House Appropriations Committee releases draft report on FY13 State, Foreign Operations spending bill

The House Appropriations Committee is scheduled to mark up the FY 2013 State and Foreign Operations appropriations bill on Thursday, The Hill's "Global Affairs" blog reports (Pecquet, 5/17). On Wednesday, the committee released the State and Foreign Operations Draft Committee Report (.pdf), which provides additional information on funding through the appropriations bill for U.S. global health programs at USAID and the State Department, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation's Policy Tracker. "This funding comprises a significant portion of the Global Health Initiative budget (total funding for the GHI is not currently available as some funding provided through USAID, HHS, and DoD are not yet available)," the website writes. The House Appropriations State and Foreign Affairs subcommittee released the draft bill on May 8 and approved it on May 9, according to the website.

The bill reinstates the Mexico City Policy, also known as the "global gag rule," prohibits funding for UNFPA, and provides no funding for needle-exchange programs, according to the Policy Tracker (5/16). The Center for Global Health Policy's "Science Speaks" blog writes that the report on the bill "underscores [the committee's] continuing support for funding microbicide and HIV vaccine development and specifies that the U.S. contribution to the [GAVI Alliance] should be used for vaccines that have a direct impact on child survival, including the rotavirus and pneumococcal vaccines." The blog notes that the Senate State and Foreign Operations appropriations subcommittee is scheduled to consider its FY13 spending bill next week (Lubinski, 5/16).

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