The U.S. Response to Ebola: Status of the FY2015 Emergency Ebola Appropriation
Issue Brief
U.S. Congress. Public Law No: 113-235; December 16, 2014.
The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the US government’s program to address HIV/AIDS internationally has received larger annual appropriations, but these have been made as part of the regular appropriations process, not emergency funding.
USAID. West Africa – Ebola Outbreak: Fact Sheet #5, Fiscal Year (FY) 2016; December 4, 2015 (see https://www.usaid.gov/ebola/fy16/fs05). This fact sheet includes funding provided prior to and since passage of the emergency Ebola appropriation. The CDC total includes approximately $50 million in funding provided during the FY 2015 Continuing Resolution (CR) period; this funding could not be disaggregated by international and domestic purposes. USAID funding is as of December 4, 2015, CDC funding is as of November 29, 2015, and DoD funding is as of August 31, 2015.
USAID Office of Inspector General. Lead Inspector General Quarterly Progress Report on U.S. Government Activities: International Ebola Response and Preparedness; September 30, 2015.
Humanitarian Policy Group. The Ebola response in West Africa; October 2015.
CDC. 2014 Ebola Outbreak in West Africa – Reported Cases Graphs; November 12, 2015.
BBC News. Ebola: Are cases levelling off?; November 2, 2014.
White House. Fact Sheet: Emergency Funding Request to Enhance the U.S. Government’s Response to Ebola at Home and Abroad; November 5, 2014 (see https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/11/05/fact-sheet-emergency-funding-request-enhance-us-government-s-response-eb).
White House. Fact Sheet: The Global Health Security Agenda; July 28, 2015 (see https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/07/28/fact-sheet-global-health-security-agenda).
NIH. Estimates of Funding for Various Research, Condition, and Disease Categories (RCDC): http://report.nih.gov/categorical_spending.aspx.
Congressional Research Service (CRS). FY2015 Budget Requests to Counter Ebola and the Islamic State (IS), December 9, 2014.
The FY 2015 Omnibus Appropriations bill was signed into law by the President on December 16, 2015. As of December 17, 2014, USAID, CDC, and DoD had committed more than $770 million to the response effort (see USAID, “West Africa – Ebola Outbreak – Fact Sheet #12”, https://www.usaid.gov/ebola/fy15/fs12). Since other agencies and departments were involved in the response effort at this time, it is likely that total USG funding was higher than $770 million.
Since this funding was designated by Congress as an emergency funding measure, it did not count toward existing budget caps on discretionary spending.
Not included in the funding provided by Congress was approximately $1.5 billion that the President had requested to create a contingency fund for the response.
The $3.7 billion includes all funding provided to USAID and the State Department, as well as the funding provided to CDC that was specifically designated by Congress for international efforts. Of the remaining $1.7 billion in emergency Ebola funding included in the FY15 Omnibus, it is possible that some of this funding may be used for international efforts.
DoD activities for the Ebola response in West Africa have also been supported through funds transferred from its FY2014 Overseas Contingency Operations budget, as requested by the Department and approved by Congress in November 2014. Congress allowed DoD to transfer up to $750m of the OCO funds for Ebola response activities including: transport of DOD and non-DOD personnel and supplies, equipment and medical supplies, construction of Ebola treatment units and training and education in support of sanitation and mortuary affairs functions to limit the spread of the Ebola outbreak.
Direct communications with USAID.