On December 8, 2004, the President signed into law P.L. 108-447 ( H.R. 4818 ), the FY2005 Consolidated Appropriations Act, within which Foreign Operations is included as Division D. As enacted, the measure provides $19.64 billion for Foreign Operations after adjusting for a required 0.8% across-the-board rescission. Although this is $1.68 billion, or nearly 8% below the President's request, Congress increased amounts passed earlier by the House ($19.39 billion) and the Senate ($19.61 billion). The conference agreement is about $2.3 billion (+13%) more than the "regular" FY2004 Foreign Operations level, but far less than the $38.78 billion total appropriation in FY2004 that included $21.2 billion for Iraq reconstruction and other supplemental needs. For the "core" development and child survival accounts, including the Global AIDS Initiative, P.L. 108-447 provides $4.36 billion (after adjusting for the 0.8% across-the-board rescission), about $675 million higher than FY2004 and $160 million more than the request. Within these totals, H.R. 4818 provides $2.28 billion for the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) (after applying the rescission), roughly $80 million higher than the request and the House-passed level, but $139 million less than passed by the Senate. (Funding for international HIV/AIDS included in other appropriation bills brings the total to $2.92 billion, $100 million more than the request.) On family planning and reproductive heath matters, the conference on H.R. 4818 sets bilateral assistance at $441 million, between House and Senate-passed amounts. The bill includes $34 million for the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA), subject to the "Kemp-Kasten" conditions, but drops the Senate language amending Kemp-Kasten that may have narrowed the grounds on which the Administration could deny funding to the organization. Conferees also deleted the Senate-proposed revision to the President's so-called "Mexico City" conditions on bilateral family planning assistance in a way that may have reversed the policy restrictions. For specific countries, P.L. 108-447 provides $404 million for relief and peace and security activities in Sudan, $85 million for Haiti, and $980 million for Afghanistan. The Sudan amount is in addition to $95 million emergency funding for the Darfur region approved by P.L. 108-287 , the FY2005 Defense appropriation bill. The largest reduction in the enacted appropriation falls on the Millennium Challenge Account—reduced by $1 billion from the President's $2.5 billion request. The final level, however is $250 million and $380 million than amounts recommended earlier by the House and Senate, respectively, coming only after strong pressure from the White House. The measure further reduces funding for the Export-Import Bank, debt reduction, the Peace Corps, and multilateral development bank contributions, among other accounts. The annual Foreign Operations appropriations bill is the primary legislative vehicle through which Congress reviews and votes on the U.S. foreign assistance budget and influences major aspects of executive branch foreign policy making generally. It contains the largest share—about two-thirds—of total international affairs spending by the United States. The legislation funds all U.S. bilateral development assistance programs, managed mostly by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), together with several smaller independent foreign aid agencies, such as the Peace Corps and the Inter-American and African Development Foundations. Foreign Operations also includes resources for the two newest Administration initiatives: the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) and the Global AIDS Initiative managed by the State Department's HIV/AIDS Coordinator. Most humanitarian aid activities are funded within Foreign Operations, including USAID's disaster/famine program and the State Department's refugee relief support. Foreign Operations includes separate accounts for aid programs in the former Soviet Union (also referred to as the Independent States account) and Central/Eastern Europe, activities that are jointly managed by USAID and the State Department. Security assistance (economic and military aid) for Israel and Egypt is also part of the Foreign Operations spending measure, as are other security aid programs administered largely by the State Department, in conjunction with USAID and the Pentagon. Most recently, Foreign Operations has funded reconstruction programs in both Afghanistan and Iraq. U.S. contributions to the World Bank and other regional multilateral development banks, managed by the Treasury Department, and voluntary payments to international organizations, handled by the State Department, are also funded in the Foreign Operations bill. Finally, the legislation includes appropriations for three export promotion agencies: the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), the Export-Import Bank, and the Trade and Development Agency. For two decades, the Foreign Operations appropriations bill has been the principal legislative vehicle for congressional oversight of foreign affairs and for congressional involvement in foreign policy making. Congress has not enacted a comprehensive foreign aid authorization bill since 1985, leaving most foreign assistance programs without regular authorizations originating from the legislative oversight committees. As a result, Foreign Operations spending measures developed by the appropriations committees increasingly have expanded their scope beyond spending issues and played a major role in shaping, authorizing, and guiding both executive and congressional foreign aid and broader foreign policy initiatives. It has been largely through Foreign Operations appropriations that the United States has modified aid policy and resource allocation priorities since the end of the Cold War. The legislation has also been the channel through which the President has utilized foreign aid as a tool in the global war on terrorism since the attacks of September 11, 2001, and launched Afghan and Iraqi reconstruction operations. The appropriations measure has also been a key instrument used by Congress to apply restrictions and conditions on Administration management of foreign assistance, actions that have frequently resulted in executive-legislative clashes over presidential prerogatives in foreign policy making. President Bush submitted his FY2005 federal budget request to Congress on February 2, 2004, including funding proposals for Foreign Operations Appropriations programs. House and Senate Appropriations Committees held several hearings on the FY2005 request. The House Foreign Operations Subcommittee marked up its draft legislation on June 23, followed by full Committee approval on July 9. H.R. 4818 passed the House, amended, on July 15. The Senate Appropriations Committee reported its bill, S. 2812 , on September 16, which was debated and amended on September 23. The Senate passed H.R. 4818 , after substituting the text of S. 2812 , as amended. Conferees reached agreement November 19 on the Foreign Operations measure, together with eight other pending appropriation bills for FY2005. H.R. 4818 , originally the Foreign Operations measure, became the vehicle for the omnibus Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2005. Foreign Operations is included as Division D of the act. The President signed the measure on December 8. Arguably, from the end of World War II until the early 1990s, the underlying rationale for providing foreign aid was the same as that for all U.S. foreign policy—the defeat of communism. U.S. aid programs were designed to promote economic development and policy reforms, in large part to create stability and reduce the attraction to communist ideology and to block Soviet diplomatic links and military advances. Other security assistance activities provided defense equipment and training to American allies and friendly states, some of which faced Soviet or Soviet-proxy threats. Aid programs also were used to help the U.S. gain access to military bases around the world in order to forward deploy American forces. Foreign aid programs also supported a number of secondary U.S. policy goals, such as reducing high rates of population growth, promoting wider access to health care, expanding the availability of basic education in the developing world, advancing U.S. trade interests, and protecting the environment. If these secondary goals were also achieved, U.S. aid programs could be promoted as delivering "more bang for the buck." With the end of the Cold War, the United States launched expansive aid programs in Russia and many eastern-bloc states that were previously those that U.S. assistance tried to combat. While these and other new elements of American foreign aid emerged, no broad consensus developed over what should be the new overarching rationale for U.S. aid programs. Throughout the 1990s, policymakers and Congress explored a number of alternative strategic frameworks around which to construct a revised foreign assistance policy rationale. Not only did a policy consensus fail to emerge, but efforts to overhaul the largely Cold War-based foreign aid legislation also did not succeed. During this period, the Clinton Administration emphasized the promotion of "sustainable development" as the new, post-Cold War main strategy of those parts of the foreign aid program under the aegis of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Economic assistance supported six inter-related goals: achievement of broad-based, economic growth; development of democratic systems; stabilization of world population and protection of human health; sustainable management of the environment; building human capacity through education and training; and meeting humanitarian needs. Early in the Bush Administration these goals were modified around three "strategic pillars" of 1) economic growth, agriculture, and trade; 2) global health; and 3) democracy, conflict prevention, and humanitarian assistance. More recently, a USAID White Paper on American foreign aid identified five "core" operational goals of U.S. foreign assistance: Promoting transformational development, especially in the areas of governance, institutional capacity, and economic restructuring; Strengthening fragile states; Providing humanitarian assistance; Supporting U.S. geostrategic interests, particularly in countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Jordan, Egypt, and Israel; and Mitigating global and international ills, including HIV/AIDS.