Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has said that he will attempt to bring legislation that would reauthorize the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief to the Senate floor on Wednesday, CQ Today reports (Graham-Silverman, CQ Today, 6/24).
Reid last week set a Tuesday deadline for negotiators to come to an agreement on the reauthorization measures (HR 5501, S 2731) (Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, 6/20). However, he decided to move the deadline to Wednesday after Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Joseph Biden (D-Del.) asked for one more day to finalize the deal. Reid said he will now try to get unanimous consent to move the legislation, regardless of whether a deal is secure (CQ Today, 6/24).
The Senate version of the PEPFAR reauthorization bill passed the Foreign Relations Committee in March, and the House version was approved 308-116 in April. Both the Senate and House versions of the bill would reauthorize PEPFAR at $50 billion over five years. However, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and six other Republican senators are blocking the legislation because they are opposed to the legislation's cost and "mission creep" into health and development efforts. In addition, they want language inserted into the measure that would guarantee that 55% of PEPFAR funding goes toward treatment, including antiretroviral drugs (Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, 6/20).
Some Senate aides say they have resolved the treatment issue with language that would increase the targeted number of people treated and direct more than half of funding to "treatment and care," according to CQ Today. However, the aides said that objections from other senators, including objections over the cost of the bill, would continue. Sen. Richard Burr (R-S.C.), who is one of the seven blocking the legislation, said, "We have a verbal agreement," adding, "The devil is always in the details."
The Group of Eight industrialized nations summit, which begins on July 7 in Japan, is "putting pressure on all sides to complete the negotiations," according to CQ Today. President Bush has said that he supports the reauthorization legislation and that he would like it to pass in Congress so he can use it at the summit to call for increased contributions from other countries. According to Reid, Bush "said he wants it. Now we've got to get folks on the other side of the aisle, the Republicans, to join with the president on this."