Obama drains $500M From Zika response to U.N. Climate Fund

LESLIE EASTMAN JUN 9, 2016 6:00 PM

In February, President Obama said we should not “panic over Zika.”

At the same time, he asked Congress for $1.8 billion in funding for the resources to combat the Zika virus, the pathogen spreading rapidly through the Americas that can cause birth defects and neurological problems. In a rare display of fiscal restraint, Congress granted $622 million (mainly from unused Ebola response money).

However, as negotiations continue for even more Zika funding between these two branches of government, it seems that $500 million of those taxpayer dollars initially allotted now sits in the coffers of the United Nations.

The Obama administration siphoned $500 million that could have gone toward combating the Zika virus into a United Nations effort aimed at mitigating climate change.Sen. James Lankford (R., Okla.) wrote in an op-ed published in the Daily Signal that the Senate last year granted Obama the authority to pay for a response to Zika, but his administration chose instead to allocate those funds toward the U.N.’s Green Climate Fund.

As a reminder, that $500 million is the first installment of $3 billion that Obama agreed to turn over as part of the UN Paris climate conference deal.

Let’s do a little risk assessment to determine if that money was well spent!

Today’s Zika news includes the following:

• Zika has blanketed three-quarters of Puerto Rico over the past six months,and health authorities expect it to keep spreading now that it is prime mosquito season. It is estimate that one-quarter of the island’s population will be infected by the time that season is over.
• There are currently 189 recorded cases of the Zika virus in New York State, including one just reported in the state capital of Albany.
• In Jamaica, all pregnant women are to be tested for the virus.

Today’s climate change/global warming news:

• Weather observers misread wind speeds, skewing a major hazards database.
• Lake Chad’s shrinkage, once tied to the effects of recent global warming, has been known since 1899 and is related to farming and irrigation practices.
• Virgin Islands Attorney General Claude E. Walker has withdrawn his subpoena of the Competitive Enterprise Institute after a rash of criticism over his investigation into climate change dissenters.

Today’s United Nations news completes the data set: Anders Kompass, who worked as director of field operations at the UN human rights office, has resigned after the organization did not hold senior officials accountable for sexual abuses of children by the organization’s workers.

Clearly, Zika is the larger threat to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in this country than climate change.

Therefore, given Obama’s standard calculations, there should be little surprise that American money is being diverted to fund corrupt, abusive, foreign bureaucrats.

Republican lawmakers introduced legislation in May to block the Obama administration’s funding of last year’s Paris climate deal. Perhaps the Republicans in Congress can stop their Trump-oriented hysteria long enough to get this bill the votes it needs for passage?

Or maybe the Republicans could get creative and divert the monies from Obama’s travel funds to Zika?  Surely the amount available will be enough to wipe the disease off the face of the Earth!

What is the difference between Obama and a mosquito?  One is a flying bloodsucker, and the other is an insect.

 

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