Senate Appropriations Subcommittee approves FY13 State and Foreign Operations appropriations bill

The Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on the Department of State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs on Tuesday approved a $52.1 billion FY 2013 spending bill for state and foreign operations, The Hill's "Global Affairs" blog reports (Pecquet, 5/22). The subcommittee also released a bill summary (5/22). "The bill includes funding for U.S. global health programs at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the State Department comprising a significant portion of funding for the Global Health Initiative (GHI)," according to the Kaiser Family Foundation's "Policy Tracker."

"The Senate bill would provide $8.4 billion to the GHI, which is approximately $500 million more than the President's FY13 request ($7.9 billion) and $400 million more than the House FY13 appropriations bill ($8.0 billion)," the Policy Tracker states, adding, "It is also approximately $200 million above the FY12 amount ($8.2 billion)" (5/22). The Center for Global Health Policy's "Science Speaks" blog notes that the "committee voted to fund the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria at the President's budget request of $1.65 billion -- which would fulfill the U.S. four-year, $4 billion pledge to the Fund," and adds that the bill would provide $265 million for global tuberculosis programs, "a $29 million increase from both current funding and the funding level determined by the House last week for FY13" (Lubinski, 5/22).

Additional details regarding the international health aspects of the FY13 Senate subcommittee's appropriations bill proposal are available on the Kaiser Family Foundation's Policy Tracker.