[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 34 (Monday, August 28, 2000)]
[Pages 1906-1907]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Statement on Signing the Global AIDS and Tuberculosis Relief Act of 2000

August 19, 2000

    Today I am pleased to sign into law H.R. 3519, the ``Global AIDS and 
Tuberculosis Relief Act of 2000,'' which represents the latest U.S. 
effort in the long-term global fight against HIV/AIDS and its related 
threat of tuberculosis.
    In July 1999, Vice President Gore and I launched the 
Administration's interagency ``Leadership and Investment in Fighting an 
Epidemic'' (LIFE) initiative to expand our funding for global HIV/AIDS 
prevention, care, and treatment in the worst affected developing 
countries. With bipartisan support, the Congress appropriated the 
additional $100 million that we requested for FY 2000 to enhance these 
efforts. For FY 2001, my budget includes an additional $100 million for 
the LIFE initiative.
    While the LIFE initiative greatly strengthens the foundation of a 
comprehensive response to the pandemic, the United States clearly 
understands that there is much more to be done. The Joint United Nations 
Program on HIV/AIDS has estimated that it will take $1.5 billion 
annually to establish an effective HIV prevention program in sub-Saharan 
Africa and an additional $1.5 billion annually to deliver basic care and 
treatment to people with AIDS in the region.
    H.R. 3519 takes some of the additional steps to broaden the global 
effort to combat this worldwide epidemic. It provides enhanced bilateral 
authorities and authorizes funding for the Agency for International 
Development's HIV/AIDS programs; authorizes new funding for the Global 
Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations and the International AIDS 
Vaccine Initiative; and authorizes the creation of a World Bank AIDS 
Trust Fund that is intended to create a new, multilateral funding 
mechanism to support AIDS prevention and care programs in the most 
grievously affected countries.
    The United States, however, cannot and should not battle AIDS alone. 
This crisis will require the active engagement of all segments of all 
societies working together. Every bilateral donor, every multilateral 
lending

[[Page 1907]]

agency, the corporate community, the foundation community, the religious 
community, and every host government of a developing nation must do its 
part to provide the leadership and resources necessary to turn this 
tide. It can and must be done.
    There is currently no vaccine or cure for HIV/AIDS, and we are at 
the beginning of a global pandemic, not the end. What we see in Africa 
today is just the tip of the iceberg. There must be a sense of urgency 
to work together with our partners in Africa and around the world, to 
learn from both our failures and our successes, and to share this 
experience with those countries that now stand on the brink of disaster. 
Millions of lives-- perhaps hundreds of millions--hang in the balance. 
That is why this legislation is so important.
    I wish to thank and congratulate our congressional partners who 
worked hard to make this bipartisan legislation a reality: 
Representatives Leach, Lee, LaFalce, Gejdenson, Gilman, Jackson-Lee, 
Maloney of New York, and Pelosi, and Senators Kerry, Frist, Biden, 
Boxer, Durbin, Feingold, Helms, Leahy, Moynihan, and Smith of Oregon.
    While I strongly support this legislation, certain provisions seem 
to direct the Administration on how to proceed in negotiations related 
to the development of the World Bank AIDS Trust Fund. Because these 
provisions appear to require the Administration to take certain 
positions in the international arena, they raise constitutional 
concerns. As such, I will treat them as precatory.
    The United States has been engaged in the fight against AIDS since 
the 1980s. Increasingly, we have come to realize that when it comes to 
AIDS, neither the crisis nor the opportunity to address it have borders. 
We have a great deal to learn from the experiences of other countries, 
and the suffering of citizens in our global village touches us all. The 
pages of history reveal moments in time when the global community came 
together and collectively found ``the higher angels of our nature.'' In 
a world living with AIDS, we must reach for one of those historic 
moments now--it is the only way to avoid paying the price later.
                                            William J. Clinton
The White House,
August 19, 2000.

Note: H.R. 3519, approved August 19, was assigned Public Law No. 106-
264.