Funding bill jumps its first big hurdle
Increases at home, abroad now promising
On Capitol Hill, proposed legislation that would affect TB funding has made good headway. The Senate Foreign Affairs Committee marked up a global health bill, which included most of the provisions contained in the STOP TB NOW bill (S116). That bill, introduced by Sens. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Ted Stevens (R-AL), authorizes up to $210 million in U.S. bilateral assistance for TB control. Hundreds of bills are introduced every year, but only a small number succeed in navigating their way through the committee mark-up process. Last year’s version of the same bill failed to make it to committee mark-up.
Having made it this far strongly increases the likelihood the House will now take action on a parallel version of the same bill, according to lobbyists at the American Lung Association.
A second TB-related Senate bill also was due to go before committee soon. That bill would allot up to $528 million for domestic TB spending. Negotiations underway at press time were expected to drop the amount authorized by the domestic spending bill, but the final amount was still expected to be greater than current domestic TB spending, which is about $132 million.
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