On June 3, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on State and Foreign Operations approved, by voice vote, the FY2016 State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs spending bill (as-yet-unnumbered). The legislation provides funding for the State Department, United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and foreign assistance programs.
According to the committee summary, the measure would provide $47.8 billion in discretionary and Global War on Terror (GWOT) funding for FY2016. This amount is $1.4 billion below FY2015 and $6.1 billion below President Obama’s request.
The legislation would allocate $1.1 billion for USAID, which is $93 million below FY2015 and $302 million below the administration’s FY2016 request.
The measure also would allocate $21.5 billion towards bilateral foreign aid assistance, which includes $5.67 billion towards programs to combat HIV/AIDS. This amount is $863 million below FY2015 and $1.9 billion below the president’s request. The bill would cap family planning and reproductive health programs at the FY2008 level of $461 million and would prohibit funding for United Nations Population Fund.
With regard to abortion, the bill would reinstate the Mexico City Policy, a policy prohibiting U.S. assistance to foreign nongovernmental organizations that promote or perform abortions, and would maintain longstanding riders, including the Tiahrt Amendment, which ensures family planning programs are voluntary; the Helms Amendment, which bans foreign aid from being spent on abortions; and the Kemp-Kasten Amendment, which prohibits federal funding for international organizations that support coercive abortions or involuntary sterilization.
Additional information will be provided once the committee releases its report.
