House Approves AIDS Relief Expansion

By JAMES HOHMANN, Los Angeles Times
April 3, 2008

WASHINGTON — A bipartisan coalition in the House voted yesterday to significantly expand a popular program aimed at combating HIV and AIDS around the world, renewing the president's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief by authorizing $50 billion — $20 billion more than the White House requested — over five years.

"There is a moral imperative to combat this epidemic," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat of California, said. "Few crises have called out more for sustained, constructive American leadership."

Forty million people worldwide are believed to be HIV-positive, Ms. Pelosi said, and an estimated 20 million have died from the AIDS epidemic. Since the global AIDS initiative began in 2003, focusing on 15 countries primarily in sub-Saharan Africa, 30 million people have been tested or received counseling for HIV and 1.4 million have received anti-retroviral medications.

The legislation, which was approved 308-116, required compromise on both sides. Conservatives gave up demands that abstinence be the centerpiece of efforts to fight AIDS; the legislation approved mandates "balanced funding" to support an ABC strategy — Abstain from sex until marriage, Be faithful, and use Condoms.