House panel shifts $200 million from Defense to foreign operations

The House Appropriations Committee Thursday approved a roughly $16.5 billion fiscal 2003 Foreign Operations spending bill that contains $25 million for the controversial United Nations Population Fund and also approved a plan by Appropriations Committee Chairman Bill Young, R-Fla., to shift $200 million from fiscal 2003 Defense spending to Foreign Operations.

This move came over the objections of Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., subcommittee ranking member John Murtha, D-Pa, and Appropriations ranking member David Obey, D-Wis.

Referring to a possible war with Iraq, Obey said, "I don't think anyone is comfortable cutting defense, given the events that are likely to transpire in the next few months."

Young sought to assure colleagues that the $200 million will be returned to defense accounts later in the appropriations process.

The funding shortfall became apparent after the Bush administration submitted a new budget request last week to Congress, including $100 million for AIDS, $200 million in antiterrorism assistance to Israel and $50 million for the West Bank and Gaza.

The Foreign Operations spending bill would absorb $150 million in offsetting cuts elsewhere, committee staff said, and then the subcommittee's allocation would be raised $200 million to accommodate the rest of the new funding. That is the $200 million Young will take from defense.

The committee bill includes $25 million for the UNFPA-the same as in the subcommittee recommendation.

Foreign Operations Subcommittee Chairman Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., said in settling on this amount-half the $50 million contained in the Senate's Foreign Operations appropriations bill-he tried to "thread the needle" with a compromise he said "almost no one likes, but almost everyone is prepared to live with."

The funding comes with a new condition: None of it may go to China's state planned-birth commission or its regional affiliates.

UNFPA funding is a charged issue, with many Democrats chagrined that the Bush administration is withholding $34 million in fiscal 2002 UNFPA funds. For their part, conservatives shun UNFPA, contending that some of its money has gone to the Chinese government agency involved in coerced abortions.