Washington Blade
By LOU CHIBBARO JR
Friday, October 20, 2006
U.S. Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) is looking into whether the federal government acted prudently by spending “millions of dollars” to subsidize six separate AIDS conferences this year, which hundreds of federal employees attended at the government’s expense, an aide to Coburn said.
In a series of e-mails sent to the news media, Coburn’s legislative assistant, Roland Foster, pointed to promotional literature for the U.S. Conference on AIDS, held Sept. 21-25 in Hollywood, Fla., which highlighted an official “Latin Fiesta,” a “sizzling” fashion show, and plush, oceanfront hotel rooms.
In one of his e-mails, Foster disclosed that Paul Kawata, executive director of the National Minority AIDS Council, a Washington, D.C., group that organized the Florida AIDS conference, stayed in a penthouse suite at Hollywood’s Westin Diplomat Hotel that included a large screen TV, a luxury spa and a grand piano.
“The 92 [federal] employees and over $405,000 in federal funds spent on this conference exceed the 78 [U.S. Department] of Health & Human Services employees who attended and $315,000 spent on the International AIDS Conference in Toronto, Canada held just a month earlier,” Foster said.
He said the Senate Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information & International Security, which Coburn chairs, has learned that federal employees participated in, and federal funds were likely allocated for, recent AIDS conferences in Washington, D.C., Boston, and at least two other cities this year.
“That means that during the last five months, there have been at least six federally supported AIDS conferences that have cost millions of dollars,” Foster said.
Kawata called Coburn’s criticism unfair. He said tourist-related agencies in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area and a local host committee paid for all social events associated with the conference as part of an effort to attract visitors to South Florida in the middle of the hurricane season.
He said the same agencies, along with some corporate sponsors, picked up the cost for most meals for conference participants.
The Westin hotel gave him the luxury suite with the grand piano free of charge, Kawata said, along with 25 free meeting rooms, as a “perk” for booking 950 guest rooms at the hotel, 11 months ago, for a conference that drew 3,000 attendees. He said the remaining attendees stayed at four additional hotels nearby.
“The rooms at the Westin were $129 a night, and the rate at one of the overflow hotels was $94, which we think were great rates,” Kawata said.
When asked about concerns by Coburn that NMAC chose a luxury, beachside resort hotel for the conference, Kawata said the group could not find a low-budget hotel that could accommodate such a large conference and the required number of large meeting rooms.
Coburn’s press secretary, John Hart, said Coburn plans to investigate whether federal government agencies are wasting money by sending large numbers of federal officials and providing subsidies to AIDS conferences for which the benefit to the public or people with AIDS is questionable.
He said Coburn is aware of Foster’s e-mails about the AIDS conferences and that the Oklahoma senator agrees fully with Foster’s statements.
Coburn, a strong opponent of gay rights legislation, has won allies among both Republicans and Democrats in his efforts to curtail what he and bipartisan watchdog groups consider wasteful government spending.
Gay Republican activist Jim Driscoll served as a Bush administration appointee on the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS when Coburn, a physician, served as the panel’s co-chair. Driscoll said he believes Coburn has the interests of people with AIDS in mind in his probe into AIDS conference spending.
Other AIDS activists have called Coburn a champion of conservative Christian groups that have pushed through abstinence-only until marriage programs instead of proven AIDS prevention programs that promote condom use.
Kawata said the NMAC-sponsored U.S. Conference on AIDS is the nation’s largest annual gathering of AIDS service providers. He said the conference, among other things, provides training and information on new developments in the AIDS epidemic for employees of community-based AIDS clinics.
“This is a conference to help them do their jobs better,” he said.
According to Kawata, the Department of Health & Human Services provided NMAC with funds to pay for scholarships that enabled at least 950 minority staff members of local, community-based AIDS groups to attend the conference.
Foster stated in one of his e-mails that an investigation by Coburn’s Senate subcommittee found that at least 92 federal employees attended the NMAC conference, and that the government spent at least $405,000 on the event.
He said the conference took place at a time when Congress was deliberating over the Ryan White CARE Act, the largest federal AIDS program, and noted that NMAC joined other AIDS advocacy groups in opposing the legislation because of a dispute over funding allocations for different states.
