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The Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday voted to reduce President Bush’s funding request for the Millennium Challenge Corporation and to increase aid for HIV/AIDS programs, including the Global Fund To Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the AP/Yahoo! News reports (Taylor, AP/Yahoo! News, 6/28). MCC is a program meant to encourage economic and political reforms in developing countries (Kaiser Everyday HIV/AIDS Report, 2/6).

The Senate’s foreign aid bill would reduce Bush’s $3 billion request for MCC to $1.2 billion. It also would improve Bush’s $4.2 billion request for global HIV/AIDS programs by $940 million, including $590 million for the Global Fund, the AP/Yahoo! News reports (AP/Yahoo! News, 6/28).

The bill, which passed the House last week, also would allow Bush and future presidents to waive the President’s Emergency Program for AIDS Relief’s abstinence spending requirement. By law, at the least one-third of HIV prevention funds that focus countries get by means of PEPFAR must be used for abstinence-until-marriage programs. Rep. Dave Weldon (R-Fla.), who helped draft the original abstinence spending requirement, said that he is confident the Bush administration will continue to promote the requirement. He added that future presidents might waive the requirement (Kaiser Every day HIV/AIDS Report, 6/22). The measure now goes towards the Senate floor, Reuters reports (Reuters, 6/28).

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