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The House in Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union had under consideration the bill (H.R. 4811) making appropriations for foreign operations, export financing, and related programs for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2001, and for other purposes.

• Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment of my colleague, the Gentlelady from California, Ms. LEE, to restore the funding for Global Aids assistance that was cut from the President's request.

• This body Mr. Chairman, invariably never ceases to amaze me. Here we are in the middle of a monumental life and family destroying, economy breaking, HIV/AIDS pandemic. Instead of increasing funding to address it, as the situation calls out desperately for us to do, we are codifying restrictions on family planning funding, slashing funding for debt relief to some of the same affected countries and others, and reducing the flow of drastically needed funds for HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment to a mere drip. This is a travesty.

• A recent UN report revealed that AIDS will cause early death in as many as one-half of the young adults in the hardest hit countries of southern Africa, causing unprecedented populations imbalances. In one country alone, Botswana, it is predicted that two thirds of that country's 15-year-olds will die of AIDS before age 50. But as bad as the impact is now, the full blow is still some years off. This loss at a time when men and women would be at their most productive, in countries that are only now beginning to come out from under the deep effects of colonialism and tyrannical rules, will be devastating.

• Our communities here in the U.S. are bleeding, these are hemorrhaging. Both crises need to be appropriately addressed, and addressed now.

• We are no longer in a world where any one country, nor even one neighborhood can labor under the impression that they are isolated. The devastation, and the disruptive effects of the HIV/AIDS pandemic may be at its very worse in far away, exotic lands, but the dire effects will ripple until they reach our shores. Combined with our domestic HIV/AIDS crisis, which also is not being adequately addressed, the bell will increasingly toll for us.

• We have the opportunity today to make a difference in the lives of our neighbors in Africa and other countries today, by supporting the Lee amendment. We must also resolve to apply the remedies in the magnitude that is needed here at home as well.

• $100 million is not a large sum. It is merely a drop in the bucket, against the backdrop of the enormity of the pandemic. But it is a start. It is seed money--an incentive for other countries, private corporations and foundations to join this vital effort.

• The Congressional Black Caucus and its Health Brain Trust, which I chair, has made HIV/AIDS our chief priority. We began here in this country with the call for a state of emergency and funding which has come to be known as the CBC Minority HIV/AIDS Initiative. But as we got funding and began to apply those dollars to the needs of our communities, we recognized that the problem was far deeper than HIV and AIDS. It was a problem of poor and deficient health infrastructure, it was and is a problem of communities beset with a myriad of social and economic problems.

• As we began the work of addressing all of the ills that lay beneath the tip of the AIDS iceberg, we also came face to face with the grim reality that is AIDS in Africa, and AIDS in the Caribbean, as well.

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• And so, Mr. Chairman, what we want this body and our colleagues to recognize is that HIV and AIDS is a pandemic for people of color, around the world, including here in the United States. Achieving adequate prevention and treatment of HIV and AIDS in Africa and other parts of the world, is not that much different from combating it here. The social, economic, and health care infrastructure deficiencies are pretty much the same. And that is a real shame.

• So, I am asking this body, to support Congresswoman LEE's efforts, to support the CBC initiative and to fully fund it this year and for several years to come as needed.

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