot that's wrong with russia. we are witnessing a rising authoritarianism in a declining state -- a rising authoritarianism in a declining state. moscow repeatedly and routinely tramples the rights of the press, tramples on free speech, on asystemmably, on dissent, on national sovereignty. ask the families of murdered journalists, ask the student groups facing intimidation, ask the political dissidents who fear imprisonment, ask the ukrainian people who fear being fully overrun.

why is this happening? because putin and his cronies think that they can make russia great again by hoarding wealth, by abusing power, and by crushing any and all dissent and opposition. they strike the pose of a strongman, but this is not real strength. true strength is rooted in virtue, selflessness and sacrifice on behalf of the weak and the oppressed. mr. putin is driven by cheap imation and intimidation, more acountry to bullying -- more akin to bullying, advice masquerading as virtue. we know that russia's offenses are many and egregious. at the same time, americans well understand that it is not our national calling, nor is it within our power, to attempt to right every wrong in a broken world. but we should be clear about what is happening, as well as the fact that there is no easy fix here. it is naive to hope that russia can be reformed with a reset

button or with promises of future flexibility. instead, we need to begin telling the truth about an increasingly aggressive actor on the global stage. again, let me be explicit. the u.s. does not have a solemn obligation to try to make the entire world free, but we absolutely do have an obligation to speak on behalf of those who are made speechless. in the dark corners of this globe. this russian law would be an affront to free people everywhere, at home and abroad, who believe that the rights of conscience, the rights of free speech, and the freedom of religion and the freedom of assembly are pre-political. these freedoms do not ebb and flow with history. these freedoms do not rise and fall with the political fortunes of a des spat. d. despot. governments do not give us these rights and cannot take them awawvment these rights of free speech, freedom of religion, and

freedom of assembly belong to every man, woman, and child because all of us can image bearers of our creator. i am speaking tonight because this new russian legislation is emblamematic of a glowing, destructive nationalism and of a thirst for power that cannot be ignored. putin has a desire to squeeze down on civil society, on other venues for discussion and debate, and on other institutions outside of politics where human dignity can and should be expressed. he does this and he desires this not because he is strong but because he is weak. we here in this body, without regard to political party and representing all 50 states, must be sober and clear-eyed about russia. we must become more sober and clearer-eyed about their intimidations and about the hostilities and about its dangerous trajectory.

mr. president, we have a duty here to be telling the truth early about where this may be headed. thank you, mr. president.

mr. sasse: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from nebraska. mr. sasse: i have requests for committees to meet during today's session of the approval. they have the apriewflt of the majority and minority leaders. i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations en bloc: calendar number 463, and 596, 601, 602, 603, 651 with no other executive business in order. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the nominations. the clerk: nominations, federal maritime commission, daniel b.faffey of new york to be a federal maritime

commissioner. rebeak can a f. dye to be a federal maritime commissioner. department of state, mary beth leonard of massachusetts to be representative of the united states of america to the african union. geet a pasi, anne s. casper of nevada to be ambassador to the republic of bu burundi. federal maritime commission, michael a.curry of kentucky to be a federal maritime commissioner. the presiding officer: is is there an objection to proceeding? hearing none, we will now proceed to nominations en bloc. mr. sasse: i know of no further debate on the nominations and ask that the senate vote on the nominations en bloc. the presiding officer: is there further debate on the nominations? if not, all those in favor say aye. all those opposed say no. the ayes appear to have it.

the ayes have it. the nominations is confirmed en bloc. mr. sasse: i ask unanimous consent that the motion to the o reconsider be considered made and laid on the table en bloc, the president being immediately notified of the senate ax and the senate then resume legislative session. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. sasse: i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to executive session for the consideration of calendar number 594606 through 650 and all nominations on the secretary's desk, that the nominations be confirmed en bloc, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate, that no further motions be in order, that any statements related to the nominations be prifnltsed in the the r0rd, the president be immediately notified of the senate's action and the senate then resume legislative session. the presiding officer: is there objection? hearing none, so ordered. mr. sasse: i ask unanimous consent that the senate be in a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. sasse: i understand that there is a bill at the desk and i ask for its first reading.

the presiding officer: the presiding officer: the clerk will read the title of the bill for the first time. the clerk: s. 3110, a bill to provide for reforms of the administration of the outer continental shelf of the united states and so forth and for other purposes. mr. sasse: i ask for a second reading and in order to place the bill on the calendar under the provisions of rule 14 i object to my own request. the presiding officer: objection is heard. the bill will be read for the second time on the next legislative day. mr. sasse: i ask unanimous consent that the senate now proceed to the en bloc consideration of the following senate resolutions which were submitted earlier today, s. res. 515, s. res. 517, s. res. 518, s. res. 519. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection will proceed to the resolutions en bloc. mr. sasse: i ask unanimous consent that the resolutions be agreed to, the preambles be agreed to, and the motions to

reconsider be laid upon the table en bloc. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. sasse: i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of calendar number 517, s. 2829. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: calendar number 517, s. 2829, a bill to amend and enhance certain maritime programs of the department of transportation and for other purposes. the presiding officer: is there objection to proceeding to the measure? without objection so ordered. mr. sasse: i ask consent that the committee-reported substitute be withdrawn, the fischer substitute amendment be agreed to, the bill as amended be read a third time and passed and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. sasse: i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today it adjourn to then convene for pro forma sessions only with no business being conducted on the following dates and times and

following each pro forma session the senate adjourn until the next. friday, july 1 at 9:30 a.m. and tuesday july 5. i further ask when the senate adjourns on tuesday july 5 it convene on wednesday july 6, following the prayer and pledge, the journal of proceedings be approved for date and the time for the leaders be conserved and the senate recess from 12:30 p.m. until 2:15 p.m. to allow for weekly conference meetingings and the senate proceed to executive session under the previous order. following the disposition of the martinotti nomination the pending cloture motions filed during today's session ripen. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. sasse: if there is no further business to come before the senate i ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order. the presiding officer: the senate is adjourned until 9:30 a.m. on friday.

>> the number of children

>> government figures released just-- showed the number of children living in poverty has jumped by 200,000 in one year.n this country is so no ed disgraceful total of 2.9 million children in this country living in poverty don't think the very least he should apologize to them and the parents failed by his government and do something about it so if we reduce the levels of child poverty in this country? >> think of the debt it has gone down since 2001 there are 300,000 fewer people and relative poverty since 2010

looking for excuses about why we're on the referendum frankly he should look somewhere else and talk about job insecurity it might be in my party's interest to setback for heaven's sake spirit the labor leader says quitting would have all the numbers to back him.

the sec deputy director on capitol hill will brief lawmakers on efforts to combat the virus there are many unknowns about the virus and that is why funding is needed for the research. this is just under two hours.

[inaudible conversations] >> good morning the roundtable will come to order. we'll enter into the record we do have a vote at 1032 keep this going to want to give you reach an opportunity of an opening statement. this is the very serious health problem rather than meet for testimonials like to throw open as quickly e as possible then we will get your statements. >> for me what would be most helpful is what should the congress be doing?

to enable us to successfully meet this challenge and help to overcome it if we can walk out of here today in our hearts and minds it is a good day. >> short and sweet i appreciate that. the first witness diaster name had a time still got a wrong. deputy principal director for the cdc prevention and served as a number of capacities and worked internationally with respiratory syndrome. >> people have been following the situation and potentially the bottom line is retried to do everything we can to protect pregnant women one mosquitos i can leave a pregnant woman to deliver a baby with a devastating condition called

microsoft only in that child whenever be able to walk or talk or swallowwort care for themselves and could be ted million dollars cost of they survive in mosquitos season is here cases are increasing in p.r. him more than blood donors had evidence just that week and we know that the mosquitos season is arriving right now we're falling nearly 500 pregnant women in the united states ended the 50 states and territories that have a zika infected pregnancy we need to states to detect and respond and prevent infections and surveillance for the disease, and everything we can to make sure that travelers and their loved ones have the information they need to protect themselves the cdc is very busy with laboratory

response evaluation on the mosquito front and to protect americans. >> as johnson is fifth generation everyone to say how much we appreciate that you are here. >> i am honored to have a chance to represent our company as you mentioned we are the maker of the largest manufacturer of household insecticides and propellant in the world.

>> we have been in this business for more than 60 years after decades we have to help to combat mosquito transmitted diseases around the world including west nile and malaria killing more than 400,000 people in the world every year. and hospitalizes hundreds of thousands of latin america and as you invest millions of dollars into a new malaria campaigns around the world every year we also work with the bill in melinda gates foundation to help develop better tools and more effective ways to combat mosquito transmitted diseases a number of countries. we also operates the largest urban private center in the world in wisconsin so we are

no stranger as a company to mosquito transmitted disease. what makes zika so tragic is that strikes the most believable and if i could wave a magic wand to eliminate this disease i would because we would just as soon not have this business when the story broke in brazil with microsoft's lead restarted to marshal resources for the manufacturing team working 24 severed over several months we also launched full series of educational programs and donated product to those most in need mosquitos season is largely over in brazil but just to dimensional lies what we did be surprised a triple amount of propellant to this last season than we did the prior year.

we have taken some of that same focus am prepared this to the united states factories for the united states beginning running 24/7 in february and our suppliers also greatly increased production we have worked with the epa to has given us permission to import products from argentinian and european factories in case we might need it so we are truly gearing up for the worse case scenario if it comes to that. i hope it never does and i hope mosquitos transmission never makes across our border. our company is committed to donate a million -- a minimum of $50 million of product and other services to help fight against zika off to the cdc foundation and support of the summit

also donations to the international federation of red cross the american red cross and the children's health association of brazil among others and we are prepared to donate more than $15 million if the need is there. we've also set up the web site with the educational resources and tips and videos have people can protect themselves translated into 13 languages reaching more than 69 million people across latin america and the caribbean and we also put all this material onto the internet which is a free download service provided by facebook i am proud of the men and women in our company working so hard to fight the fight with our manufacturing facilities in the united states they're working a lot of long hours to help families in this country if

there is a need. one of the most important ways we can help is with the environmental control before they breed with education and public service announcements and communication to help people understand what they can do to help eliminate the mosquitos threat on mosquito breeding grounds it is important to get to the highest risk cities in the southern united states largely in my mind and urban issue that bites humans almost exclusively in breeds in areas of high population density and the risk of transmission is highest in the big city so getting to those high-risk cities with education programs and communications programs are the most important. in closing i will reiterate

again i am honored to be here all of us at s.c. johnson are happy to help anyway we can. >> thank you dr. johnson for efforts and your generosity. our next witness vice president of practice activity for the american college of obstetrics and gynecologist of the board of directors board certified in obstetrics, why is that in there three times? [laughter] as well as the anatomic pathology. >> it is an honor to be your representing and thanks for the invitation approximately 57,000 ob/gyn responsible for women's health and we see the effects of this virus impacting firsthand as

the council linen and addressing the request that they have we work closely with the cbc to provide information as well as our partner organizations to get the most up-to-date information however the reality is far less known than what we know of the virus impact has said roughly at this point in june a little over 500 and in that have been infected patients are asking question those that are planning to travel or planning a pregnancy are also asking we're trying to provide answers based on limited evidence unfortunately. we do know with the cdc publications that zika virus is in a call so relationship with birth defects another study published sites that is relatively limited evidence but the risk of the infected fetus depending on the timing of the infection can range more than 13% but

to put that into perspective a congenital heart defect what is the most common is 1% so this is 13 times even higher. we do have recommendations how long to wait for women that are contemplating pregnancy that are exposed that they wait eight weeks and it is recommended they wait at least six months of infected because of the limited evidence we have suggests the virus last much longer in the semen than in the bloodstream so there is terms about sexual transmission and what we don't have is if they are infected via sexual transmission risk to the fetus. >> the only guaranteed way to prevent this is contraception to paraphrase from the cdc we don't know how to stop the virus but we

know how to stop pregnancy is crucial to address this issue for pregnant women and those considering pregnancy to avoid exposure were avoiding travel use insect repellents air-conditioning in areas although we know nothing will work perfectly. diagnostic testing is important and there are guidelines as far as what to test and when as far as when exposed to the challenges there is very few labs across the country that have the capability as a testing is very complicated as the king's cross with other viruses. and because of that there are delays over a month the of these results and you can imagine the impact that has for a pregnant woman as well as what she will do with the information when she gets it.

we also recommend serial ultrasounds to look for the impact that is a significant burden on the health care commit - - committee of ultrasound is limited because of radiologists a available to do the scans the we are in regular communication with the cdc to talk about guidance we're working closely with there is a true crisis in p.r. to address the issues they are having we have a number of resources available to spread the word about what we know and we don't. we're definitely trying to learn more about the effects on pregnancy we need resources and prevention strategies as including the of vaccine but also a critically important aspect so again thanks very much it

is an honor to be here. >>. >> as an expert in insect entomology. >> i appreciate the opportunity to be here. in addition to those other things from fort myers florida we have the largest districts the capacity for mosquito control that is almost nothing from a lot of states. >>. >> is on now.

>> the capacity for states to do mosquito control varies across united states some have no programmer infrastructure some have very good infrastructure. states like florida and california and new jersey virginia have state level coordination of mosquito control others have local levels and as i speak states and territories and municipalities are scrambling with their need to implement and shore up their existing capabilities based on the new threat of zika. florida is conducting tabletop exercises as we speak with local health organizations for mosquito control and emergency

management personnel to write scenarios to determine capabilities and state capabilities the governor has provided $26 million of emergency funding in florida specifically to health and mosquito control organizations. new york is implementing a state wide surveillance program with 1,000 different locations to try to detect these mosquitos have identified 14 high-risk counties in developing plans for how to go about combating mosquitos in those counties him p.r. just had a workshop recently which included 47 experts and the outcome of that workshop is they will try to put up the mosquito control program based to the infrastructure

of california or florida where they have a commission it is a five-year plan but initially trying to set up the infrastructure and control efforts on the country wide basis. municipalities are also working to figure out what you do your lens has started to trap and mapped areas of risk creating a public education program community service announcement working with coordinating efforts with code enforcement people to develop plans for responding to control these mosquitos. is a difficult endeavor the cdc calls these the cockroach mosquitos because they're like to live closely associated with people and essentially have to have

have the industrial site to get control so it takes a lot of working and boots on the ground and a lot of resources. one of the big needs across the nation right now is education and training programs especially for those states that don't have existing programs you cannot put up a mosquito infrastructure overnight so the american mosquito control association is working with the cdc on a training contract to develop certification programs nationwide for mosquito control personnel and as well as they train the trainer where we will set up 10 regional locations across united states to provide training to the strainers to share the information we

have some recommendations for funding that needs to be accomplished as senator nelson has the bill called the smash act which is strengthening of mosquito abatement for safety and health the appropriation of $130 million that would go to shore up mosquito control infrastructure costs united states. the states currently get money for epidemiology and laboratory capacity grants some of that stays at cdc some is passed to the states there is $27 million to the itc that increase at $55 million and that is where we were one decade ago after west nile cave in to the united states.

half of the new money would stay at cdc have we recommend distributed to the states to build that laboratory capacity to shore up those capabilities. one big area where we have an incredible need is funding for the registrations of the materials and the development of new materials and with that development is extremely expensive. .

we have a real significant problem right now with potential resistance. the mosquitoes of a very effective genetic mechanism for developing resistance to the most common chemical that is used to control adult mosquitoes. we have only two classes we are using to control these mosquitoes and if they develop significant resistance to one

class and we are limited to only one other class the potential for developing further resistance is there so we need help with the development of future materials. there's also cutting-edge research going on with regard to using genetically modified mosquitoes are using sterile insect technique's and research funding for those types of endeavors is needed so that some of the fears to the public with regard to those types of endeavors can be a laid. >> thank you mr. gale. our fellow wisconsinite dr. david o'connor professor at laboratory medicine at the university with wisconsin madison and chairs the global infectious disease at the primate center. after studying the zika virus dr. o'connor. >> i want to echo what everyone is said about being thrilled to

be here and to add that i'm very surprised to be here because he or go few would have told me we would be talking about zika virus i would have believed you at all because until recently we simply didn't view zika virus is a major threat to human health and to add to what chris said, the key phrase is limited evidence. because it's an understudy virus we simply don't know much about it. there are many assumptions we can make about the virus because it's related to dengue virus but at this point so much for research needs to be done to understand how the virus is transmitted to understand when ender what's circumstances pregnant women are at risk and under what circumstances nonpregnant people are at risk of other researchers guillain barre syndrome and this needs to stretch across multiple types of science.

the reason that we have been able to develop some preliminary understanding of zika virus isn't part in brazil i've been -- hiv issues and group hurts first reports of microcephaly in babies coming out of brazil my colleagues asked if i would be able to assist. assume that the suspicions were narrowed to the zika virus we immediately begin developing experimental systems in collaboration with some of our colleagues from vw medicine who had been looking at the zika virus in columbia. we started this work rack in december and that position to a shovel-ready project to begin studying z-10 laboratory in january and february of this year and fortunately with the support of the national institutes of health or j. and infectious diseases we were able to begin developing a non-primate level for his zika virus. some of the key findings that

have come from that so far our first set in pregnant women the virus is persistent or detectable in the blood for considerably longer than a nonpregnant men and women so typical zika virus infection in a monkey in a person less about a week. the virus gets in the blood and then it goes away. in the nonhuman primates that we have infected three out of four of them had an extended duration of virus in the blood which we hypothesize is due to the fetus being infected and shedding the virus back into the mother's bloodstream. the implication of this is that there may be other effects of fetal infection that go beyond the microcephaly that was described earlier so microcephaly is very vivid and it's very obvious. it's tragic that what we don't know right now is what the spectrum of other zika associated birth defects might include. in fact because many of the

babies or all of the babies in brazil who were born last summer are when you are all that reach those developmental milestones at one, two and five years of age and they could indicate more mild but still significant issues that will need to be addressed as part of the medical management of the zika virus. but the other type of information that we have learned from our preliminary studies is that once you have been infected with the zika virus wants you are going to be immune from being reinfected for some period of time in this goes hand-in-hand with observations from asia where they had explosive outbreaks five to seven years ago but once the virus went through like a waive it didn't come back. it infected a huge number of people very quickly and then it went away and that's probably because the people who got infected initially written to me and from being reinfected. the implications of that with

respect to protection of the u.s. and also central and south america is that we have a number of people who are going to get infected naturally in puerto rico potentially here in the continental u.s. and certainly in central and south america and those people at the given acted now are probably not going to get reinfected. we don't know how long immunity lasts but as i think chris said we are a few years away from having a vaccine city can imagine getting a natural infection with the zika virus now could effectively eyes some time until such time that vaccine is available to boost immunity or revise rod immunity to everyone. there are so many answers -- unanswered questions we don't know the answer to so because the zika virus is spread in the same places as any virus a lot of scientists expected the severe zika virus at murnau these are due to people having previous dengue infections and being reinfected with the go but

with the dengue infection predisposing them to the severe outbreak. we don't know to the reciprocal might be churro. people are infected will eventually receive the sake of vaccine are going to -- there are literally dozens of large types. this is a type that we need to answer them right now any information that we get is uniquely valuable so the study we have been doing so far has been using small numbers of research and less than a dozen or so. in studies of small numbers of patients now are going to provide way new information than studies of hundreds or potentially thousands of patients years from now. because will begin to put the data now as we can begin to add that ineptly wait we won't be

able to do that and let the virus get the upper hand. thank you. >> thank you dr. o'connor. let me start and dr. zahn mentioned we are a couple of years away from a vaccine in your work shows that a vaccine should work though, correct? >> correct. >> what is the stumbling block? we can develop a vaccine quickly with those viruses. is there a vaccine right now for dengue fever by chance? >> there is a vaccine is partially effective for dengue and some mint advanced testing. hiv scientist on my says that to make full predictions about vaccines but in this case there are lots of biological reasons why should be fairly straightforward to make his zika virus vaccine and why such a vaccine should be feasible and should work. some work that came out of dam baruk's group showed the same concepts that they used to

deploy vaccines to other diseases shows effectiveness in my so again we have lots of reasons to think of vaccine is feasible however the vaccine still need to be tested first for safety and small numbers of people and then they need to be tested in small efficacy trials and finally they need to be tested in large efficacy trials. the studies are going to be particularly difficult in pregnant women because it's going to be difficult to want to expose pregnant women to the risk of a vaccine and we also have to guard against unintended consequences. for example if you vaccinate someone for secret you increase their risk for inquiring -- acquiring dengue there will be risk calculations that will need to be made. >> is there anyway to speed up the process? >> i would echo that they are not released tumbling blocks but rather takes time to do the necessary steps in this yield been hearing and i've been preparing to launch a vaccine trial but there's a certain

amount of time that has to elapse. people are working 24/7 to get the trials ready but that's when the reasons the additional resources are needed. >> there's really no way safely to trim that down or is there? >> i think it started being shrunk because the first second and third bay street -- phase three trials, they are trying to impress this and a two to three years so assuming everything works it will take time also to produce a vaccine that is carefully produced for lot to lot consistency. stated in your testimony there are 500 women better pregnant with the zika virus pregnant in their blood. is that correct? >> fit the states for d.c. and u.s. territories as our latest data have 481 women with laboratories proven zika in pregnancy.

there are many thousands in the americas. as you have been hearing from some of these studies we are concerned particularly in first and early second trimester the chances of that problem mike like microcephaly may be substantial only don't know whether babies that are born looking healthy look. >> dr. zahn you are talking about a one to 13% chance of having an adverse affect the somebody infected with the zika virus, your best knowledge right now. >> that's basically what we know now. the. of effective fetuses may be as high as 29%. it's not as well-known some of the risk factors and also the timing pregnancy in one of the concerns is some of the earlier data would suggest this might make sense if you are infected

early in pregnancy and the chance for a development lab and rally might be higher later but i remember correctly the recent case in florida was the woman was infected for 30 weeks. the other concern about this and dave might have information from the primate studies in one of the cases of new england journal there was research in finland by one of the co-authors where they cultured cells in the infected host cells with the virus and they grew in brain cells. the concern was a lot of back. a bit damaged organ damage occurs because of the immune response. in addition to the actual infection. one of the concerns in these initial investigations is that the viruses directly attacking the cell causing damage without necessitating an immune response.

even if the woman is infected late in pregnancy and doesn't have any significant severe adverse outcomes at birth we don't know that irs is still not killing up rain cells is the amp and starts to grow. again as dave pointed out we don't know what's going to happen to them later on. >> again, pardon? what i would suggest as people go and vote and i will go. i've got a lot of questions myself. i'm not quite done with mine yet but so do you want to stick around? >> i have got a conflict on their vote. >> i guess we will start with broth because i will be sticking around the whole time so i will yield to rob. >> i appreciate this issue.

we have a legislative as you know force right now. google get to it in the next couple of days. as a group do you support the legislative initiative that is passed the senate and the house and back to the senate? do you think this will help? >> my concern is i talked to admiral schuchat about is the revocation efforts and there's incredible science that needs to go on here for us to better understand this problem. i understand the need for that in the legislation is so important because it funds the research and mrs. -- research and science necessary but what we do know is eradicating it is important each one of you talked about that. mr. johnson you talked about some of the efforts in latin america for instance and one of

my concerns is what i've heard around around the country subdued the mosquito abatement that is needed and specifically would have the federal capabilities. i happen to come from a higher we have a youngstown reserve station the one fixed-wing in the military. they do it on some job. they did this in texas and louisiana following katrina which was very helpful in terms of reducing the risk of infection. they also do other for vegetation but my question to you all is are you concerned about that also one of your colleagues spoke at a hearing. he said one of the things we think is really important about the zika outbreak is to revitalize the mosquito control efforts. this was what rear admiral stephen. he said the ability of mosquito control some localities have their own enterprises and you

talked about that today little bit. some have hardly any at all. i think it could be a role for the federal air wing location capabilities needed. could you comment on that come his comments and tell me what you want to be doing in the federal response for some these areas that don't have effective mosquito control? >> that's right. mosquito control is critical and i don't think anyone could have made up of viruslike zika a mosquito bite that can cause such devastating health complications and can be sexually-transmitted. we know that mosquito-borne diseases can emerging cause problems. the country's capacity to tackle these diseases is very important. i agree completely with the need at the federal level to have the technical assistance and the ability to supplement what the state and localities can do. much of this is learning what works best because what works best verse because different than what irks best for west

nile and the opportunity to do aerial spraying is important in many control efforts. >> i would certainly agree that there needs to be aerial spray capability in greater extent across the united states. we probably in lake county have some of the best there is but we actually have a fly in every year where people come to her district to aerial spray in the air force participates in out with us. our plan with regard to attacking zika and the mosquitoes involved aerial. if we get to a situation where we have local transmission going on it will involve using aerial assets for both adults and

larvae of these mosquitoes. we have technology that will allow us to do also low-volume spray to need similar to the adult control technique that we can put larvicide into these cryptic habitats that these mosquitoes live in and we can be very successful in controlling these mosquitoes over a wide area with these kinds of assets. it's very expensive and again it's technical issue but that is how we plan on attacking it locally. >> this is an area we can all agree, that there's a need for this kind of mosquito abatement in the federal government has a low -- has a role here. i'm glad you are working with us and i'm concerned they are about to be deployed to the middle east and only have one plane available in one fixed-wing plane available for the united states. we are working with the air force on that but i would appreciate you all giving us your advice so we can make sure

we end up with a fixed-wing operation that is effective to respond should we have a situation of the infections. thank you mr. chairman. >> thank you and i yield to senator tester. >> with me ask a quick question and i would be happy, couple of quick questions. dr. o'connor thank you so much for being here and sharing your insights to the specific question of broader person about the research agenda. you talked about the zika virus remaining in the bloodstream of pregnant women longer than others. is there any correlation that has been discovered at this point to their propensity for later developing key on parade to cuss about longer infection exposure? virus exposure? >> we simply don't know some people there's only one case report that came out earlier

this year from researchers and colleagues in their data from the primates is still very new. one of the studies that's going to need to be done in that i know my colleagues in brazil are doing this and i'm guessing it's done elsewhere is we need to do follow-up of pregnant women where one of the readouts is that we test them multiple times for the presence of the zika virus in nucleic acid for zika. then we assess whether there's a difference in the risk for guillain-barré. >> you spoke in your testimony about how uniquely valuable the research being done now is even if it's on small samples etc.. what would you identify as the major gaps in research right now if you are in a position of -- where would you target most aggressively the research dollars to fill in those knowledge gaps? >> i think that there are a

couple of very. [inaudible] we don't know the extent to which mosquitoes and sexual transmission -- [inaudible] that may or may not have an impact. it may be that there are other types besides those of the party been identified that are also able to harbor or spread the virus. those studies are underway but they are far from being complete. for example in africa it's not the aedes aegypti responsible for spreading the zika so there other types of mosquitoes that are also present in the u.s.. we need to assess their risk so that we can figure out their

risk factors that are most likely to be associated with transmission and sustained spread. bill sitting to understand what the implications are for pregnancy so we can provide better and more informed guidance to pregnant women. in addition to those who have laboratory confirmed infections during pregnancy you have to think that in an area where the zika virus bread is occurring it leads to enormous amounts of anxiety for all pregnant women whether they have zika or whether they don't whether they are at risk or whether they are not in for the women's would have the zika virus during pregnancy we need to come up with ways of assessing the likelihood that they are going to have impacted fetuses whether by measuring the duration of uremia or using a combination of ultrasound and other types of tests that haven't been developed yet. i think that's going to be critically important so it's doing things that can help manage the risk and quantify it

that we need to be focusing a lot of attention on. >> dr. schuchat do you have anything to add to that question in the primary gaps in research? >> i echo the idea that this is a critical time because studies that are carried out right now could really help us guide the response and get critical information to people who are scared for trying to protect themselves and their families. a couple of other areas that i think are quite important. one is the persistence of the virus and different body sites are right in our precondition about sexual transmission are based on very little information about how long the virus can persist. whether it's the pregnancy and the harms of that causes in understanding whether the virus eventually does clear and whether the issue of sexual transmission can have more evidence-based guidelines. another area is the work on diagnostics.

i'm very proud of my cdc laboratory scientist who has developed rapidly a couple of different diagnostic tests and shared them and commercial companies are developing similar once or using hours but what would be better diagnostics so it woman can know i already have zika. this pregnancy will be okay. that is what we have put the rubella, german measles virus. we vaccinated against it for children and we never screened to see whether they had antibodies to rubella and we wouldn't have to worry about it during the pregnancy. it would be great to have that diagnostic test for zika if we don't have such a test and we have to do maneuvering to differentiate the infection that might at then dengue versus the current zika infection. of course the vaccine work is important and one other area is the area of insect repellent. we are very happy that there are products available but there probably is a potential for newer ones to come on line so i

think these bad diseases are a minor of the need for protection in many different areas. >> i wasn't intending to ask it but you brought it up. since s. c. johnson is one of the largest urban entomology privately funded labs are there opportunities for private sector or public sector collaboration in the research you are just describing? >> yes, absolutely and i do want to hoblick we thank s. c. johnson for the extraordinary generosity of their collaboration, collaborations in terms of donations of products and resources and also of expertise. we really appreciate the public either partnerships establishing former land and formally. we really need to be working together. everybody has a role to play in lot of private industry has expertise and channels that we can use in the research community both academic and

commercial. it's a huge resource right now. >> we are always looking for new more effective repellents and we work with universities and we are happy to collaborate with the government in any way we can to do that. >> thank you senator baldwin. let me ask a couple of questions along these lines and if i have to i will recess and senator carper will come back and ask questions. one of your testimony said that lasts about a week in the blood, and the zika virus but we don't know how long it lasts in seaman. is it easy to determine that? what is the difficulty in understanding how long it lasts? >> the study needs to be done so they are in progress but every time you are testing testing ths

is still there coming up to keep looking. you may remember any bullet that we had survivors who have persistent viruses and we have that imitation of a virus present after 15 months and we have an example of a flareup of ebola that we leap occurred 18 months after an individual survived ebola. he was able to spread it to someone else so it's not that many months that we have been tracking zika. >> a kind of surprised me. >> the reason is and i don't mean to interrupt you, the immune system protects the so all of those antibodies that are fighting the virus in your blood don't get into the so the seaman is protected from. >> so we are pretty confident that is free from the bloodstream with about a week.

we are still learning but we are pretty confident of that. do you know how long it's detected in seaman? >> at least two months is what we are saying that the recommendation of six months is we don't have data longer than two months. >> mr. gale talking about registration on different chemicals can you tell me what you are talking about there? >> each material we use has to go through a registration process with the epa. it's a very extensive and thorough testing. >> let me hold you on that. what we would do his will recess and fix the mic of funds at that point in time and i'll come back as soon as possible and senator carper will come back as well. thank you. >> thank you for your leadership

i am not going to ask this question initially but i'm going to ask you to think about it and then we will talk about it. we have been requested by the administration to provide a certain amount of money. some people think that's a reasonable out of money and some people think not. i'm going to come i want to ask you to help us put a on the many demands on the resources that you all have been talking about. the question i asked earlier, i hope to walk out of here with a greater sense of urgency in what we should do. i have some idea what states you will be doing it and certainly our state that wants to talk about what we should do is a federal government of the congress and the legislative legislative branch per in what should we be doing? >> can do everything and we all

share a sense of responsibility. admiral schuchat, is that correct? schuchat. >> we do think this is an emergency that has devastating potential complications that are permanent and we have recognized that it's very challenging to respond to an emergency but the timeline that's rather delayed so we are working very hard with the states, with puerto rico and the clinical community and the research community to try to prevent, detect and respond. >> let me interrupt. we have had a growing debate in the congress for months now on whether the senate should take up a hearing on the presence nomination for the supreme court and our site keeps saying we should -- with respect to judicial nominations. what is our job, what is our job in the congress and the senate?

what should we be doing? >> that's what i'm asking. snap we do believe responding to the request for emergency funding is critical and that would be an answer. and just one comment is that there has been a lot of discussion about ebola and i just want to make sure that people know that our perspective on ebola is that assad over and we still have about 75 cdc staff in west africa and their counterparts in west africa are working everyday to keep ebola from flaring up again because of the thousands of survivors every time there's a new case. there's enormous response is needed so we are nervous about the idea of making sure we can continue to fight ebola and keep americans safe while dealing with this terrible new virus threat in the americas. >> dr. jackson. >> i'd like to abdicate that the government help with consumer

communication and education programs. there is a lot of misperception out there about what's zika is. there was a recent poll that was conducted. 30% of that survey thought zika was a conspiracy. i think in terms of environmental control the public can really help. standing water is a breeding ground for mosquitoes. the education and the public service, communication programs in argentina on dengue for example. there is a lot that the public can do to help control mosquitoes in their area. it goes beyond aerial spraying. it's got to be multipronged integrated approach and i think the government could go a long way from communication and education standpoint. we would be happy to help up his it's kind of our cup of tea. >> thank you.

doctors o'connor. >> speaking from a clinician cited think the research aspect is critical to assist the cdc as well as researchers like dave and others around the country in order to do the surveillance as well as the clinical research needed to identify what the immune response is and what we can do to prevent it and what we can do to treated. the vaccine trials are critical as well. from an organizational organizational perspective we need that kind of information so we can better educate our providers and their patients. we are giving providers information based unlimited evidence and that makes it more more -- advise patients on what to do and the recommendations for how long they should wait for detecting pregnancy is based on very little data. we don't know that that's a deal timeframe. the research pieces critical to affect the clinical side. >> thank you. commander gale.

>> is a mentioned previously in my opening statement i did mention that we need support for h.r. bill 897 the senate bill 1500 which is the sensible environment of protection act which releases the mosquito control of the requirement of having permits under the clean water act to apply pesticides to waters of the united states. to duplicate it and unnecessary requirement that puts mosquito control districts at risk of significant lawsuits. >> i support the senate version. even choirs need to be preached to. >> ican i mentioned the existing legislation that needs to be supported the smash out for $130 million. the increase to cdc epidemiological capacity grants

and assistance with the registration reregistration process or pesticides used for public health. >> thank you. doctors o'connor and make sure your microphone is on. >> i think there are a few lessons. rather than get drawn into what the dollar value should be a wanted struck i think it's most important that work began now in earnest because what has happened is a small number of fortunate labs like mine have gotten supplemental funding from the federal government but on the research side most labs who are doing the work are doing so with diverted funds from other projects because the m. i h. awards rants over two to five-year period, they don't have a lot of money to redirect to zika research. if you look at the manuscript

that you published yesterday talked about earlier was written from the perspective of someone who studied hiv for a long time. the perspective the narrow biologist and people who bring different sources of expertise. history has taught us especially with hiv that if we wait even a year or two we let the virus get an upper hand is going to cost much much more later on to deal with the consequences. secondly i think we need to knowledge there's not going to be any one-size-fits-all approach that's going to work for either prevention or mosquito abatement are dealing with the consequence of zika virus infections that we need to make sure that there is a plan in place to support multi- disciplinary work in a way that is still coordinated. finally i think it's important to underscore what was said earlier with respect to ebola which is the zika response to my opinion needs to be considered as part of an integrated response to emerging infectious

disease threats. two years ago it may have been ebola. this year it is zika in a few years from now to be something else. as dr. friedan suggested a few weeks ago having something like a public health emergency management agency makes a lot of sense so in a situation might does rather than having to deal with it in isolation and pits zika virus against the ebola virus control there are people who can make these decisions quickly and allocate funds before a new situation becomes a crisis. >> thank you all and i yield to senator -- but before you do one of you mentioned the cost of raising a child with microcephaly and i think someone mentioned as much as $10 million per child. and i did some quick math, there are 1000 children that are born

and survive microcephaly at $10 million per child that's $10 billion that's a lot of money. senator langford. >> in 1947 if i remember the day curt read-ins is when zika was discovered and identified as what it is. what has changed now from the 1940s when we first discovered it is the frequency, is that the numbers of the movement? what is that change right now and why is there so much attention focused? >> there a couple of to say. one is that the virus, the virus arrival in brazil was in an area of very dense human population and very dense mosquito population. that probably allowed explosive transmission of the virus that

was mosquito-borne for decades. it's also possible that in sparsely populated areas in africa or some of the asian islands, there was zika related earth effects that were not recognize because the numbers were fairly small. people have gone back now to french polynesia and recognize that there were consequences of that outbreak that word immediately recognized. the explosive spread in northeastern brazil and what we have seen in colombia and what is happening today in puerto rico probably relates to the virus getting into much more urban densely populated areas where there is less protection for people from the mosquitoes. their other scientists looking at the strains to see if the change. >> let me talk about the mosquito site of this conversation what a pleasant

conversation this is. how is it transmitted through the mosquito? is at the mesquite and as silly as it sounds i have not seen it but it's a mosquito biting someone and now the mosquito is the carrier and transmitting it to another person? is that the straight orders that or is there another way it's transferred to? >> that's basically what happens but it's not immediately. the person has the blood in their virus and the mosquito bites a person and takes up the virus and have to do processing and then subsequently is able to have many blood meals and in fact many of the people. >> the mosquito itself is not caring the virus. the blood from the original person. the virus from the person transfers it to the mosquito itself and then it's also transmitting. i have not seen a lot of public information and this goes back to your comments on information

getting out to the public. they are so many people in public. trying to figure out a couple of things where mosquitoes carrying this and why only certain types so is that the belief that only certain types of mosquitoes can take of that particular virus and carry it? >> the aedes aegypti mosquito is considered the best spec or are for this virus because one of the reasons is a primarily feeds on people so it's biting people getting the virus and biting of the people getting the virus. the other is capable of carrying the virus but not considered a good a factor. you may want to supplement with additional comments wayne. i did want to remember to say one thing. because of this idea that mosquitoes can get the virus by biting people we really want people to know if they are traveling back from an area where the virus is spreading even if they didn't have any symptoms and were not aware of being infected we want people to

use mosquito repellent for three weeks after they return so they won't infect our mosquitoes. >> this zika is what we call a mosquito disease and the intermediate effectors the mosquito as opposed to a disease like west nile virus were actually the primary host our birds or other animals. man is an incidental hosts but we still have to combat those diseases because those mosquitoes can bite me and incidentally. as the admiral said aedes aegypti likes to bite people so that's what makes it an efficient effective these diseases. >> do we know how long basically the host of the person from the time that they are infected with the virus that they can continue to transmit that to the mosquito is that time period then -- span

we are are seeing one to two weeks for the question now is pregnant women based on the model that is described where some women may have the virus in their blood longer than one to two weeks. >> anyone disagree with that? >> what i would add to that though as is there is a spike in the amount of virus in the bloodstream that lasts only a few days and i'll like to have the probability that a mosquito is going to get infected from a mosquito is going to be proportional to the amount of virus. while it's possible a woman who has a low amount of virus in the blood can transfer to mosquito is probably much more likely with a high amount is going to transmit to mosquito but these are studies that need to be completed. that's just an educated yes. >> helping get the timing on this again. the mosquito that has zika bites of individual data what point would you say the virus is spreading? is a several days that it takes

or does it become a risk and they can transmit over? >> i will add just one slight verification. some of these bascue dozer serial biter so they can bite multiple people. if you have a mosquito i would modify that to a mosquito bites us ehrsam or several people and within one day you begin to see the zika virus the bloodstream that it looked tend to peak in concentration somewhere between days to in days five and after that it receives the immuno response brings it under control so during that period from days two to five that is probably going to be the most likely to be transmitted back to the mosquito. >> when do most people know that they have zika? is a day to divide blacks people that do know they have some sort of am less and they are experiencing some sort of symptoms. are they experiencing symptoms day two to five?

i know a lot of people don't be at. >> we think four out of five people don't have the symptoms and the people that do will have symptoms for a two week or so. it's not long condition for most people. >> most people don't know exactly which mosquito bite infected and they don't know that they when they got infected so it's a little fuzzy after how many days after being infected they begin to develop a rash. >> which would explain there is then little to no conversation about quarantining individuals that are known to have zika. basically by the time you get someone quarantines a person could transmitted at that point. is that correct? >> you would be wholly inappropriate to consider quarantines as part of the conversation with the zika virus. >> the other part of that quarantining is not a human-to-human spread so i think warren teaming would likely be ineffective.

>> i will have other questions. >> so let's be clear currently where saying that there is nobody in america but has zika transmitted by the mosquito in a sultry travel? >> in the continental u.s. and hawaii the cases are travel associated or a handful that are sexually-transmitted. >> but there is virtually no doubt that some humans that have zika will be bitten by mosquito in the mosquito becomes infected and will start having those. >> we think it's likely we'll have locally transmitted cases. we don't think it's like the we will have lots of them but we think it's going to be important for state and local health departments to look for them and it's not going to be that easy to find them because they won't be declaring themselves a locally transmitted case. right now the testing testing ae workups of people are getting are usually because they have traveled.

we need to do some work with the states and locals and communities to make sure that we recognize a rash that might be zika. so there is a lot of work to do in the next few weeks. >> currently there are two different mosquito friday secure this preview on this primary but there's another one that's been identified. how many different for righties of mosquitoes are there? >> there over 200 species in the united states. florida has 90 plus in my county has 47 species. we deal usually with 10 or 12 of those species being pressed it for a sore disease-carrying. >> they could continue to grow? where the disparate -- this edition of states that have these mosquitoes? >> our latest map suggests that parts of 30 states may have the aedes aegypti mosquito.

that doesn't mean the whole state has them. that means somebody has found a mosquito in at least one county. one of the things we would like to see is better data on the geographic distribution of the aedes aegypti. that's the kind of thing that health departments and control groups are trying to develop right now. >> let me get back to the question i was asking about the registration of the chemicals we need for pesticides are potentially products like off. you said you needed funding for registration. explain that to me. >> the food quality protection act basically change the way pesticides are registered by the epa. pesticides are registered under fit for a and under the food quality protection act basically in order to ensure that our food supply is protected when pesticides are applied to crops

there is sufficient time and research is done to prevent people from being exposed to pesticides. the research requirements in the data requirements to register any pesticide became very expensive overnight. consequently chemical companies have to make a determination and they have to look at the cost of what is going to cost to generate the data to do the registration and then look at profit margins to see if down the road it's going to be profitable to continue. >> are these chemicals that have been used for quite some time? said the existing chemicals go through a 15 year preregistration process and if you are doing a new chemical you are starting from scratch. the new chemical is more expensive because the existing ones have existing data. when they come up for reregistration they look at existing data to determine does there need to be additional data generated in order to register

a? i will give an example. the met mosquito larva said that we use routinely in my district to manufacture did the calculations and looked at what the data call was for the reregistration and decided it was not economically profitable to reregister the product that we no longer have that product to use. >> senator carper is always looking for something we can do legislatively legislatively. would that be a give an emergency way for? >> i mentioned the food quality protection act recognized the fact public health were at risk by passing these stringent regulations. there was an appropriation to pay for the reregistration registration of pesticides. >> obviously that didn't work. >> the money is never been appropriated and that's what we are asking for. >> would maybe a better approach be using a pesticide for decades

to create a waiver and way of registration of back? you have been using that in the world didn't end. dr. o'connor we have that had chancellor blank who goes along the same area of the cost and the consequences of a collation. the last time or the time before last chancellor blank came in with a study commissioned by research universities and said 42 cents of every -- 42% of the time researcher time on federal grants research projects is spent trying to figure out how to comply with the federal regulations grant. are you seeing, d.c. the results of that and you obviously have gotten important grant research funding for your efforts here. or you seeing that type of bird and? >> is a combination of different

types of predatory compliance. certainly they federal regulatory compliance can be an issue. a recent example is the contract i'm related to the zika virus i've been asked to comply with fisma regulations for data security and data integrity for data that is destined to be made entirely publicly available so we are trying to ensure compliance with data keeping data private when they state of the data is to make it public. there are instances like that but there's a lot of the time that includes making sure that you are doing animal experiments safely and you are compliant if you were doing human subjects research and safety research under the appropriate standards and the appropriate safeguards. there certainly is room for improvement but it cuts across-the-board. a huge amount of our time is spent on administration. the federal regulations aren't the sole contributor to that. >> that would be something maybe

we could work on to reduce that regulatory burdens of the dollars spent or put towards the research and preventing tragedies. you brought it up here in your testimony me talk about sharing information which i would just assume particularly on federal grants projects of that information be widely distributed and easily shared but it's almost groundbreaking that we are tried to make his information widely available so other researchers can manage the good work you have done so you won't have to duplicate efforts. can you speak specifically on what you are talking about there? >> one of the aspects of our work that is mated innovative that from the outset -- alpha and we have made data publicly available on line to researchers and the notion of making data transparent as is being collected is one that's very new to science. >> that why?

>> there is a lot of historical precedent that dates back to how science has been done but then there's also legitimate issues about how credit and precedence established in science as well as how one can take that information and if you were to put something up that is wrong and someone takes action and data that i can have deleterious consequences. some of the last outbreaks we have had beginning in 2009 in a pandemic influenza some researchers who have been working at a decision that making data available more quickly during these public health emergencies outweighs the potential cost so we contend with ebola and we have taken it a step further with the zika work. >> i would think it would be relatively easy problems are overcome by saying this is raw data. hasn't been peer-reviewed so use

it with that caveat that we are not 100% sure but we can advance knowledge quicker. >> i feel the same way about that raise. >> i commend you for pushing the envelope on that. i think there are legitimate concerns. as someone else want to chime in on that? >> i have one quick question. >> go ahead. >> let me ask one quick question well and make one request. the breathing thing here we to do tracking information and where it's moving and the speed up this movement. mosquito population control and the vaccine. are those the three big buckets? >> i want to add that public education is really important. >> in that indication from the government out. are you talking more about facts of zika and making sure there is not outside standing water and

putting mosquito repellent on? of those four things that i listed which one are we not doing well or not doing enough of because it sounds like all of those have started. which one needs the greatest amount of celebration and? >> in these areas there's a lot more that needs to be done or there are issues that are about to meet response. we have developed laboratory tests amid ship them out but as the mosquito season is here and as we are looking for local submission we will have a surge in the lab testing. we been doing medication but as you have heard some people aren't hearing the messages and we need to increase concern in certain groups and address the other groups. the factor issue is likely to get more more complicated because we did that throughout what works in the really scale it. there are couple of other things that aren't exactly in those categories. in particular we would like to

be able to better protect regnant women in addition to the mosquito control. we think things like screens on the homes of the helpful for them. that's the kind of thing we haven't been able to get to scale. >> if i could add a couple of others that are close to that the slightly unrelated i think we also need to understand the contribution of sexual transmission. we talk about mosquitoes and we need to remember that this may be a disease were a lot of it is spread in the u.s. could be fueled. somewhat related to that the point that i made at the beginning which is that once someone has been infected with the virus they are not going to be reinfected again at least for some period of time. we don't know how long it this but we can guess from some the previous outbreaks in asia it's going to be's probably several years. in that sense the things that we can do to empower. women or women who might become pregnant to protect themselves

if they are pregnant potentially make decisions that would allow them to avoid the immediate risk that is present in puerto rico especially would be really valuable. if they get infected this summer in puerto rico in puerto rico do they get pregnant next year or later next year their risk of having these events during pregnancy is going to be somewhat slower so that they're not how to quantify the level of protection we very important. >> i would make one request as you are working on a vaccine for those that grew up in the 60s and 70s i dealt with by polio exit with a sugar cube and i'm making a statement for all the children of america to work on a sugar vaccine for for zika in mesquite batch trend going and thank you all very much. >> senator ayotte is next. >> well, thank you.

i was thin enough so i'm not sure if you were asked this question but in terms of the diagnostic tests for zika doctor either doctor how much of a challenge is that in terms of understanding who has become with the situation as and the other question that i have is thinking about localized transmission of the virus. how is cdc working with our international partners in these countries and how was the international relationship in trying to address the challenges this is obviously an intercontinental problem we have to address. >> we had developed diagnostic tests that are good but they are not great so there are additional types of diagnostic tests that are really needed. we have also been able to share the diagnostic kits that we have

developed with state and local laboratories for a laboratory response network and also with almost 100 countries that have requested the test. we know there is going to be a search made it so we are pleased that some of the commercial laboratories are now getting permission to run tests as well. we are a lot better than we would have been a year ago with the test capacity but we think the researching continued support to be able to handle the surge of testing is important. we know we still have challenges in getting information and test results quickly to patients so there are some improvements that are needed. the running of the test can be five or six days but getting the specimen to the lab that is going to do the test and result out to the stadium that the doctor and the patient can take a while. we don't think it is where it needs to be especially for pregnant women who are very keen to get the result. our labs are reprising tests for

pregnant women first but we don't have the system yet. as one of the things that is a big focus to improve it in terms of local transmission we have released an interim response plan for the state and localities of the continental u.s. about getting ready to protect local transmission and how to manage it. we are also collaborating with other countries. we have had teams in brazil and in colombia and panama where they are ahead of us in terms of mosquitoes already having widely spread the go. >> if i can expand on the testik closely with the cdc but for everybody's understanding the ts putting a few drops of serum and then wait for the magic to happen in a positive for negative. testing that is done depends on the timing so within the first couple of weeks there is dna te. after that his blood testing

looking for antibodies. .. >> >> and the other real challenge getting back to what we just test people

that are exposed if they are now in the and there is no good test for the antibody that would be ideal but we don't have it. so there is a lot of factors about the test itself and as i alluded to all testing comes to the state health departments and for those conditions with a relatively small rule practice the may come upon one of the women that travel to get over the, to try to figure out the administrative aspects to coordinate. fortunately the cdc works very closely to smooth that process people that work through to smooth the up process having worked to the state health departments can create a challenge and really they had an effective but that presents challenges >> so you have to take a dna analysis?

that is significant to go to the dna lab. >> right. >> but if your states get that to where you are i can understand it is pretty complicated process. the fda has provided emergency use authorization to be dead in certain settings which can be done at the state and local laboratories not the doctor's office or most hospitals that's what i have to send a specimen there are a couple big volume commercial labs that are beginning to get the same type of the emergency approval that may elect clinicians have quicker access we are working hard to get that lab test capacity to be very easy and we're not finished we have more work to do.

>> if you start talking about the very complexity of diagnostics there isn't a good solution so the emphasis should be prevention of mosquito control, a vaccine and repellents. in terms. >> that want to interrupt but the chairman is right contraception we haven't really drill down. >> now in terms of condom and semen and pregnancy when it comes to mosquito control to talk about the sterile mosquitos how far are we in terms of the process?

>> actually fairly recently therein is an attempt to be genetically modified mosquitos there has been pushed back by the local public but that has been done successfully. >> why the push back? >> so they allow the local population to make the decision and there is a significant number that don't understand it well enough. but until just recently and to the radiation of mosquitos and sterilize them there may be an indication they are overcoming that.

and for them to try to implement that. that should be permanently directed to identifying to direct their resources to eradicate them mosquito populations. is that the approach that is being used? >> so there is a test for the new were approaches what will these approaches be scalable to address the mosquitos but the diagnostic seems like it is a real problem.

that would be directed toward so that is my point. >> to be extraordinarily difficult. >> let's use the word control. so with these efforts it should be done in parallel. with those current diagnostic test to find better ones is critical because this will not be over into with three months we probably have a couple of years. and it improved the last

couple months and then to read even a better test. >> i don't want to panic people talking about a 30 percent chance to have an adverse effect -- effective live virus am not minimizing but i guess so if you are a woman with the main use of the diagnostics to figure out where have all blacks -- up breaks to have significant control efforts

that is incredibly important for surveillance. >> by a understand that. >> i want to go back to an issue of contraception. if anybody wants to speak more about that. >> and share our colleague is the most experts but i was surprised to learn that bin p.r. to read a three pregnancies were not intended. we think it is about 50% and so we certainly think those decisions to make of family or discussions but access to

safe and effective contraception if they are not trying to be pregnant could be very helpful to address the threat and if you're not trying to be pregnant we have learned in p.r. access is quite limited >> i know how to prevent pregnancy we have made progress and availability to find the right match bids so they can tolerate the side effects. so they are willing to stay with at that pitted the challenge. but the unintended rate is

50% but to discuss family planning is challenging so what of my supposed to do? so it is clearly challenging for those who tried to plan a family so contraception is an important aspect. so we will never allow never killed 100 percent of the mosquitos so with long-lasting contraceptive is that the compliance level as well as providers with those efforts to increase

training so that is multifactorial with an effort that is certainly made to have access of, prevention sampling with all due respect to my colleague said the mosquito control aspect. >> there isn't a linear relationship i know it takes density and a critical mass of the mosquito population so when you are talking about controlling mosquitos just did it down to a low enough level to pretty much

transmission i do think those control methods are important. it isn't just about spraying or personal repellents that window screens and air-conditioning and paying attention to standing water and education and all of those things and if you can do those in the high risk cities it can make a big difference. >> and those women want to still have children so we really do need to concentrate control from my standpoint one of the biggest things we have to do at that level. >> so making the point of the unplanned pregnancy rate

with respect to hiv in the answer of how do we mention this is all of the above because if you don't get pregnant through accidents than potentially few are infected you could minimize your risk and tell a better vaccine is available. that isn't an option to have those ways to protect themselves is so individualized there is not a one-size-fits-all solution will be important natalie to minimize the downstream cost of getting pregnant to have the virus and having babies but also potentially as the protective effect until such time the vaccine is available but i would add contraception all other modalities used successfully

to minimize risk with other disease outbreaks from before. >> so let's take a little detour with contraception but the one to find out where is the intersection between zika virus and micra supplely and having an abortion? and talking about the cost per child somebody said the cost is $10 million per child so well what point in the pregnancy do we know there is a real problem? >> we are really at the beginning of understanding zika virus and pregnancy there is probably a lot to

say here. alito know what that means that it is something like it down syndrome test for genetic testing that is done there is a lot of science behind the counseling that goes on with a family about what that means for the up pregnancy but with zika we don't know. >> we don't know if a child is born with the aggressively until they are delivered? >> the clinicians will do cirio ultrasounds to see if the brain is developing or if there are warning signs like calcifications but we don't have a big enough experience to know how predictive those are so we have examples where the ultrasounds were looking okay but the navy wasn't and others were there seemed to be problems but then the

navy turned out to be o.k. but it is too soon to have a confidence set of information to counsel women what to expect or how to plan. >> it is based on some of the initial data that someone affected earlier pregnancy had a higher risk but the most recent case even just the little that we know that may not be quite as reliable the only thing we have once a woman test positive with a fatal outcome is following the ultrasound. certainly there are severe outcomes that can develop better relatively obvious and should be apparent for counseling and other times it is more subtle and may not show the effects into laughter bursts and we don't know of the virus continues to impact the ebb nurse cells or the brain neurons beyond birth and the impact of that.

what really becomes challenging because we don't have the confirmatory test of the clear it -- the fetus is clearly affected and the ultrasound if a woman travels then gets infected at the first trimester then test positive then we start a ultrasounds she may not show effects featherbrain until 30 weeks or further so now she is based being in the third trimester seven months along and you can imagine the psychological stress that creates with anxiety. it is unfortunate that the testing that we do have knowing if the fetus will be affected and to what degree is very challenging. >> again i would like to give you your opportunity to wrap it up.

>> talking about vaccines but i would say how much we appreciate your testimony and of work that you'd do several of you have mentioned in the vaccine may be a few years out so give us an update of where we are. >> their several different candidates using approaches that have been successful for other similar viruses we're expecting the for small scale trials of the immune response, likely begin by september. if those go well they are small numbers so by the beginning of 2017 there would expect at least one site to launch a large-scale

production phase number two or face number three trial whether that will show good results is not known. if it does over the year than it was still take time for all the other information that goes into to get the vaccine license such as the manufacturer to produce reliable and consistently in the ways the fda would require so a lot of interest in the research community with those studies but it would be a couple years out and a common to that could be given to pregnant women it is tricky to develop a vaccine exclusive for pregnancy and that's causes terrible birth defect.

so that may be of great travel vaccine in the areas where the local spread. >> my final question then you can now closing comments. we all understand many to get the money flowing but i do want to ask other than funding issues for different researcher activities as we talk about the registration is there impediments' based on governmental policy. >> you to start at the other end of the table.

[laughter] said. >> this is vital there are better ways to find divergences so the response is leading. >> with the ingredients. there is a lot of new regulations they are there to protect the safety of the public there is always room for improvement is very, very expensive if of the order of 88 of $100 million so it is the big hurdle to get over those new ingredients.

so it is something we deal with a regularly we work with the big agricultural companies who have the scale to invest in something like that to get new things approved for use but i do think that regulation is good for good reason. >> from a clinical perspective i think access to new contraception at bids particularly with the challenges san p.r. there are barriers but the other important thing is the research requirements or the of hurdles of the grant application process. every day we wait is another day of an infected woman along for it takes to get the research that we need to break ground to have a

better understanding is critical. >> one of the impediments to mosquito control the they're willing to tolerate a certain level it depends on where you are from zero or where you live to fund the infrastructure necessary to provide control. that is why there is such a diversity of capability across the united states. edits the impediment we don't, those established programs we may need one but it takes time to build the infrastructure to have a national ability to respond is very important. >> i would add nih in particular to have the ability for investigators who can study and other conditions to have explicit permission to redirect some of that funding to support

pilot projects and other small-scale projects would be very useful because every delay cost time and knowledge and with respect to international research zero lots of what we can do to control zika is contingent on the relationships we build in central south american countries are they are coming from to make sure there are as few impediments as possible that are negotiated at the governmental level for researchers are scientists is important to make sure there are as few barriers as possible that inhibit our interactions with the of brazilian or columbia colleagues. >> give an example of those barriers. >> for example, on an unrelated grant i have work

that was directed to the university by my colleague it was awarded two years ago and there was a one-year delay to get that award issued in part because of the amount of administrative paperwork to be done on the u.s. side also extensive requirements on the brazilian government side. even though we did up pretty good job at nih we were handcuffed until we could get through to the administrative hurdles on their brazilian side so those sorts of hurdles is where are our government could apply assistance to streamline and make those relationships go faster so now it was two years before we can start work on the brazilian component of that project. >> you have an opportunity for questions for the record

and i do appreciate specific cases where you are recommending a bureaucratic streamlining the we could address legislatively would be helpful to cut through the red tape. >> one final comment? >> just to remind people we don't live in the world with all the one infectious disease problem at a time but ebola and zika can happen at the same time and we need to manage that. >> and would like to emphasize the importance of controls we did a study recently on and malaria transmission with the gates foundation in indonesia and a 30% reduction of by its lead to a 70% reduction of disease transmission so that can make a big difference and to take the integrated

approach including education. also an emergency reprieved of free registration of ingredients just to get access a fait are expiring. >> thanks for the opportunity to be here obviously as an organization we're passionate about women's health this is clearly not exclusively that the vast majority of the issue is related to women's health so we appreciate your efforts as well as the government. >> zika is the disease of the present however we have diseases in the florida on the front line people coming into florida every day with malaria or other mosquito borne diseases and they can

travel to any state in the country as most states have mosquitos better capable to pick them up and transmit as well as those already exist like west nile virus and encephalitis so the key to responding and eliminating all of these diseases is to suppress the mosquito population capable to transmit these diseases so it is important to have a coordinated nationwide and infrastructure to deal with this issue. >> scientifically we don't know what we don't know and this will require a lot of knowledge and work from a lot of people to rapidly increase what we do know and on the social side our experience teaches us likely there will be a sense of what will happen in if it

reaches the u.s. where people will be blamed certain groups will be specifically targeted to be responsible and history has taught us that is very ineffective we should do everything we can to make sure the message is we are all in this together. >> thank you for your work trying to address this significant problem we share the same goal. i appreciate your work and the time they you took the record will remain open for the record we are adjourned. [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> and getting there is a lot of trajectories four dash french rocket to propellants for many of the early vessels and things changed. >> they ended up becoming the last computer programmers with an incredibly long career at nasa of 40 or 50 years one of them still works there

today. >> order. question as to the prime minister. >> thank you, mr. chairman speaker join me to condemn

the horrific terrorist attacks enter key our thoughts and prayers are with those that were killed or injured there is no reports of any u.k. casualty's with their working urgently with the turkish authorities and i spoke to the president earlier this morning to express our condolences and offer assistance details are emerging but we stand as onee against this barbaric act. there will be a national two-minute silence on friday morning and will be attending a service of the memorial near the up battlefield is right below country pauses remember the sacrifices of all those who lost their lives in that conflict. i have ministerial colleagues and others and i should have such further meetings today sarah kaplan to associate myself with the condolences of those that have been affected by this dreadful event and to serve

his country but not alone and it is great that we should support that pease famou. part. and before he goes. [laughter] well he and attend to one matter in he was an opposition that was of authority of the country of the security services of the rendition? that they are not going to prosecute will he he reinstitut, reconstitute so we know what was done in our name? authority. >> first of all, let me thank the gentleman for his generous remarks frankly the

first part trying to make sure that i fully looked into his constituency raises an important point about the olivier renditions an issue completing the investigation into this issue making insufficient evidence tode prosecute but i would say there are very few countries in the world to have such an independent investigation into an issue like this i think the right approach is what he was able to do they agree to look at thesee ioc has agreed issues and continue to do so >> thank you mr. speaker.pe as my friend has said put current events into perspective we will stop the process of the 100th anniversary but will my friend joining me to

organize all these projects that have done so much to ensure that our young people and also to encourage everyone to remember and commemorate those who made the old and a sacrifice. >> i certainly join new to commend all those who were organizing these events to prevent up and down the country it is important because 57,000 people killed or wounded on the first day p of the battle also so manyar people are learning about their own family's involvement even between current events and 100 years ago it is important to keep peace and security on our continent and the french president actually never mentioned those commemorations and didn't even know we would be standing together

remembering those sacrifices [laughter] i'd like to echo the words of the prime minister of those who'd died and reinjured in the terrorist attack i assure our services will do everything they can to assist those affected but also like to thank jim for referring on friday i look forward to being with him on friday at the memorial service of those who died ined the dreadful battle is also appropriate for those who died last weekend as a driving force behind the declaration in 1993 of the ce cease-fire in the piece that we have now is in parched banks to him and also for all that she achieved. mr. speaker what people are worried about is the extra in security of jobs wages

and pensions following the referendum we have heard of certain words about the future of those companies so what meetings will the chancellor have to stabilize the situation? >> first of all, your right to mention the issue droll p and the delivery of the peace process. he was a brilliant attorney general and with the belief of public service to be a kind and a goodly man and i sent a message to him shortly before he died everyone to send good wishesn to his family so those conversations we're having with business and those preparations to deal with those challenges i say we're in a strong position because

we paid down so much of the deficit with strong growth and job creation but i don't belittle those consequences will be difficult very choppy waters ahead but we have to find a better way through this one way is tose talk with businesses and reassure them of the stability of the britishe economy that this is secretary tomorrow i have a of a meeting of my advisory group prime in fighting other companies including those that played a huge role in the british economyin we need to talk about the hour reassurances of stability and circumstances change only intel believe in then to listen to pull up the blueprints of what they think is the right answer.

>> the credit rating agencies have cut the credit rating to a aa we would like to keep it triple a so what is the cost in terms of borrowing cost and risk to the pension funds? >> the leader of the opposition is right the credit ratings by one agency has been taken down several points another is on watch but the answer the question directly that cost will depend on what happens to the interest rates of the market of which britain canan borrow in your right to draw attention to that the head of the ecb confirmed this night. last night all warnings were if we voted to leave there would be difficulties in terms of our own economy with instability in the

markets we are seeing those and we are well prepared in terms of the reaction of the bank of england and the treasury but they will be difficult economic times we need to maintain the economy but we should not be little these challenges. >> everyone across the house should be concerned of thencerne indications that the u.k. is less attractive so in these circumstances will the prime minister consider the rule for basic investment from taking place? >> i don't believe that is the right approach. what business and consumers and investors need to hear is we are taking huge steps to get the budget deficit down to be more competitive

to foreign and attractive destination for investment everyone goes to continue to reduce the economic difficulties one way is to make sure public finances is i they remain strong and then to see them get onto a more difficult path and don't think it is right to suspend those fiscal rules it is the certainty about the status to bring to an end as fast as possible and then myth success is choosing which one and then to bear in mind how good the relationship union. will be and for my part ofar what the close as possible relationship this week there

has been more evident sadly that shows in the last three or four days the primeine can ae minister what has been put in place an extra resources pla. these attacks are appalling and need to do is stop. has the czech republic that is concerned about this issue so if you do monitor we do moni

these we will be publishing a new action plan to step up the response.in supporting v and with new guidance to do prosecutors for protective security measures and to draw the appalling hateve crimes out of the country. >> but the rejection of of status quo and there are 13.5 million people living in poverty up 300,000 in the last year. four and a half million are in the insecure and they're living in households. there prime minister has two

months left and to get those contracts for the universal credit. >> but of course, we need to do more to spread wealth and opportunit opportunity that the status is nonsense stronger than it was six years ago with the role of the referendum campaign. honorable and i hate to see the money is not trying. >> then they show the number of children living in

poverty jumped by 200,000 in one year. for of 3.9 million children in this country living in poverty does he not think at the very least he should apologize aziz failed by his government with the income inequality has gone down he asked about poverty there are 300,000 fewer people. half of million fewer people. s if he is looking for excusesut e about of referenda frankly he should look somewherere else. talking about job

insecurities and maybe my party's interest heaven's sakes. go wow the to engen is focused elsewhere we all have problems that need to be addressed but my constituents are struggling with the impact of unofficial industrial action on our railways over food gets to press the button i will condemn this and the strongest possible way. >> you are right ourur infrastructure is at a crucial part of our economy by condemned industrial disruptions and the recent

unnecessary disruption regular performance has been unacceptable i can tell the house will be providing more generous compensation by those affected by the latest rate. >> on the terrorist tragedywithe with the leader of the official opposition we sender our condolences to the people of turkey mr. speaker strong majority voted for scotland to leave the mainland in the european union now they are in brussels today meeting with the president's of the commission and parliament yesterday there was a standing ovation in the european parliament when the speech was made to protectla scotland's place in europe what will the u.k. government do to protect

scotland's place in europe? >> first of all, of the thank the gentleman what he said about the terroristn attacks our need to standd together but on the issue of the united kingdom's future with our relationship with the in united kingdom we need to negotiate the best possible deal the closest relationship would be the best for scotland and that is what we need to do. >> on the contrary speaker you are wrong on the issue in yesterday's scottish parliament passed a motion passe across the parliament including the labor party and the greens that mandated the government to have have dsions with u.k. government the e.u.t institutions and members states to explore options to protect their relationship with their place in the

single market in those economic benefits that come from that part of every party and the scottish parliament voted for thatex except the conservative party when will the conservatives finally joining with all the parties in scotland to protectd scotland's place in europe? >> the best way to secure scotland's place is for the united kingdom to negotiate the closest possible relationship including the single market to our membership to the european union is a u.k. membership our negotiatingre we should negotiate. >> the markets make a share a contribution to our economy and with that in mind with literally thousands to stop the

council going ahead to pull those markets spec will join him to pay tribute to provide with of goods i know how important the markets are listening carefully to my friends campaign to make sure this is not lost altogether. >> the prime minister will will recall my constituency as part of the referendum campaign now we face the keep tho real fight so we willec recognize their responsibility but i would ask the prime minister to have the reassurance needed to be exported at a to the e. competitive price. >> the gentleman is right

has ben remarkably positive with the people directly employed there's 300,000 people more of which has been coming onshore in recent years what we need to do is secure the best possible deal for britain toritn make sure we have access to the single market and one of the reasons they investigated and i would urge general motors to make their voices heard in the weeks ahead. >> yesterday of former member of my staff was harassed because of the cover of his skin there is t something shocking how people, like him mr. speaker can ask the prime minister

to reiterate to do everything in his power to read it this but evil hatred b this is not to use racism but to provide an opportunity rather than just europeans. >> this country we have many imperfections but we're one of the most successful multi ethnic countries anywhere on earth we should do everything we can to safeguard that your effort from all political leaders but we want action by theethe pg authorities for these people to be prosecuted we wille strengthen the guidance of the way as suggested by not put up with this in our country. >> is the prime minister satisfied with the arrangements for prior

access for service families who'd died in iraq? they have spent months to prepare looking at the role of the passages looking for secure access to properly examine the findings of the relevant views for that suitable accommodation. >> i would say that first of all, in terms of service personnel families we have major of the cost to access the report i will check with said details but the parliamentary process is we are claire or how much time will have including the opposition to study and of

course, remember the opposition having access but as for those people who could be criticized, he willre know there is the process where people have a chancece to respond what is in the report that is entirely dependent on the government i have not seen that it is dealt with by the report with the longstanding contentions i should putut that in my message. >> with my honorable friend educate the house on his experience as prime minister how the country's reputation to prepare the undemonstrative dignity of angela merkle in the antics

of burlesconi. [laughter] >> fortunately neither of these people are candidates in the election that i willan stay firmly out of. i was given lots of a rise to become prime minister and that is one bit that i listened to. [laughter] >> thanks to the prime minister last week for the exercise in democracy. >> order. the honorable gentlemen will be heard in this place but he will be heard. >> the prime minister gave us a lesson in democracy. altho,

but it was the narrow mandate with people voting.ed to . .

>> mr. speaker i know the members of parliament would with wish to be associated with my right honorable friend. he was a scholar and a german and a great friend. mr. speaker there are hundreds of thousands of the united kingdom citizens living around europe who did not vote in the referendum. many of them live on uk pensions and uk benefits. will my right honorable friend seek to ensure that his successor defends their interests?ad >> first of all let me add to what he said on sabbatical may heal.

he was a wonderful man and a great public servant and i know he meant a lot to my honorable friend and many others. on this issue up her citizens living overseas that think we should reassure people thatre until britain meets the eu there's no change in the status. one of the things that the heart of whitehall can do in the coming weeks is to go through these issues methodically and work out what my need to change and in all the different scenarios to get these people a certainty about their future and it's always important that we do that.y >> mr. speaker london is the greatest city in europe and in the world.at >> order.leman for 25 years i've enjoyed listening to the great horrible gentleman for 20 years and i would like to

continue to hear him. mr. gaetz. >> its prosperity or tax revenue is -- for the whole united kingdom. london voted remain. does the prime minister agree with the mayor of london a labor winner that london now needs to remain in the european single a market and needs to involve additional powers to deal with the problems caused by the vote last week's been a guy certainly agree with the mayor of london. not only is london the greatest city on earth but london needs to make his voice heard in its final negotiations.ta honestly there are many vital industries in london but financial services is thek. capital not only of the uk's financial services but europe's

financial services and securing the best possible access to the single market is going to be a very important challenge in these negotiations. this is a uk negotiation but we should listen to the nations of the united kingdom but also the cities and the regions as well. >> thank you mr. speaker. matt take this opportunity to pay tribute to my right honorable friend to his premiership and the many achievements of his cabinet. of which we can be proud. may i also commend hisist condemnation of the racist, bioracist attacks that have been reported from all over the country. and would he take this also to condemn the ridiculous and resulting behavior of a certain mvp in the european parliament and make clear that he does not represent this country and he does not represent.

>> order. matte >> people are adding their own take on these matters. the honorable gentleman. i'm perfectly capable of discharging their responsibilities. the honorable gentleman will be heard and that's all there is to it. >> he does not represent this country and he does not even represent the vast majority of the traffic and law-abiding people. referendum. >> first of all, let me think my honorable friend for his country were and congratulate him for the role you played in the campaign and people should judge them by the remarks they made. i made clear what i felt about the appalling poster in the campaign. i think the motive was absolutely clear and everyone can see what he was trying to do. thank you, mr. speaker. my constituency for substantial

amounts of e.u. funding. the leave campaign promise the funding would continue without the european union. does the prime minister agree that if he loses a penny piece of its funding under his successor that will be a groups betrayal. >> it is the case that well thought the whole thing that it is this year he is e.u. funds. i think that throughout the camp came, is that though with a note though, i would do everything i can to make sure we could today to help disadvantaged region. obviously it's very difficult for anyone to get carried teeth because you don't know exactly what will happen to our economy in the event to be of the vote and our economy does face challenges. they will be a matter for my successor as we leave the e.u. to make good on what they said at the time. >> mr. speaker, i pleased to

announce we have chosen the entry as the winning card. but the prime minister congratulate the 207 children -- >> order. i want to hear about these people who rightly should be congratulated. let's hear the honorable lady. >> while the prime minister but the 207 children who entered the competition with innate design and what he agreed to present the card to her majesty? >> there are many ways in which members of parliament are able to interact in a more human level of their constituent and guided them to the birthday cards and christmas cards is the next one idea. someone did a christmas card sent a leading presence out of the back of a season in team which i thought was excellent

but some felt carpet bombing rather than handing out largess. that's a very good idea to share her majesty would be delighted to receive them. the thank you, mr. speaker. the region was set to receive 180 million pounds through 2020. much of that money is now at risk. those leading the campaign did give guarantees to lose out as a result of brexit. we know those promises were worthless. whether prime minister join with me in urging his successor to ensure the sheffield city reach a compensated for every pound. >> obviously as we negotiate our way out of the e.u., all range

of decisions have to be made and what future governments do is help our universities, health science is. we continue to support farmers. he was going to be a challenge but we will judge for ourselves about whether we have our money to do this because we left the e.u. or less because of the impact on the economy was something we won't be able to judge for ourselves in the years ahead. >> mr. speaker, thank you. earlier this morning the supreme court's ruled against the right to return to their homeland. i know my right honorable friend will be pleased that shortly i won't pester him much more on this issue. might i suggest a fine legacy of his premiership might be to allow these british citizens to return to their homeland. >> what i can say to my honorable friend of the national security council has been considering this issue.

we look at alternative options and the costs and benefits of the various means we can do and will be making an amount than in the coming. thank you, mr. speaker. it has been described as a rare picturesque rejected by the heritage in april. at the five projects, all five are based in the south of england. but the prime minister's support the renovation of the fantastic though? >> it is a beautiful bill and his sister town that he represent in terms of the fund, he's been a little unfair focusing on the last five projects. more broadly he will find, for in it, the museum received a grant of 13 million. it is i believe balanced across the country, but i will look further about the general pointed specific issue of this town hall.

>> james perry. [shouting] the >> there are a number of e.u. nationals in this country and working hard, paying taxes entirely logistically. but result in the prime minister give them. >> first of all, the first to do is to praise the contribution they make to our country pay 50,000 e.u. nationals working in nas. 50,000 working in our care sector, look sector, looking after elderly since they country is the end of their life. many working in education. as i said exhaustively on monday, obviously we can say that all rights are guaranteed as were members of the european union. in the future we will have to make sure, and i have heard members of the camp and make this point that people already

here, people already studied, people working class have their right to access guaranteed. we can't say that now. we have to say that as part of the negotiation sure to take place. >> prime minister, can i join the attributes? if the prime minister agree whatever the disagreements about the european union. i am a party of her in a union that really matters is the united kingdom of great britain and northern ireland and the serving of the utmost importance that works and stays together. but is it time to make sure your many times in office? >> first of all, let me thank the honorable gentleman and a greeting that keeping the united kingdom together as a not so paramount interest for our country because of the decision made about europe, we need to have exhaustive conversations between officials in whitehall

and northern ireland have strong relations with the republic of ireland to keep the benefits of the travel area as the honorable gentleman has always supported one blue team and one day i hope you will support another blue team. there we are. thank you, mr. speaker. members of the single market river for decades, many businesses are deeply embedded in supply chains and customer relationships across the e.u. does the prime minister agree to any future deal with the e.u. must include access to the single market? >> my honorable friend is absolutely right. the term access to the single market has many potential different meanings. obviously, countries outside the e.u. have access to the single market. sumpter trade deal presenter world trade organization rules. the best access is to be a member of the single market and that the country has to decide

what the next prime minister will decide is the sort of access we want, what are the costs and benefits of having the access and we'll talk about that in a moment when i give my statement on the european council. >> the prime minister will be aware consulting and staffing unions as we do share the work force and the company has approached the u.k. government to receive support from the u.k. export finance. from the 40 billion pounds on his only received a guarantee to the value of one of his tracks. will he commit to meet with me to discuss this perilous situation and was support his government can provide. >> i'm aware of the announcement about further job losses and this is obviously difficult time for workers in families. i understand the scottish and u.k. governments have been working closely together over the past couple years as part of the partnership action keeping a close eye on the situation and i'm happy to

arrange a meeting between him to talk about what more can be done. >> statement, the prime minister. thank you, mr. speaker. with permission of that to make a statement on yesterday's european council. this is the first council since britain decided to leave the european union. the decision was expected and we begin discussions about how to ensure a strong relationship between britain and the countries of the european union. before the discussion on britain, a number of other items on the agenda. i migration the council noted the very significant reductions in illegal crossings from turkey to greece as a result of the agreement did with turkey in march but it expressed continued to turn up at the central mediterranean reared and determination to combat people smuggling by bolivia. britain plays a leading role with h. and s. enterprise and i can tell the house today would

also be deployed to stop the flow of weapons to terrorists, particularly in libya. i made up, secretary general stoltenberg gave a presentation ahead of the summit and the council agreed to meet for nato in the e.u. to a together in a complementary way to strengthen security. there are important commitments on the digital single market including the e.u. residents will travel to the digital content they purchase or subscribe to at home. the economic situation president of the bank gave a presentation in light of the outcome of our referendum. private-sector forecasts discussed included estimates of a reduction in eurozone growth between .3% 10.5% over the next three years. one of the main explanations as to predict a slowdown in the u.k. economy given our trade with the euro area. president drug he reassured the council the ecb has worked for many months to prepare for

insurgency and in the face of volatility, institutions will monitor markets and act as necessary. returning to the main discussions about britain leaving the e.u., the tone of the meeting was one of sadness and regret. there was an agreement the decision of the british people should be respect. we had positive discussions about the relationship we want to see between britain and european partners in the next steps leaving the e.u. including issues that need to be worked through an attachment for trickery and article l. let me say a word about each. we were clear while britain is leaving the european union, we are not turning back from europe and they are not turning backs on us. many counterparts talk warmly about the history and values our country shared in a huge contribution britain has made for peace and progress in europe. the prime minister described how the data helped to secure the independence of the country a century ago. the czech prime minister czech prime minister paid tribute at a home or persecution. many countries of eastern and

central europe express the debt of soda bread for standing by us suffered under communism and supporting them as they join the european union. the president talked about the visit he and i will be make you later this week to the battlefields were british and irish soldiers fight and die together for the freedom of our continent and defense of the democracy and values we share. the council was clear as we take toward the agenda of britain leaving the european union, we should want to have the closest possible relationship we can in the future. this should include the strongest possible relationship in terms of trade, corp. and security, something that only becomes more important in the appalling terrorist attack in turkey last night. as i said on monday, customer to implement the will of the british people, we have a fundamental responsibility to bring our country together. we will not tolerate hate crime or any attacks against people in

our country because of ethnic origin and i reassure the european leaders concerned about what they heard was happening in britain. we are proud multifaith multiethnic society will stay that way. the next steps leaving the e.u., first a lot of reassurance until britain believes we are a full member. we are entitled to the benefits of membership and full participation until the point at which we believe. we discuss the issues which will need to be worked through. i explained in britain there is great concern about the movement of people and challenges controlling immigration as well as concerns about the issue of sovereignty. explain how these had come together. many european partners were clear that it is impossible to have the benefits of membership without the cost of membership and that is something the next prime minister is going to have to work through very carefully. on the timing of article l, there wasn't a great clamor for britain to trickery to straightaway. while there were one or two voices calling for this, the

overwhelming view was that we need to take some time to get this right. everyone wants to see a clear blueprint in terms of what britain thinks is right for future relationship with the e.u. as i explained on monday we are starting to work straight away with which will be led a new permanent secretary, oliver robins picking up but examine options and possibilities setting up costs and benefits of the next prime minister will have all the information they need with which to determine exactly the right approach to take and the right outcome to negotiate. the decisions that followed included the trickery are for the next prime minister in the council understood and was back to back. i don't get the secret i have discussion in brussels frustrating but despite that we can be proud of what we've achieved within a greater focus on job growth, cutting the e.u. budget real terms for the first time, reducing the burden of red tape on business for building

common positions on issues of national security such as sanctions to stop iran getting a nuclear weapon, standing up for russian aggression in galvanizing other countries to help with the beat written was taking in dealing with the bullet and sierra leone. we've shown how much more we haven't common with neighbors and allies and friends to share fundamental values. it's a poignant reminder well poignant reminder while we would leave the european union, we must work together for the security and prosperity of people for generations to come and i commend this statement to the house. >> jeremy corbin. thank you, mr. speaker. i would like to thank for the advance copy of the statement and the e.u. council summit. i was very pleased to take a more conciliatory tone in relation to european neighbors and nigel barash did in the european parliament yesterday. as we negotiate our exit, the

people rely on a government to facilitate the positive transition as possible. if we are to achieve this, we must proceed in a concert of indecent manner. i look for to join in the prime minister and the commemoration on friday. this right to emphasize the role in negotiating agreement with iran to secure the support for actions that the ebola crisis in sierra leone. i thank the prime minister for that. yesterday the prime minister said at the summit that in order to strengthen the relationship, european leaders would have to offer the u.k. more control over immigration. the threat of losing access to a single market means we'd already see a negative effect on investments in business in this country. on monday, the prime minister said access was impossible. does the prime minister now believe that written can negotiate an unprecedented deal.

can he spell out more clearly what further discussions were held in this area. this is an issue in which they made to be an open debate. dare i say an open straight talking debate but absolutely fails much of the referendum campaign. the prime minister's state in the house on monday that article li not be triggered until it accessories in place. i heard fraser said about the views of other leaders at the summit, when does he expect article lii b. triggers so we will know what the negotiating timetable is. as i raced to my response to the prime minister monday, we in the house have a duty to act in the national interest to ensure the best agreement for all of our constituents. as the prime minister feel without the structures in place for the house to debate the alternatives and lead a discussion in our community, there is the risk of leaving britain in a state of paralysis at a time when people need clear

answers to concern. what he also appealed to tell us any further thought about the role of default governments in future negotiations with the european union. we see today the first mr. scott in creating her own separate negotiating group has started talks with the e.u. and it appears the minister of gibraltar is doing the same also. what conversations has the prime minister had with the first ministers and scott and anne wilson what legal advice is received on separate negotiations by default administrations and indeed overseas territories. i welcome his commitment and we will continue to play its part in operation sophia. last week's vote to leave the e.u. means this country is currently in an unstable position. the next steps we make we take our most important and must be taken with care. we have a duty not to reshaping rebuild an economy for the future. one that protects social

employment rates and builds policies on trade, migration, environmental protection and delivery country in which prosperity we create is shared by all. i urge the prime minister whoever his successor may be that when the economy needs now is a clear ground for investment , not further austerity cuts to public services. that's the chance to put forward yesterday. i also asked the prime minister in his successor when my time to look at the suspension and determination of his mouth even more good fiscal rule. i thank the prime minister for the assurance that same condemnation he gave of recent attacks and abuse wherever they occur in this country and i join him in that. we all need to calm our anchorage and time across all price of this house condemned the arrest of racism within our society.

lilly also reiterate absolutely his assurance to european union nationals working here, providing support and health service in so many other services that they are welcome and that they remain welcome for the work and contribution they make? our country is divided so we must heal our division. our economy is fragile so we must begin to rebuild it. our duty is to now move forward in a calm manner to build a new relationship with europe and build it written that works for everyone in every part of this country. >> prime minister. >> me think of right honorable gentleman for his odds in the way he's gone about it. constructive is the correct word. i was pleased that the discussions last night did not get off to a tone of european union countries demanding that set of actions. britain's arguing there is a mature and calm understanding that we need each other.

we need this negotiation to proceed well. we need to have a good outcome in our interests. i think it's gotten off on the right foot and i'll do everything i can weather in this job are as a big bench mp to make sure we keep the strong relationships with european partners as for going to need to. on this issue of immigration versus single market, he is right. this is frankly the biggest and most difficult issue to deal with frankly whether you're in the european union as we've been arguing for changes or whether you're out of the european union tried to scare the best possible access to the single market. my answer to the problem was to bring in the welfare restrictions that i negotiated, which were incredibly tough to negotiate. i'm sad this has now fallen away because of the referendum decision. there's no doubt the next government will work hard at this and i personally think that access to the single market and strength of our economy is the

single most important issue they have to deal with. on the issue of article l, it's a matter for the next prime minister in a very good reason for that, which is before you go into the tunnel of the article l negotiations which have a two-year time limit from the one to have made the best possible preparations for the blueprint you want to achieve at the end and do hope the other european countries understand that we are shooting for. you said no negotiation without notification. i don't have that excludes discussions of the new prime minister can have with partners or indeed that the institutions that we continue to get up on the right foot and that is the stronger price i would give to them. in terms of the institutions that had deputy first ministers in northern ireland, continue to do so. i want my voice voices to be heard loud and clear. this is a u.k. decision made by

the united kingdom government and united kingdom parliament and it has to be done in that way. i'm what he said about racism, we should all reiterate statements lead reiterate statements we've made to e.u. nationals here. thank them for their contribution, say the rates are guaranteed in the e.u. would work even harder i am sure for all contenders in the conservative leadership campaign and make clear that they want to safeguard the rights of people who work here instead to hear from the european union for the future. finally, what he says about the fiscal rule, does fail like a stuck record. whatever the problem, whatever the issue come the dancers were fired, more spending, more taxes and more debt. you don't get investment in the stew of economics ability and you don't have economic stability if you don't have a plan dealing with your debts and deficits. th