United States Sen. James Risch, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is preventing about $1 billion in funding for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the massive U.S. program to combat HIV and AIDS, from being spent.
Risch said at a hearing on Wednesday that he had put a hold on the funding in September and would not release it until he was confident that PEPFAR dollars were not going to support abortions abroad. It is not uncommon for lawmakers to put a hold, or stall funding if they have questions about what it will fund.
“This committee takes oversight of U.S. foreign assistance extremely seriously. You know well that transparency and accountability are paramount to that end,” he told Marco Rubio, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of state, during the hearing.