Federal HIV/AIDS Appropriations Pass House and Senate

In a departure from recent years, both the House and Senate have passed appropriations bills that fund the Departments of Labor, HHS and Education. Unfortunately, both bills follow the recommendations of the Bush Administration to flat-fund the CARE Act titles and provide only a $10 million increase to the AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP).  This increase comes nowhere near the $303 million increase that is needed, and it does not even fully support clients who were provided HIV drugs through last year's $20 million one-time emergency allocation. The majority of those individuals have been moved back on to state ADAP waiting lists and risk disruption of their drug therapy.

Domestic HIV/AIDS prevention programs at Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were cut for the second year and the Minority HIV/AIDS Initiative was also flat-funded. On the housing front, the House rejected the proposal to cut the Housing Opportunities for People with AIDS (HOPWA) program by $13 million and instead increased its funding by $10 million over current levels, for a total of $290 million. The Senate, while also rejecting the Administration's request for a cut, funded HOPWA at $287 million. SFAF will continue to work for the highest funding levels when the House and Senate meet to conference the different versions of these bills later this year.