By Crystal Swann
December 20, 2006

After two and one-half years, the reauthorization the Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency Act reached a final climax in the U.S. House of Representative December 9. The House passed the Senate compromise bill ending a battle pitting the large coastal cities first hit by the AIDS crisis against the Midwest and the South, where the epidemic is growing fastest.

In late September, the House passed a bill that included a provision to redirect money from some large cities to smaller and rural communities.

The reauthorization bill was then held up in the Senate by opposition from New York Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Charles Schumer, Robert Menendez and Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, and Barbara Boxer of California, over fears that their states could lose a large amount of federal AIDS funding. New York and New Jersey faced cuts close to $70 million.

The Senate then passed a compromise bill, approved by the Senate December 5, and keeps intact “hold harmless” provisions that would prevent losses of more than five percent of funding for the larger states, while still increasing funding for rural areas and the South.

The new bill also reduced the length of the reauthorization from five to three years, which significantly reduced the disastrous financial impact many of the larger cities would have felt in years four and five.

After long negotiations, including demands by House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Barton to pass a bill to reauthorize the National Institutes of Medicine, the House December 9 cleared the NIH bill, followed by the Ryan White measure and an anti-terrorism bill, all by voice vote.

President Bush is expected the sign the Ryan White bill into law.