Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2003. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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Wall Street Journal - May 19, 2003
David Rogers, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
The five-year funding represents a historic commitment by the U.S., and Mr. Bush hopes to leverage more support from industrial allies meeting in France June 2 and 3. But multilateral efforts to fight AIDS could be shortchanged as Mr. Bush turns his energy to creating U.S. programs and a superstructure within the State Department to oversee them.
For example, the bill promises the Geneva-based Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis & Malaria $1 billion in additional contributions. But the money is contingent on matching donations from other nations. Before Senate passage early Friday, the White House blocked Democratic efforts to ensure that as much as $500 million could be provided without such strings attached.
At the same time, the president's aides have insisted on giving broad authority to a new AIDS coordinator charged with overseeing government spending to fight AIDS overseas. A new Treasury account would receive billions of dollars in future appropriations and the coordinator would have authority to "transfer and allocate funds to relevant executive agencies."
The transfer power means the new coordinator could dip into money for continuing AIDS programs overseas, but White House officials said the primary focus will be on new programs targeting 14 nations in Africa and the Caribbean. The new programs are politically sensitive, since significant funding will go to faith-based groups popular with conservatives.
This isn't the first time the president has created a structure designed in many respects to work around existing agencies. The White House took a similar approach in hopes of speeding Iraq-reconstruction funds, but the results have been uncertain thus far. Of the $2.45 billion Congress approved more than a month ago, only $240 million is now beginning to be released to contractors and agencies.
"Why are we creating an entirely new federal bureaucracy to administer the program when one already exists?" says Rep. Jim Kolbe (R., Ariz.), chairman of the House Appropriations panel, which ultimately must approve funding for the AIDS initiatives. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar (R., Ind.) would have preferred a different approach, but gave in to the White House in the interest of moving ahead with the bill.
In fact, the whole late-night Senate debate, ending past 2 a.m. Friday, was a truncated affair in which Mr. Lugar never offered his own bill, but instead offered what the House approved early this month. At his urging, fellow Republicans lined up to defeat any changes that would delay enactment; the one exception -- dealing with debt relief for AIDS-stricken nations such as Ethiopia and Malawi -- was watered down first to a level acceptable to House conservatives.
Speaker Dennis Hastert's office said the House would pass the Senate-amended version Tuesday or Wednesday, and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said that the bill "represents a bipartisan consensus that will be able to become law." Nonetheless, that the Senate never considered its own version of the bill was seen as a blow to Mr. Frist's leadership. The Tennessee Republican, a physician who has long been active in fighting AIDS, had made the issue a top priority.
Write to David Rogers at david.rogers@wsj.com
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