EDITORIAL: Aid for Haiti held hostage

There seems no end to Haiti's afflictions: cholera, earthquake, poverty - and Sen. Tom Coburn.

Ten months after a devastating earthquake killed 220,000 people and left 1.2 million homeless, not one cent of the $1.15 billion the United States promised in rebuilding aid has been delivered to the island nation. More than a million Haitians are still living in temporary tent cities, in conditions that have likely contributed to a cholera outbreak that has claimed hundreds of lives.

That brings us to Tom Coburn (R-Okla.). Using a Senate rule that allows any one member to put a hold on legislation, Coburn has blocked an authorization bill for the rebuilding aid. The United States has sent more than $1 billion to Haiti for relief efforts since the January quake, but nothing specifically to rebuild homes, power grids and the like.

Coburn's staff didn't respond to direct inquiries, but according to news accounts, the issue is $1 million a year for five years for a coordinator to work with the USAID administrator in Washington on a rebuilding strategy. Coburn apparently feels the position is duplicative and unnecessary.

Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. But suffering Haitians shouldn't be held hostage to a spat over one half of 1 percent of this badly needed aid. Coburn should release the bill. Failing that, the Senate should cleave that $5 million from the package and speed the rest south. With lives in the balance, Washington's lack of urgency is unconscionable. hN