This week, Congress cleared the conference report for the FY2002 supplemental appropriations bill (H.R. 4775), sending the measure to the President. He is expected to sign it into law. On July 23, the House approved the legislation, 397-32, with the Senate passing the bill by a vote of 97-2 the next day. Overall, the legislation would provide $28.9 billion in discretionary FY2002 supplemental spending, with the bulk of the funding being appropriated for homeland security activities and the war on terrorism.
The conference report also upholds the President’s recent decision to withhold $34 million from the United National Population Fund (UNFPA) by remaining silent on the issue. Although Congress allocated $34 million to UNFPA under last year’s foreign operations spending bill (P.L. 107-115), the President had the authority to withhold funds from any country or organization if the President certified that the funds could be used for the performance of coerced abortions overseas.
In May, the State Department sent a fact-finding team to China to investigate allegations that UNFPA participates in China’s forced sterilization and abortion program. The State Department report found no evidence that UNFPA played a role in the forced sterilization and abortion program and recommended that the funding be released. While the President announced that the funding would be withheld, he also announced that the $34 million would instead be allocated to the U.S. Agency for International Development to implement its family planning and reproductive health activities.
The House-passed bill would have given the President additional discretion to determine how much of the funding should be released to UNFPA. The Senate-passed bill would have required the President to disburse the $34 million in family planning aid to UNFPA by July 10, if the administration certified that UNFPA did not violate U.S. law.
Like the House and Senate bills, the final measure provides $200 million for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. Congress has already appropriated $650 million in FY2002 for global HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases programs.
H.R. 4775 provides another $75 million for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) to finance increased participation in the WIC program, as well as the increased food costs associated with the program. Both the House and Senate bills included the same amount. The WIC program has already been allocated $4.348 billion in FY2002.
In addition, H.R. 4775 appropriates $1.0 billion for Pell Grants, as provided by the House and Senate. The additional funding is to prevent an expected shortfall in the student loan program due to higher program costs related to the economic downturn and the increasing number of individuals seeking post-secondary education.
The final measure also includes an additional $500,000 for the national domestic violence hotline, the same amount provided in the House bill.
