House Appropriations Committee Approves Funding for Millennium Challenge Corporation, President’s International AIDS Program, Global Fund

The House Appropriations Committee on Thursday by voice vote approved the $21.3 billion fiscal year 2007 Foreign Operations Appropriations bill, which includes funds for a variety of foreign assistance programs, including HIV/AIDS programs, the AP/Forbes reports (Sidoti, AP/Forbes, 5/25). The bill includes $3.4 billion to curb the spread of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria; $2 billion for the Millennium Challenge Corporation, President Bush's foreign aid agency; and $445 million in funding for the Global Fund To Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. The bill, passed by an appropriations subcommittee last Friday, would reportedly fully finance the administration's international AIDS program request, which increased by $752 million funding from this year; double the amount requested by Bush for the Global Fund from the foreign operations accounts; and reduce by $1 billion the amount requested for MCC. MCC was created to administer funds for the Millennium Challenge Account, a program aimed at encouraging economic and political reforms in developing countries. Twenty-three countries currently are eligible to apply for MCC funding. Bush's February proposal included $3 billion for MCC, which would have provided enough funding to sign agreements with eight additional countries (Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, 5/22).