Congressional Budget for the United States Government for Fiscal Year 2007--Continued

CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET FOR THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2007--Continued

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, Senator Santorum and I come to the floor today to offer our amendment to increase funding for global AIDS by $566 million, raising the U.S. contribution to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria for fiscal year 2007 to $866 million. This amendment would raise the U.S. contribution to the fight against global AIDS to $4.8 billion in total for bilateral and multilateral programs combined.

This money is desperately needed.

This year we mark the 25 anniversary of the discovery of AIDS.

A generation has been born and come of age since then.

Twenty-five years ago, the Centers for Disease Control published what turned out to be one of the first descriptions of acquired immune deficiency syndrome in a short article in a weekly report. That article described five cases of pneumonia. It stated that these five cases ``suggest the possibility of a cellular-immune dysfunction.''

AIDS did not yet have a name, but it had an identity.

In the quarter century since those first cases were diagnosed, roughly 70 million people have been infected with HIV.

More than 22 million have died.

More than 12 million children in Africa alone have been orphaned.

Last year, 3 million people died, and 5 million people were newly infected.

Every 60 seconds, there are five more deaths from AIDS and nine more infections.

Over the next decade, an estimated 50 million more people will contract HIV.

Those numbers are devastating.

But the trajectory of destruction that AIDS has followed over the last quarter century can be changed. It is changing. In the last decade, new research and new international efforts have begun to alter that deadly equation.

Antiretrovirals mean that an HIV/AIDS diagnosis is no longer a death sentence, if one can get access to the drugs. Successful programs in Africa and elsewhere have convinced doubters that you can administer ARVs under extremely difficult circumstances. Effective prevention strategies in countries such as Uganda offer hope that the epidemic's relentless spread can be slowed.

But millions who are infected receive no treatment, and tens of millions more remain at risk.

The United States is a world leader in the battle against global AIDS. And the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria is one of the most effective and widest reaching weapons in our arsenal.

The amendment that Senator Santorum and I are offering today seeks to ensure that we maintain that leadership and maintain the extraordinary leveraging potential of our contribution.

For every dollar that the United States has provided to the Global Fund, the rest of the world has contributed two more.

The U.S. Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Act of 2003 linked U.S. contributions to the fund to those of other contributors.

We believe that the United States must live up to the commitment we have made to reach our one-third match. We also believe that it is very much in our interests to do so.

As Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has stated, ``HIV/AIDS is not only a human tragedy of enormous magnitude; it is also a threat to the stability of entire countries and to entire regions of the world.''

I strongly support fully funding the President's request for bilateral HIV/AIDS programs. These programs are vitally important.

The Global Fund is a complement to our other HIV/AIDS programs, not a competitor with them. The Global Fund offers unique leveraging opportunities. It also expands our reach, well beyond PEPFAR focus countries, thus giving our assistance breadth and depth. The Global Fund reaches 130 countries around the world. It provides one-quarter of all donor HIV/AIDS spending, two-thirds of all donor TB spending, and half of all donor spending on malaria.

As of December 2005, the Global Fund was providing voluntary counseling and testing to 3.9 million people. The Global Fund is currently supporting community outreach efforts to 7 million people. It is providing antiretrovirals--ARVs--for 384,000 people.

The fund has also provided 7.7 million bed nets to prevent malaria and treated 1 million cases of TB through directly observed therapy. Malaria and TB kill 3 million people a year. There are proven, cost-effective solutions to prevent and treat these diseases, and the Global Fund helps provide them.

The President's request included $300 million for the Global Fund. But this level of funding falls far short.

It falls short of our previous contributions, it falls short of our commitment, and it falls far short of the actual need.

First, $300 million is less than what the United States has contributed to the Global Fund last year, and the year before that. Last year, the United States provided $550 million. To cut that level almost in half would have a devastating effect.

As the AIDS crisis grows ever greater, our funding should be increasing, not decreasing.

Second, funding at that level will either fall well short of the one-to-two match from the international community or, even worse, will encourage other donors to lowball their own contributions.

Just as our generosity has been matched by the rest of the world, the reverse may also be true.

Third, the President's request falls far short of what is needed.

This year, the fund estimates that it will need $1.6 billion just to renew current grants. That would require a $533 million contribution from the United States. This figure is based on the assumption that about one in six grants will not be renewed, as part of the fund's screening mechanism. The programs that will be renewed are already on the ground, providing care and treatment. Three hundred million dollars will not come close to funding renewals of proven, lifesaving programs.

That is where we must begin, with $533 million for renewals.

However, the need for expanded prevention, care, and treatment of these terrible diseases does not stay stable: it grows.

Our potential to help also increases, through proven interventions and demonstrated best practices and through the elimination of programs that do not meet standards of effectiveness or honesty.

The Global Fund must not remain static in the face of an expanding epidemic: it must grow to meet it.

Therefore, Senator Santorum and I believe that the United States must also make a one third contribution to a new round of grants, at $333 million.

That would mean a total contribution of $866 million for the Global Fund from the United States.

On average, every $100 million contribution to the Global Fund will generate the following results: The Fund can provide 630,000 bed nets to fight malaria; it can deliver 150,000 treatments for malaria; it can provide 80,000 highly-effective DOTS treatments for TB; it can supply 370,000 people with HIV tests; and it can provide 11,000 people with lifesaving AIDS treatment.

Lives hang in the balance. We must not shortchange this vital program, which dramatically extends the reach of U.S. foreign assistance.

Our amendment offsets the $566 million increase in global AIDS funds with the 920 function, administrative allowances. This offset asks appropriators to find $566 million in savings across all budget functions.

We do not believe that this money should come at the expense of other international humanitarian programs.

Out of a discretionary budget of $873 billion, I don't think $566 million is too much to ask in the global fight against these diseases.

Senator Santorum and I will be working together through the appropriations process to make sure we find these savings.

We believe it is important to set the U.S. mark now for the Global Fund at $866 million.

This sends a clear signal to other donors that they need to step up their contributions to match this U.S. level.

I know there are many budgetary pressures, but this is literally a matter of life and death.

Twenty-five years ago, doctors first began to diagnose AIDS cases, but they could do almost nothing to save people. Then they began using AZT, which could slow the disease and, 10 years ago, ARVs, which could give people their lives back.

Sadly, for the first 10, even 20 years of this pandemic, the response of the international community to the tragedy unfolding before them was dreadfully slow.

Jan Eliasson, President of the U.N. General Assembly, has rightly declared that our slow response marks a scar ``on the conscience of our generation.''

Eliasson continues, ``We cannot turn back the clock. We must ensure that, when historians look at the way the world responded to HIV and AIDS, they see that 2006 was the year when the international community finally stepped up to the mark the year when ..... the world began to `keep the promise.' ''

In 25 years we have made enormous strides, and yet the disease has moved faster.

I urge you to join me in supporting this amendment to ensure that the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria can both renew ongoing, proven programs and expand its lifesaving efforts.

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the amendment by the Senator from New Mexico. This is a debate we have been through over and over again. There are some who believe that drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is the answer to America's energy challenge. This amendment says the proceeds from that drilling will fund all the other energy policies in our Nation.

This makes no sense whatsoever. There is no possible way that in the next fiscal year, even if we approved the drilling in ANWR, there will be proceeds that can be contributed to the Energy Policy Act funding.

Yesterday, this body had a chance to vote for real money to fund the Energy Policy Act when Senator Bingaman offered the amendment, and it was defeated by opposition from the other side of the aisle.

I rise in opposition to this amendment. This is no way to fund energy policy, and ANWR is not the answer to our energy prayers.

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