House lawmakers on Wednesday voted to spend three times more on global HIV/AIDS programs over the next five years. Members of House Foreign Affairs Committee reached a compromise following a long-night discussion Tuesday, finally ironing out some disagreements in certain provisions of the AIDS bill.

"Many of us in this room concluded that a collapse of the political consensus on this issue would do irreparable damage to what is arguably the most successful U.S. foreign assistance program of the last half century," Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) said.

Committee Chairman Howard Berman (D-CA) added that the United States has a "moral imperative to act decisively... Every day, another 6,000 people are infected by HIV."

Lawmakers from both parties also agreed to remove a clause that allowed a third of all funds to be used for abstinence programs.

The bill, focusing on AIDS prevention and treatment in sub-Saharan Africa is considered to be one of the Bush administration's "most popular foreign policy initiatives."