Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2004 - Resumed

FOREIGN OPERATIONS, EXPORT FINANCING, AND RELATED PROGRAMS APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2004—RESUMED

Mr. COLEMAN. Madam President, I first want to thank my colleague, the Senator from Ohio, for the incredible work he has done. He has been tireless and steadfast on this issue. I was proud to be a cosponsor of his amendment.

I thank my colleague, the Senator from Illinois, for his passion on this issue. I have the greatest respect for what he is trying to accomplish.

Today, I had an opportunity to meet with Ambassador Tobias. We talked about this issue of capacity. He said he was in a warehouse—either in Botswana or South Africa—but he was in a warehouse. The warehouse was full of antiretroviral drugs. They were close to their expiration date. These drugs had been donated by a company. The drugs were there but they didn't have the capacity to get them all out. Those drugs were in danger of being wasted.

We were in South Africa this summer. I was with Leader Frist and others and dealing with the issue of AIDS. There are 5 million people in South Africa who are HIV positive. There are approximately 20,000 receiving antiretroviral treatment.

We visited Anglo Gold, one of the largest gold mines in the world. They made a commitment to each and every employee to cover the full cost of treatment. Money is not the issue. They believe they have perhaps 30,000 employees HIV positive. They were hoping to get in the first year 10 percent, 3,000 to come in for treatment. They have a third of that and less to date. They said to us: The money is not the issue; we do not have the capacity to do it right. You have to do it right.

I will fight very hard to keep our commitment of $15 billion over 5 years. As my colleague from Pennsylvania said, we have met our commitment that is in the authorization of $2 billion by the DeWine amendment. We have met our commitment to the global fund. We are meeting our commitment. We are doing it the right way. We are going to have to ramp up. The needs are great.

In my own experience, having visited Africa, the capacity is not there. You simply cannot throw money at a problem. We have to do the right thing. We are doing the right thing by the commitments we have made by supporting the DeWine amendment. I oppose the Durbin amendment.

I yield the floor.