Rep. Barbara Lee has some serious multitasking ahead. The Californian is eyeing fellow Democrat Dianne Feinstein’s Senate seat. As the ranking member on the House Appropriations State and Foreign Operations Subcommittee, Lee is also a key player in the pending reauthorization of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. She talked to Carmen about the challenge of ensuring the program’s budget is as ambitious as the goal of ending HIV/AIDS as a public health emergency by 2030 at a time of great pressure on U.S. global health spending. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. What kind of spending would you like to see for PEPFAR? We’ve got to make sure we spend what it takes to get to an AIDS-free generation in 2030. And so that’s what we’re working on now. We can get to a point where we’ll have what we need. Do you expect it’s going to be hard to work with your Republican colleagues on PEPFAR’s budget? That remains to be seen. I will continue to make the case and demonstrate how successful this has been. Hopefully, reason will prevail and this will continue to be a bipartisan effort. Backing off really would not be in our national security interest. What is the status of the legislation to reauthorize PEPFAR? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. And so we're trying to determine how to put together a clean reauthorization and get this done. I think we have the support of both sides of the aisle to move this forward. The timing is uncertain at this point. But we’ve been working together, consulting with outside groups, with allies, and with the White House.
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