WASHINGTON – The Senate voted yesterday to triple spending for a much-acclaimed program that has treated and protected millions in Africa and elsewhere from the scourges of AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.
The 80-16 vote committed the United States to spending up to $48 billion over the next five years for the most ambitious foreign public health program ever launched by the United States.
The legislation would replace and expand the current $15 billion act that President Bush championed in a State of the Union address and Congress passed in 2003. That act expires at the end of September.
The White House, which supports the new bill, said the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, known as PEPFAR, has helped bring lifesaving anti-retroviral drugs to some 1.7 million people and has supported care for nearly 7 million, including about 2.7 million AIDS orphans and vulnerable children.
Before the program began, only 50,000 in all of sub-Saharan Africa were receiving anti-retroviral drugs.
The Democratic-led Senate, rarely in agreement with the White House, gave Bush credit for initiating the program. Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a chief negotiator in crafting the bill, said PEPFAR is “the single most significant thing the president has done.”
The global AIDS program will save tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of lives, Biden said, “and the president deserves our recognition for that.”
Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., the top Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, and co-negotiator with Biden, said the program “has helped to prevent instability and societal collapse in a number of at-risk countries.” He added that it has “facilitated deep partnerships with a new generation of African leaders, and it has improved attitudes toward the United States in Africa and other regions.”
Biden said he had been coordinating with House leaders and was confident they could come up with a final version “within a matter of days.”
The bill passed by the House in April approved $50 billion, including $5 billion for malaria, $4 billion for tuberculosis and $41 billion for AIDS. Of the AIDS money, a proportion – $2 billion next year – would go to the international Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Actual spending levels still must be approved in annual appropriations bills.
Earlier yesterday, the Senate, acceding to arguments that Congress must also address humanitarian issues closer to home, agreed to set aside $2 billion of the $50 billion for American Indian water, health and law enforcement projects.
“We don't have to go off of our shore to find third-world conditions,” said Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., sponsor of the amendment with Sens. John Thune, R-S.D., Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., and others. Biden said House negotiators had indicated they would accept the change.
