Morning Briefing

The Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday approved a $52.1 billion appropriations bill to fund U.S. state and foreign operations in FY 2013, Devex reports. "The committee voted 29-1 to send the ... bill to the full Senate floor for consideration," the news service writes, adding, "It is still unclear when the bill will be scheduled for a full Senate vote" (Mungcal, 5/25). "The Senate bill would provide $8.5 billion to the [Global Health Initiative (GHI)], which is approximately $600 million more than the President's FY13 request ($7.9 billion) and $500 million more than the House FY13 appropriations bill [.pdf] ($8.0 billion)," the Kaiser Family Foundation's "Policy Tracker" writes, noting, "It is also approximately $300 million above the FY12 amount ($8.2 billion)" (5/24).