This week, the Senate passed the FY2004 Department of Homeland Security spending bill. The House considered the following spending bills: Commerce, Justice, State, and the Judiciary, Foreign Operations, VA-HUD-Independent Agencies, and FY2003 Supplemental Appropriations. The House Appropriations Committee approved the Transportation, Treasury, and Independent Agencies spending bill, completing all thirteen appropriations bills before the August recess.
House Floor Action
Commerce, Justice, State, and the Judiciary
On July 22, the House approved, 400-21, the FY2004 Commerce, Justice, State, and the Judiciary spending bill (H.R. 2799). As in the measure approved by the House Appropriations Committee on June 16 (see The Source, 7/18/03), H.R. 2799 would provide $37.9 billion in FY2004, $700 million more than FY2003 and $200 million more than the President’s request.
Department of Justice
Under the bill, the Department of Justice would receive $20.3 billion, an increase of $527 million over the FY2003 allocation and $1.5 billion more than the President’s request.
National Institute of Justice (NIJ): In FY2004, the NIJ would receive $59 million, $490,000 less than FY2003 and $14.3 million less than the President’s request. In addition, the Local Law Enforcement Block Grant would receive $400 million, $2.6 million above FY2003. Under the President’s budget, this program would not have been funded.
H.R. 2799 also would include $80 million for the Boys and Girls Clubs, $52,000 more than the FY2003 level.
The Missing Children program would receive $36.9 million in FY2004 to “combat crimes against children, particularly kidnapping and sexual exploitation.” This amount is $4.267 million more than FY2003 and $6.231 million more than the President’s request. The total would include $12.5 million for the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force and $14 million for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Programs under the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) would receive $388 million in FY2004, a $2.2 million increase over FY2003 and $14.7 million above the level requested by the President. Funding for VAWA programs will provide the resources “to expand units of law enforcement officers and prosecutors specifically targeted at crimes against women; to develop and implement effective arrest and prosecution policies to prevent, identify and respond to violent crimes against women; and to provide much needed victims services including specialized domestic violence court advocates to obtain protection orders.”
VAWA programs would receive the following grants:
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As requested by the President, H.R. 2799 also would provide $174 million to reduce the DNA sample backlog. This amount is $93 million over the FY2003 funding level.
$60 million would be provided for data collection, analysis, and research on prison rape and for grants to state and local prisons for rape prevention and prosecution. The committee understands “that prison rape contributes to the spread of sexually-transmitted diseases, such as HIV and AIDS,” and “that most prison staff are not adequately trained or prepared to prevent, report, or treat inmate sexual assaults and that prison rape often goes unreported.” This amount is nearly five times the FY2003 level of $13 million.
H.R. 2799 would allocate $10 million for programs providing assistance to victims of trafficking at the Justice Department, $65,000 above the FY2003 level. Under the President’s budget, this program would not have been funded. The committee report states, “An estimated 1 to 2 million people are trafficked worldwide each year, with women and children making up at least 700,000 of this total. It is estimated that 50,000 of these women and children are trafficked into the United States annually by crime rings and loosely connected criminal networks.” The committee expects the Justice Department “to continue coordination efforts with the State Department to investigate and prosecute these crimes,” and “to continue submitting yearly updates regarding efforts to investigate and prosecute trafficking.”
Juvenile Justice Programs: The measure would provide $462.2 million for Juvenile Justice programs, $187.2 million above FY2003 and $195 million above the President’s request. Of this amount, $11 million would be provided for the Victims of Child Abuse Act, $8.4 million more than the level requested by the President. Report language notes that these funds would be used to establish regional and local children’s advocacy centers.
The State Department
Under the bill, the State Department would receive $8.4 billion in FY2004, an increase of $570 million over FY2003 and $223 million less than the President’s request.
H.R. 2799 would include $4.581 million for the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (TIP Office), $800,000 above the President’s request. The committee also “congratulates the Department on the recently released 2003 annual report on trafficking, in which 30 new countries were added as a result of increased diplomatic dialogue and public attention.”
Independent Agencies
The Legal Services Corporation would receive $338.8 million in FY2004, $2.203 million above the FY2003 level and $9.548 million above the level requested by the President. The measure would appropriate $328.4 million for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, $21.5 million more than FY2003, but $6.3 million less than the President’s request. In addition, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights would be level-funded at $9.1 million, as requested by the President.
Several programs related to women-owned businesses would be level-funded. Women’s Business Centers would receive $12.5 million in FY2004 and the National Women’s Business Council would receive $750,000.
During consideration of H.R. 2799, the House approved, 424-0, an amendment offered by Rep. Doug Ose (R-CA) that would prohibit the use of funds in the bill for the issuance of visas for child abductors who violate U.S. court orders or for family members who aided and abetted the child abductor.
Rep. Ose said that, “despite an increasingly high level of congressional and public concern regarding the tragedy of international parental child abduction and wrongful retention of American children abroad, the plight of the American child persists.” He added that his amendment would address only those countries that have not signed the Hague Convention on Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.
Supporting the amendment, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) noted that most of the worst cases occurred in Saudi Arabia. “Women in Saudi Arabia have very few rights and the result is the tragic child custody cases where families are broken apart and children are stripped from one of their parents.”
The House opposed an amendment offered by Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) that would have prohibited funds from being used to prevent the states of Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Nevada, Oregon, or Washington from implementing state laws authorizing the use of medical marijuana. The amendment was defeated, 273-152.
The Senate Appropriations Committee has not yet marked up its version of the FY2004 Commerce, Justice, State, and the Judiciary spending bill.
Foreign Operations
On July 24, the House approved, 370-50, the FY2004 Foreign Operations spending bill (H.R. 2800). As in the measure approved by the Appropriations Committee on July 16 (see The Source, 7/18/03), the bill would allocate $17.1 billion in FY2004, $900 million more than FY2003 and $1.8 billion less than the President’s request.
During consideration of H.R. 2800, the House approved, by voice vote, an amendment by Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee Chair Jim Kolbe (R-AZ) that would provide that, of the amount allocated for HIV/AIDS prevention activities, no less than $15 million should be made available as a contribution to the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative.
The House opposed a number of amendments to increase funding for HIV/AIDS prevention activities, including:
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Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY) filed an amendment with the Rules Committee that would have added $1 billion in emergency spending for global HIV/AIDS programs. She argued that her amendment was necessary in order to provide the full $3 billion for HIV/AIDS that was authorized in the Global HIV/AIDS bill (P.L. 108-25) passed by the House earlier this year (see The Source, 5/23/03). The Rules Committee rejected the amendment, thereby preventing Rep. Lowey from offering it during House consideration.
Chairman Kolbe explained that the allocations in this bill combined with the amount provided in the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education spending bill (H.R. 2660) would provide $2 billion for HIV/AIDS prevention activities in FY2004. “This $2 billion represents the first installment of $15 billion to be spent against these three diseases over the next 5 years. Let me make that crystal clear. This administration and this subcommittee and, I believe, this Congress are fully committed to spending $15 billion on prevention and life-saving treatments for those afflicted with AIDS around the world. This $2 billion that is in these two bills, last week and here today on the floor, is only our first installment in that program.”
In addition, Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN) filed an amendment with the Rules Committee that would have provided that, of the amount allocated for HIV/AIDS prevention activities, $200 million be directed for orphans and vulnerable children affected by HIV/AIDS. The Rules Committee also rejected the amendment.
Expressing her outrage over the President Bush’s threat to veto the bill if it included the Kilpatrick amendment, Rep. Lowey stated, “Clearly the President has no intention of reaching a $3 billion level for HIV/AIDS as was authorized in 2004. The rhetoric that surrounded the signing of the HIV/AIDS bill was hollow. Today we have an opportunity to prove that our commitment was real.”
Chairman Kolbe disagreed and argued that the Millennium Challenge assistance program “goes hand in hand with what we are trying to do on HIV/AIDS. You cannot separate development assistance from HIV/AIDS. The health infrastructure in a country, the basic education of children so that they can understand about prevention of HIV/AIDS, all of this goes hand in hand, hand in glove.”
The Chair sustained a point of order against two amendments on the basis that both constituted legislating in an appropriations bill. They included:
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Under the measure, $1.43 billion would be provided for HIV/AIDS prevention activities, $86 million above the President’s request. The total includes $400 million for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria; $840 million in bilateral HIV/AIDS funding within the Child Survival and Health Programs Fund; and at least $20 million to assist AIDS orphans and HIV-positive children.
The Appropriations Committee report accompanying H.R. 2800 notes that the committee “strongly supports the inclusion of funding for programs to prevent mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) of HIV as an integral element of a comprehensive approach to HIV prevention efforts and as a springboard for reaching families and infected persons with expanded support, care, and treatment.” The committee also encourages the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to “ensure that established MTCT programs expand to provide support, care, and treatment.”
The committee notes that, “at the end of 2002, half of the world’s HIV/AIDS-infected people were women,” and “the typical woman who becomes infected with HIV has only one sexual partner her husband, and very little say over the occurrence, frequency, and terms of sexual contact.” Further, “the committee believes that this increases the urgency of finding woman-controlled methods of HIV prevention such as topical microbicides.” For these reasons, the committee urges that not less than $24 million in bilateral HIV/AIDS funds be available for microbicide research and development. In addition, not less than $15 million should be provided for research on and testing of AIDS vaccines.
Report language states, “A primary factor in the impoverishment of children affected by HIV/AIDS is the denial of inheritance rights of widowed women in many African countries. Often mothers with children are no longer allowed to remain in the family home or cultivate matrimonial land after a spouse living with HIV/AIDS dies.” The denial of inheritance rights “also aggravates the HIV/AIDS epidemic by forcing young widows with few resources into relations with men who carry HIV/AIDS, effectively increasing the number of orphans.” The committee urges USAID “to support nongovernmental organizations with competence to address this issue in Africa.”
In addition, the committee “is concerned by reports of misinformation regarding the effectiveness of condom use, especially by marital partners living with HIV/AIDS.” H.R. 2800 includes new language “requiring that information on condom use provided by programs supported by funds made available by this Act shall be medically accurate and shall include the public health benefits and failure rates of such use.”
Report language also states, “The West Africa AIDS Initiative, a coordinated effort to prevent and treat HIV/AIDS in the militaries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), favorably impresses the committee.” For this reason, proposals “supported by ECOWAS presidents and American schools of public health, including minority institutions, merit priority funding of $3.5 million by the AIDS coordinator.”
$2.2 billion would be earmarked for the Child Survival and Health Programs Fund, an increase of $411 million over FY2003 and $621 million more than the President’s request. Of that amount, $120 million would be provided for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and $324 million for child survival and maternal health programs.
H.R. 2800 also would allocate $1.3 billion in development assistance for USAID. Last year, Congress funded development assistance at $1.363 billion. The total funding for USAID in FY2004 would be $4.7 billion, $166 million above FY2003 and $46 million below the President’s request. H.R. 2800 also would level-fund USAID’s Office for Women in Development at $11 million and would provide an additional $11 million for women’s leadership programs.
As requested by the President, international family planning programs would receive $425 million, $22 million less than FY2003. In addition, the bill would limit the U.S. contribution to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) to $25 million and would prohibit these funds from being used in China.
The committee “notes the recent UNFPA report indicating that obstetric fistula is a much more widespread problem in sub-Saharan Africa than recently believed,” and “the incidence of this debilitating condition could be decreased through increasing access for women to skilled birth attendants and medical care, and those women who have already suffered fistula could be helped by training local doctors to care for fistula patients and continuing programs that bring in visiting and volunteer surgeons to repair that condition.” Although USAID does not currently fund any programs specifically aimed at obstetric fistula, the committee “urges USAID to initiate programs in the most heavily affected areas.”
H.R. 2800 would provide $600 million in humanitarian and reconstruction assistance for Afghanistan. Report language states “that Afghanistan’s women continue to struggle to achieve the basic rights they lost during the Taliban period, and were severely affected by their inability during that time to attend schools, hold jobs, and travel outside their homes.” The committee “urges implementers of programs in Afghanistan to carefully integrate Afghan women into activities related to development and reconstruction, and believes that, in order to complement the overall effort, there should be a specific focus on strengthening Afghan women-led institutions and organizations.” The committee urges the State Department Coordinator of Assistance to Afghanistan and USAID to devote not less than $10 million for the Afghanistan’s Ministry of Women’s Affairs to support Afghan women. The committee also “reiterates its expectation that Women’s Centers will be built and equipped in 17 regional centers and will provide legal and protective services, computer and literacy classes, and vocational courses.”
The bill also would provide $800 million for the Millennium Challenge assistance program, a new program aimed at granting foreign assistance based on a country’s commitment to democratic rule and capitalism.
The Peace Corps would receive $314 million in FY2004, $18 million more than FY2003, but $45 million less than the President’s request. The measure maintains current law prohibiting funds from being used for abortions for Peace Corps volunteers.
The Senate Appropriations Committee approved its version of the FY2004 Foreign Operations spending bill (S. 1426) on July 17 (see The Source, 7/18/03).
VA-HUD-Independent Agencies
On July 25, the House approved, 316-109, the FY2004 VA-HUD-Independent Agencies spending bill (H.R. 2861). As in the measure approved by the Appropriations Committee on July 21, H.R. 2861 would allocate $90 billion in FY2004, a $2.9 billion increase over the FY2003 appropriations bill (P.L. 108-7) and $600 million more than the President’s request.
H.R. 2861 would provide $1.242 billion for homeless programs, including full funding to renew Shelter Plus Care contracts, which provide supportive housing for homeless people with disabilities and their families. This funding level is $25 million more than FY2003 and $288 million less than the President’s request.
In addition, the bill would include $297 million for the Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS (HOPWA) program, a $7 million increase over last year and the same amount as requested by the President.
During consideration of H.R. 2861, the House approved, by voice vote, an amendment offered by Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) that would add an additional $5 million to the HOPWA program, bringing the total to $302 million for FY2004.
Another amendment by Rep. Nadler was approved, 217-208, that would provide an additional $150 million for Section 8 housing vouchers.
In addition, Reps. Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) offered an amendment that would add an additional $83 million to homeless programs, bringing the total to $1.3 billion in FY2004. The amendment was defeated, 192-232.
The Senate Appropriations Committee has not yet marked up its version of the FY2004 VA-HUD-Independent Agencies spending bill.
House Committee Action
Transportation, Treasury, and Independent Agencies
On July 24, the House Appropriations Committee approved, by voice vote, the FY2004 Transportation, Treasury, and Independent Agencies spending bill (as-yet-unnumbered).
The spending bill includes funding for job access and reverse commute grants, which are used to aid welfare-to-work recipients who live in “urbanized areas with populations greater than 200,000” and have transportation costs associated with their jobs. The measure also provides funding for the Minority Business Resource Center, funding for minority business outreach, and funding for the Occupant Protection Incentive Grants.
In addition, the bill would maintain current law requiring health plans participating in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) to cover prescription contraceptives if they cover other prescription drugs. Physicians and others who provide contraceptives are exempted from the requirement if they object based on religious beliefs. Religiously affiliated health plans also are exempt. The measure also prohibits abortion coverage under FEHBP, except when the life of the mother is endangered or in the case of rape or incest.
The House is expected to consider the Transportation, Treasury, and Independent Agencies spending bill in September.
