Top Senate Republican Says Pepfar Program In Jeopardy

Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho), the chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, said Thursday the global AIDS-fighting program started by President George W. Bush “is certainly in jeopardy” because the Biden administration allowed some of its funding to be spent on abortions.

Congressional Republicans had raised concerns about funds from the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief going to groups that support abortion rights or provide abortions in 2023 when they allowed the program’s authorization to expire. They ultimately renewed it for one year last March.

Risch said in a statement that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has disclosed that funds from the $5 billion program that helps developing countries combat HIV and AIDS were used to pay health workers who performed at least 21 abortions in Mozambique.

While the procedure is legal in the African country, the decades-long Helms Amendment prohibits any U.S. funding from being used to provide or promote abortion as a method of family planning.

Risch called the revelation “disgusting.”

“The CDC must be investigated for its misuse of PEPFAR funds, and those who have violated long-standing U.S. laws that protect life must be held accountable,” Risch said.

The issue came to light after routine compliance checks identified potential risks, said a State Department official granted anonymity to discuss issues they were not authorized to speak publicly about.

The CDC worked with the Mozambique Ministry of Health to launch an investigation to determine if there had been a violation of funding terms, the State Department official said.

The investigation found four nurses in a small province of the country that didn’t know they weren’t allowed to provide abortions if they received PEPFAR funding, the official said.

The Mozambique government has refunded the money, $4,100, according to a CDC spokesperson. PEPFAR’s annual spending in Mozambique is $189 million, the spokesperson said.

"CDC identified the error, took immediate action, has a plan in place to prevent it from happening again and briefed relevant committees," the CDC spokesperson said.

PEPFAR will begin requiring every service provider it works with to attest annually that they’ve been trained and that they understand restrictions on funding, the State Department official said.

Why it matters: The revelation comes less than three months before PEPFAR’s current authorization expires. The Foreign Relations Committee would likely need to approve a new authorization before it could go to the Senate floor.

PEPFAR can continue without authorization so long as Congress appropriates funds for it. But allowing the authorization to expire would be another blow to the long-bipartisan program. Until 2023, Congress had always granted 5-year reauthorizations.

Since its creation by Bush in 2003, PEPFAR is credited with saving 25 million lives.

The Biden administration, PEPFAR leaders and program implementers had previously rejected the GOP claims about program funding going toward abortion.

The State Department official said that the spending in Mozambique is the first and only violation of program rules the department is aware of.

The compliance system worked and the State Department and other institutions involved rectified the situation, the official said, adding that it would be short-sighted to end PEPFAR over it.