Making Further and Continuing Appropriations For Fiscal Year 2003

Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, I thank Senator Durbin for the great work he has done. I thank Senator Dodd, Senator Coleman, and all of those who have worked on this bill to bring us to this point. I also thank Senator Ted Stevens for raising the amount of money that this bill originally had by $50 million, at our request. And then coming along, he brought this bill to the floor and agreed to this amendment. I am very grateful. He has been a leader in this area.

I also thank the majority leader, Bill Frist, who has great vision in this area and great compassion as well. My colleague from Illinois has said it very well. When you travel to Africa or, as my wife Fran and I have, to Haiti, when you see these children, when you hold them, touch them, talk to the people who care for them, when you know these children whom you see or are holding in all likelihood many of them are going to die, it truly does change you forever. When you leave those countries and when you leave those children, you know you cannot just leave. You know you have to try to do something.
That is an experience I had, it was an experience my wife Fran had, but we are not unique. I know my colleague Bill Frist has traveled to Africa. When he goes there, he can do much more than I can. He can work as a medical doctor. I know Senator Inhofe goes, as well as many other people, and they see this, and they come back. I have talked with so many of my colleagues.

This amendment says to the world that the United States of America does not just care, does not just want to use its rhetoric, but that we are going to back that up with our dollars and that we are going to do something about it and that, as the richest country in the world, we are going to lead in this area. We are going to be a leader in the world.

In the last several years, we have done a lot better. My colleague has said our spending level in this area has gone up
significantly, and I compliment my colleagues on the Appropriations Committee for that. With this amendment, we are upping that a lot more. It is $150 million more. That money goes a long way. That money can be used primarily in two significant ways. One is to help in the area of the transmission from mothers who have AIDS to their babies. It is an amazing statistic. We know, medical science tells us and the experts tell us, if we can reach these mothers early enough, before they give birth to that child who will have AIDS because the mom has AIDS, and get medical treatment to her and get the proper drugs to her that really cost comparatively little, we can save that child.

Two out of three of the children who will be born, if the mother gets the appropriate drugs, will not have AIDS. Think of the savings in dollars and cents, let alone the human savings. We can do that. Yet children are being born every single day with AIDS who needlessly would not have to have AIDS.

With the great plagues in Africa today and the great plagues in Haiti today, there are a number of children who are orphans. All throughout this little country of Haiti, there are thousands of orphans. Why? Because there are not the drugs to keep the parents alive. And that is transforming that little country of Haiti. For the next year, there will be just as many incidents of AIDS in Haiti, a country of 8 million people, as there will be in the entire United States of America. We can see this is a problem not just in sub-Saharan Africa, it is a problem in a country that is only a 1-hour flight from Miami.

So this bill goes a long way to deal with this problem. It speaks volumes. It says we care and we are going to put our money where our mouth is. It is a step forward.

It does not do everything, we have a long way to go, but I think it is a great bipartisan effort. I thank all of my colleagues for getting behind this. I thank Senator Stevens for accepting the amendment. I again pay tribute to Senator Durbin, who has been a real bulldog on this. I thank all of my colleagues who have really made a great commitment to it.