06/19/08

UNITED STATES:  Senate Still Deadlocked over $50 Billion Global AIDS Bill

On Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) gave a Tuesday deadline for negotiations to wrap up on the stalled bill to reauthorize and expand the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. Launched five years ago, PEPFAR expires in September, and S. 2731 would continue it and more than triple spending to fight AIDS, TB and malaria overseas - especially in Africa - to $50 billion over five years.

The House version of the bill won overwhelming approval in April, and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed S. 2731 in March. But seven Republican senators are continuing to block it from consideration by the full Senate.

Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.), who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and its ranking member Sen. Richard Luger (R-Ind.), are working on a compromise, Reid said.

Though he called PEPFAR "the most successful foreign aid program since the Marshall Plan," Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) is the chief opponent of the reauthorization bill.

Coburn wants the restoration of PEPFAR's original provision that 55 percent of funding go toward treatment - an obligation stripped from the current bill on grounds that such decisions are best reserved for those in the field. Otherwise, PEPFAR risks becoming "just another bloated, unmeasured and unmeasurable foreign aid program with no accountability and no real impact," Coburn said.

Some conservatives also hesitate at the prospect of approving a major boost in funding for prevention programs that involve condoms, male circumcision or family planning.

However, there is powerful support for passing PEPFAR. Presumed presidential nominees Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.) are co-sponsors. In a letter last month, Lugar and 14 other Republican senators urged Senate leaders to quickly bring the bill to a vote. PEPFAR, they wrote, "has served as a powerful demonstration of US leadership and compassion throughout the world."

Source: Associated Press:: Jim Abrams; Courtesy of the CDC National Center for HIV, STD, and TB Prevention