International family planning funds will be expedited

With a 53-46 vote on February 25, the Senate approved a resolution to speed up the release of funding to the US Agency for International Development (USAID) for its overseas family planning programs. The resolution, which had been passed by the House on February 13 (see RFN VI/2), will make money budgeted for fiscal year 1997 available on March 1, 4 months earlier than originally scheduled. Under the omnibus budget bill approved at the end of September 1996, funding was to have been withheld until July 1--a full 9 months into the fiscal year--unless President Clinton made a finding that the delay was harming the functioning of the US family planning program. Based on a report from USAID, which found that the delay would cause at least 17 programs around the world to suspend their services and result in significant and permanent damage to US population-control efforts, President Clinton issued the finding in support of moving up the release of funds. The Senate did not consider a House-passed provision that would have barred family planning programs that receive US money from providing abortions, even if they paid for the procedures through other sources of funding.