Department of Veterans Affairs Information Technology Management Improvement Act of 2005

Mr. Speaker, you know, there is an age-old drama that Americans have seen play out time and time again here in Washington, and I

know that some nights as they are watching TV and they click across C- SPAN and they watch individuals come to the floor, they might think this is a rerun or they might think same song, second verse because they have to think that they have heard this before.

I think probably their thoughts go something like this, that taxpayers are tired of seeing their hard-earned paychecks wasted by Big Government, and so the taxpayers say we are going to demand some spending reductions. The Republicans agree and the Republicans propose some spending reductions.

Well, the Democrats just cannot stand to see those spending reductions. So they start the name-calling, and they come down and they say that any reduction that we want to make in spending, anytime we are going to slow the growth of spending, well, you know what, it is draconian, it is mean-spirited, it is cruel, it is heartless, it is cold-blooded. We all hear all the descriptive adjectives. They start telling virtually every man, woman, and child in America that these reductions will do terrible, awful things and that the Republicans are just mean, nasty people.

Mr. Speaker, it is like clockwork. It really is like clockwork, and I think that I know why many times our colleagues across the aisle fight our efforts when it comes to fiscal responsibility, when it comes to reining in the size of the Federal Government, when it comes to reducing spending, when it comes to getting government off your back and out of your pocket. I think I know why the Democrats fight it time and time and time again.

This government, this big, Washington-focused bureaucracy that spends your money out of your pocket, that you go to work and you earn, this government, this bureaucracy, is a monument to them. They spent 40 years with an iron grip on this U.S. House of Representatives; and in that time, they constructed a vast monument to themselves called Federal Government bureaucracy.

It is expensive, it is old, and it is a mismanaged monument that forces you, the taxpayer, the average, hardworking American family, to spend 6 months every year paying for it. Tax freedom day, look at some of the dates we have had in years past, July 4, June 30, June 28. You are working half the time to pay for government.

Well, Mr. Speaker, I can tell you something right now. This Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives is working to change that. We want to change that. Democrats do not. It is that simple.

So, tonight, we are going to talk a little bit about the budget savings we are working to pass in this House in a bill that is called the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005.

Mr. Speaker, this legislation is a good, solid plan from the Republican leadership. It is a plan that will put this government on track to reform; and in the end, the goal is to yield a savings for the American taxpayer.

The bill that my colleagues are going to join me in discussing tonight is finding $53.9 billion in spending reductions over the next several years in a $2.4 trillion-a-year budget. Mr. Speaker, I want everybody at home to hear that: $53.9 billion, that is billion with a B, in savings, over several years of a yearly budget of $2.4 trillion, and that is trillion with a T.

Mr. Speaker, we are not asking a lot. In fact, we should be asking for a whole lot more. The constituents in my seventh district of Tennessee want to see us reduce Federal spending more. They want to see more of these programs that have outlived their usefulness put on the table, reviewed, put into sunset, deauthorized, scaled down, or taken away.

But I will tell you, I think that for many of the Democrats what we are proposing is too much. They cannot commit even to that. So tonight we are going to talk some about why we need to reform this government and why we need to make these spending reductions.

At this time, I would like to yield to one of my colleagues who has joined us. The gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey) is going to join us and talk for a few minutes about Medicaid. We are hearing so much about Medicaid. We have heard the left say that we are slashing it, that we are cutting it; and you know what, in spite of all this talk, Medicaid will grow. We are not talking about cuts. We are talking about reducing spending, and I yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey).

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments, and he is exactly right. Medicaid needed reforms that would address some of the waste, fraud and abuse; reforms that would deal with the processes and procedures of the delivery of the program. Once we go through achieving these efficiencies, there will be individuals who truly need it, who will see a better delivery of service.

These are flexibilities that the governors, the nonpartisan National Governors Association, have asked us to make. They are things we have worked with them on, and we are pleased to bring forward the type of reforms that will yield the efficiencies that are needed.

Mr. Speaker, another colleague who is joining us this evening is the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Wamp), another member of my delegation who is a member of the Appropriations Committee. He has brought wisdom and expertise to the appropriations process and being certain that we are wise stewards of the taxpayers' dollars.

I yield to Mr. Wamp out of Chattanooga, who is going to talk with us for a few moments about the work they have done in the Appropriations Committee as we work toward a Deficit Reduction Act that is going to help put us on track to achieve some savings for the American people through the reform process.

I thank the gentleman from Tennessee for his wise words and for joining us in this debate and reminding us we do hear a lot of rhetoric, as he mentioned. We have the Blue Dogs from the Democrat side, who have been coming to the floor demanding spending increases. Suddenly they are not so fiscally conservative.

Well, it is like the story I used to read to my children, the Three Little Bears. It is almost as if you have to have it just right. Just right. And they are going to let the perfect be the enemy of the good, because these are good, solid reductions and a good, solid plan for moving forward, a great first step.

As we have worked through this process, we have heard from the gentlewoman from Virginia several times in regard to military issues and veterans' issues. She has such a heart for this and works so diligently on these issues, so at this time I yield to the gentlewoman from Virginia (Mrs. Drake) to set the record straight about the appropriations and the funding for our veterans' programs.

Mr. Speaker, I join the gentlewoman in a heartfelt thanks to our veterans, as she speaks about the fiscal stewardship and the common-sense reforms we need to put into these programs. It is so frustrating to veterans in my district when they get the runaround and cannot get a proper answer and go from one bureaucracy to another bureaucracy. To take three programs and roll it into one, as H.R. 4061 has done, that is common sense.

We hope to achieve efficiencies and save money on that program and the administration so it goes into programs and we get that money into programs that are so needed and so deserved by our veterans.

Again, God bless those veterans. And I say God bless the gentlewoman from Virginia who has worked so hard on these issues.

A leader on agricultural issues is the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King). He is going to talk about the agriculture bill and then will return to the floor to talk about what has been done through the agriculture appropriations process.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King).

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Iowa truly is a great conservationist not only with the soil and the land in Iowa, and we love to say he gets his best information on the back of his tractor working his pastures, as we hear his good, conservative philosophies put to work in this House, as he talks about being a conservative and a conservationist in his spending, in his farming and in his love of the land and in his love of freedom. We are so pleased that he has reminded us and shown us how the Committee on Agriculture, again practicing fiscal stewardship, practicing what they preach, living it out to be certain that every single committee looks at their programs and says there is a better way for us to do this. There is a way to reduce this spending, and the American people are going to benefit.

We have heard many times over the past several months from the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling) who has come to the floor and has talked with us about having respect for families and the family budget, about how important it is that we realize that taxes and fees are the largest part of a family budget and how the Federal Government should be sensitive to that and work to reduce that burden.

I have asked Mr. Hensarling to join us tonight and talk with us for a few minutes about what happens if we do not pass the Deficit Reduction Act, where will we be if we do not pass this act.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling).

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman from Texas for his comments.

And he is so correct. If we do not take these steps to rein in spending, to reform government, to get on this plan that is going to reform this government and begin yielding a savings for the American people, we will see it go from taking 20 percent to 40 percent of our resources. Fiscal stewardship demands that we work to find a way to restrain the growth of government, to begin to roll it back. And it is not easy, as I said earlier. The Democrats spent 40 years building a monument to themselves, a great big bureaucracy; and it takes time to begin to break it apart.

As the gentleman from Texas was talking, I was looking over a chart that had the 12 largest post-war deficits that we have seen in this country. Of course, one of them was 1946, when we were hard at war and fighting and coming back from World War II. Mr. Speaker, these other years, 1983, 1985, 1986, 1984, 1992, 1991, 1976, 1982, 1993, 1990, Democrat control. It is time for us to put this Nation on a track to reform government, to reduce the bureaucracy, to be certain that money is going into programs to meet needs at the local level; that money is not being soaked up by the bureaucracy that sits in these buildings around Washington, D.C.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Ms. Foxx), who is a leader in education on the Education and Workforce Committee, and she is going to talk with us for just a few moments and dispel a couple of myths pertaining to education funding and talk about what we are trying to do to be certain that young people have the opportunity to dream big dreams, dream big dreams and have great adventures and look forward with hope and opportunity to a future.

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentlewoman from North Carolina for her comments.

She is exactly right. Reforming the process, reforming the way government does business, making it simple, being certain that we find another way to get government off people's back, out of their pocketbook, simplify the system so that the money gets to where it is needed, in this case, in education, getting that money into the student loan programs so that students are in the classrooms, so that they have access to those classrooms.

We have been joined by the gentlewoman from Ohio (Mrs. Schmidt), and she is new as a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives. She comes with a State legislative background from the State of Ohio where she has worked on so many of the health care programs, the reform programs that were needed, and working with Governors. At this time she is going to spend just a couple of moments and talk about some of the reforms that were needed by the Governors and are addressed in this bill.

I yield to the gentlewoman from Ohio.

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentlewoman for her comments.

At this time I yield to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht), who is going to talk with us about the food stamp program and address some of the myths that we have been hearing about this program. This gentleman has done so much work in the agriculture programs, looking to be certain that we address the stewardship requirements that our constituents and citizens have for us.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his time tonight. I will remind everyone that facts are stubborn things. We know we do not balance the budget by raising taxes and balancing it on the backs of hard-working Americans. You get this deficit under control by cutting spending and promoting economic growth and creating a bright future for future generations.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 4061) to amend title 38, United States Code, to improve the management of information technology within the Department of Veterans Affairs by providing for the Chief Information Officer of that Department to have authority over resources, budget, and personnel related to the support function of information technology, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, as chairman of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, I rise in strong support of H.R. 4061, the Department of Veterans Affairs Information Technology Management Improvement Act. I, along with the committee's ranking member, Lane Evans, along with other members of the committee, introduced this legislation on October 17 of 2005.

Over the last several years, the Veterans' Affairs Committee has worked extremely hard on this groundbreaking legislation. We believe its passage will greatly assist the VA to improve its efforts to achieve the one VA mission. The VA has long had a problem with stove- piped administrations that veterans must deal with as though they are separate parts of the government.

Since coming to Congress, I have witnessed the VA's inability to adequately manage its IT funding and IT modernization efforts. In fact, the VA's IT modernization efforts go back at least 20 years, to 1985 when it was the policy of the Veterans Administration to provide ``better service to the veteran through modern technology.''

Unfortunately, the Department has annually requested and spent billions of dollars without accountability or measurable performance outcomes on IT modernization, and America's veterans are still waiting for the ``one VA.''

According to GAO, the VA spent approximately $10 billion over the last decade alone for VA IT spending, and this is probably a very conservative figure. Historically, the VA has included funding for IT in its general administration accounts of each of the Veterans Health Administration, Veterans Benefits Administration, and National Cemetery Administration.

What that really means is that the VA has been spending billions of dollars on three separate IT infrastructures within the Department. For example, the Health Administration, the autonomy is downstream to the VISIONS and then on to the hospitals with their own operating systems.

To take a second example down further is what happened with Katrina when they took the medical records from New Orleans and they then transferred them within the same VISION, VISION 16, and downloaded the medical records at the Houston VA. They had to be reconfigured when they were brought to Houston. That is just within a same VISION.

To make matters worse, these three separate IT infrastructures within the VA cannot efficiently and effectively share important information. For our veterans this is a significant and unacceptable convenience.

Ultimately, centralizing the VA IT organizational structure will allow the VA to better serve our veterans. The VA absolutely needs to modernize its IT, both in hardware and software, and it should be the vehicle and tools of efficiency.

When there is truly One-VA with modern IT support, it will provide a seamless transition of our military being treated at the VA hospital as he or she move in and out of that system, whether it be back to active duty status or to veterans status. We will also improve timely medical appointments and reduce waiting time. It will foster better patient safety through updated and correct medical data. It will have faster and more accurate claims processing and afford timely benefits delivery of all VA benefits, such as VA home loans and GI Bill education benefits.

Equally important, the cost of VA's inability to manage its IT programs and initiatives has resulted in some significant IT failures: as much as $600 million-plus for a decade of VETSNET, the automated compensation and pension claims processing system that still has not been implemented after 10 years of development efforts; $342 million for CoreFLS, the failed financial management system; $300 million for the HR Links, the failed automated personnel system; $485 million annually to maintain VISTA, VA's 25-year-old medical information system.

In 1996, Congress passed, and President Clinton signed, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1996, legislation that created the position of chief information officer for Federal agencies. The provisions of the bill were later renamed the Clinger-Cohen Act.

In 2001, 5 years after this mandate, the Department of Veterans Affairs became the last Cabinet-level Department to comply with the requirements of the Clinger-Cohen Act and appoint a full-time chief information officer.

In 2003, then-Secretary Principi directed VA to centralize its IT processes to better align IT management. It did not happen.

In 2004, the VA hired Gartner Consulting, a Fortune 500 IT consultant, to analyze and review its IT infrastructure and processes. In testimony before the Veterans' Affairs full committee in September 2005, Gartner testified that the VA's IT budgets are very fluid, without much accountability on how and when funding is spent. Gartner analyzed several organizational models, including no change or the status quo to help VA resolve its IT issue.

Two of the models have the greatest potential application to the VA. One that the VA advocated is called a ``federated model,'' where centralized planning, technology operations, and budgeting/financial are controlled by a chief information officer with business applications developed and supported by application teams in each business line. But it still preserves the stovepipes.

Then you have what is called the ``centralized model,'' where all VA IT is organized into a single entity reporting to a chief information officer. Key functional entities reporting directly to the CIO include business applications, infrastructure and operations, customer relations, enterprise architecture, data and information management, security management, and IT finance.

According to VA's own consultant, the centralized approach provides the greatest opportunity to successfully execute the One-VA mission objectives. It maximizes asset utilization and achieves economies of scale across all of VA by managing the infrastructure

through a central function; and through common organization, it will more rapidly mature the IT investment management processes across the VA's IT program portfolio. The bill in front of us is the centralized approach that has also been endorsed by Gartner Consulting to the VA.

Furthermore, Gartner testified that the centralized approach could save the VA $345 million annually, or more than $1.7 billion over 5 years.

Gartner also estimated that the cost to VA for reorganizing IT will be $14 million. Even if the implementation cost is doubled and the estimated savings are too optimistic and halved, the return on investment will be approximately three to one, and this is from one of the leading IT consultants in the world, the very consultant on which the Fortune 500 companies rely.

Despite these findings and recommendations, the VA has now decided to adopt a federated approach and they really do not need Congress to act, that we are going to do this all on our own. Quite frankly, VA's plan looks like the Department wants to carry on, really, business as usual, but give it a title. On a bipartisan basis, we find this completely unacceptable.

So, Mr. Speaker, I am also putting the Department on notice.

My advice to the Under Secretary of the Veterans Health Administration, Dr. Perlin, is to cease and desist in his staunch efforts to push for this federated model.

My advice to the Under Secretary of the Veterans Benefits Administration, Admiral Cooper, is to stop his efforts to adopt a federated approach.

My advice to the newly designated Under Secretary of the National Cemetery Administration, William Turk, is not to proceed with the federated approach.

Earlier this year, the Veterans' Committee recommended that Congress withhold $400 million for VA IT because the Department has poorly managed its major IT initiative. Furthermore, the Department has not held anyone accountable when multimillion dollar projects fail.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank my distinguished colleague and the chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Quality of Life and Veterans Affairs (Mr. Walsh) for adopting our recommendation and withholding $383 million from the fiscal 2006 budget.

If the Department of Veterans Affairs continues down this path of disregard for this legislative body, we have no choice. We will continue to recommend withholding a portion of VA's IT budget until the CIO is allowed to instill a disciplined and accountability approach to the VA's IT budget and that it be done on a centralized approach.

Congress should not tolerate the continued mismanagement of the precious veterans resources on failed IT programs within the Department. Allow the CIO to do his job.

Ultimately, this bill will empower the CIO with the authority over IT's budgets, equipment, and personnel. This legislation is long overdue, and I urge my colleagues to support this important effort.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Brown), chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Health Subcommittee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Turner), a member of the committee.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my good friend, the ranking member and Marine, Lane Evans, for his work and cooperation on this bipartisan legislation. This is the way the committee is supposed to work.

We have invested almost 6 years of work on this to bring corrections to IT systems, and I am glad that we have been able to work together in a bipartisan fashion to deliver a product to this floor for which we can be proud of.

I would also like to commend the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis) and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland), the chairman and ranking members of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, for their hard work in providing the oversight required to define these problematic issues and helping to make needed legislative changes to address these shortcomings at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

I would also like to reiterate my thanks to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Walsh) for his support in bringing accountability to VA's IT programs within the appropriations process.

I would also like to thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Reyes), Army Vietnam vet, for his work on this and the original cosponsorship, along with the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Brown) and the gentlewoman from South Dakota (Ms. Herseth).

Finally, I would also like to thank Art Wu, Len Sistek, Kimo Hollingsworth, Ginny Richardson, and Risa Salsburg for their diligence and dedication in serving our Nation's veterans on the committee, and also the staff directors, Jim Lariviere and Jim Holley, both for the majority and the minority.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the Department of Veterans Affairs Information Technology Management Improvement Act of 2005. This is a bill whereby when we come to this body we do not leave our experiences behind. We are to learn from the past and to plan for the future. We are to modernize Federal governments, to cut through the bureaucracy, and to create workable solutions that will become a standard that will be leveraged across all departments of the government, creating greater efficiencies, responsiveness to people, and saving money. That is exactly what this product has done, and it is being brought to the floor in a bipartisan fashion, and so I ask all my colleagues to support this.

Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 6314) to amend title 38, United States Code, to extend certain expiring provisions of law and to expand eligibility for the Survivors' and Dependents' Educational Assistance program.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, today I rise and urge my colleagues to pass H.R. 6314, a bill that would extend several existing Department of Veterans Affairs benefits provisions.

This bill will extend these provisions of health care services to veterans exposed by chemical and biological testing under Projects 112 and SHAD, and treatment and rehabilitation programs for seriously mentally ill and homeless veterans until December 31, 2007. The bill would also extend VA's homeless grant and per diem programs until September 30, 2007, and extend additional services for mentally ill and homeless veterans until December 31, 2007. It would extend VA's Advisory Committee on Homeless Veterans, as well as the program which is providing government markers in private cemeteries until that date.

The work/study provisions of the legislation allowing veterans to assist VA and other government agencies would be extended until June 30, 2007. The work/study program is an increasingly popular benefit that provides veterans with an alternative use of their GI Bill if they choose not to go to college.

The bill also provides education benefits for the family members of severally injured veterans who are undergoing long-term convalescence while on active duty. Spouses and children of servicemembers who are determined by the VA to be permanently and totally disabled due to a service-connected cause or causes would be eligible to receive Chapter 35 education benefits while the servicemember is still on active duty while undergoing treatment. This Chapter 35 provision would enable spouses and dependent children of severely wounded servicemembers to access their Dependents' Educational Assistance benefits while the servicemember is going through extended convalescence prior to discharge.

Under the current law, these beneficiaries must wait until the member is discharged, and since the spouses of these members most often become the primary breadwinner, I believe it is important to give them as much of a headstart as possible on becoming more competitive in the job market. The amount of the benefit remains the same.

I thank the Blinded Veterans Association for bringing this important issue to the attention of myself and members of the committee. We met with Army Sergeant 1st Class Jeffrey Mittman and his wife Christine. Sergeant 1st Class Mittman was blinded by an IED and is undergoing extensive rehabilitation and facial reconstruction.

Madam Speaker, this young soldier is articulate, has a very positive outlook on his life and is truly an inspiration. One look at his wife and you can immediately pick up the burdens she is bearing in caring not only for her husband, but also for her children. His wife Christy is a model of the love and support that she is providing to her husband as they face these challenges together. In fact, I think of this as the Christine Mittman provision, a provision not only that would help Christy, but also other spouses lessen the financial stress.

So, in essence, while Christy is providing leadership and mentoring for her children, caring for her husband instead of waiting until he completes all of the facial reconstruction and rehabilitation necessary, she can start her educational opportunities now.

I think this is the right thing to do. We all know he is going to be 100 percent disabled. She wants to become a nurse, so let's give her and others who are likewise situated to have these opportunities.

Madam Speaker, the committee is currently also undergoing bipartisan negotiations on a number of bills, not only with my House counterparts, but also with the Senate counterparts.

Among these bills are H.R. 3082, the Veterans Small Business and Memorial Affairs Act of 2006. It passed the House on July 24, 2006. We have informally been discussing provisions since July 28. The bill improves the status of veterans and disabled veterans small businesses when competing for contracts with the Department of Veterans Affairs. It allows Tribal government to participate in the VA's State Cemetery Grants Programs, authorizes the VA Secretary to provide the family of a veteran interred in a private cemetery with government markers, which we are doing now. It also requires the Veterans Employment Training Service, otherwise known as VETS, to establish nonmandatory guidelines for disabled veterans outreach programs. There are a lot of things in this bill, and I am hopeful we are going to get this done and negotiated.

There is another bill, H.R. 4061, the Department of Veterans Affairs Information Technology Management Improvement Act. It would centralize VA's IT organizational structure so that it reports directly to the Department's chief information officer.

Ultimately, the bill would empower the CIO with the authority over the IT budgets, equipment and personnel. While the House passed this bill with widespread bipartisan support, and I appreciate the leadership of Mr. Filner and others on this legislation, the Senate is even yet to take action on that bill.

There is another bill, H.R. 5815, the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Facility Authorization Act of 2006, that would ensure that we will efficiently provide the right facilities with the right places for veterans' health care. Given the current veteran population and those which we can expect in the coming years, it would authorize $2.5 billion for major implementation projects and $51 million for facilities leases. This is an important bill, and we are getting close on these negotiations.

We have another bill, H.R. 5835, the Veterans Identity and Credit Security Act, as amended. This bill requires notification to Congress and individuals in the event of a data breach. All of us Members understand and remember the data breach.

And we had extensive oversight on the committee. Mr. Filner and I were able to lead over eight hearings in a 6-week time frame, and we are perfecting change in our cooperation with the administration. This is a good bill and I am hopeful that we can get this bill done.

This bill also included a scholarship and loan repayment program to provide the Secretary with a recruitment and retention tool to attract qualified people in the areas of information technology and management so they can work in these security areas. As I said, this bill received widespread bipartisan support here in the House and I am most hopeful that we can move to the Senate and achieve our work

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time

Madam Speaker, I thank my good friend Mr. Filner for his comments.

You are absolutely right. We have a lot of good work product that hopefully we can get done.

At this point I would like to yield 2 minutes to a friend of America's veterans, the Honorable Michael Bilirakis. Michael will be retiring and leaving us here at the end of this Congress, and his work and leadership will be missed.

I yield to the gentleman from California.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman. We will have one more opportunity, I am hopeful, to speak about Mr. Bilirakis' efforts.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from the First District of South Carolina, the chairman of the Health Subcommittee, Henry Brown.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Ms. Berkley, I want to thank you for your leadership on this bill. Thank you for working with Nancy Johnson, Jeb Bradley. This symbol of honor and remembrance is very important. I want to thank you for that.

Also I want to embrace your words regarding the leases. In the construction bill we have a number of leases, and we need to complete our work. And so I embrace your words. I call on you for your help. The Senate has not been as helpful. You know that is a continuous body over there. We do not know how it is about to be reorganized. We have a lot of our work that needs to be done over the last 2 years, and we cannot let this construction bill die on the vine. We have to complete that work.

If we do not re-up these leases, it is going to cost the Federal Government more money because there are penalty clauses that will go into effect, and we cannot and should not let that happen.

I yield to the gentlewoman from Nevada.

Reclaiming my time, I thank the gentlewoman for her leadership.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ginny Brown-Waite).

I thank the gentlewoman for her contribution.

Mr. Speaker, I would now like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania, the Honorable Tim Murphy.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of our time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Filner for his cooperation on this bill and other bills. Mr. Filner, we have got the CIO bill, we have got the cyber security bill. The Senate sent us two health bills, a benefit bill and we have got the construction bill. So all of these are in negotiation with the Senate. It is hard work. It represents 2 years of effort.

Recalling the recent words of my esteemed colleague, Nancy Pelosi, with the creation of this new theme of a bipartisan way for all Americans, let's embrace it. Let's get our work done. We enjoy bipartisanship on the Veterans' Affairs Committee, and I wish other committees could see how well we have worked together over the years. I call on leadership of everyone here in the House in dealing with these bills here on veterans affairs to complete our work on behalf of our Nation's veterans.

Mr. Speaker, I also call upon the Senate leadership to finish our legislative negotiations. Let's complete our work. Let's not forget our veterans and their families. And, Mr. Speaker, I also call upon the leadership of the veterans service organizations and the military service associations to encourage the Senate leadership to finish our negotiations and again finish the work that we had started on behalf of this Nation's veterans and dependents.

These warriors fought for our freedom. The least we can do is complete our work and provide for them the best care and benefits possible. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I have no furthers requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 5835) to amend title 38, United States Code, to improve information management within the Department of Veterans Affairs, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, as chairman of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, I rise in strong support of H.R. 5835, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, having moved H.R. 5835, as amended, the Veterans Identity Credit Security Act of 2006, I, along with Ranking Member Lane Evans and Acting Ranking Member Bob Filner, Chairman Davis, and Ranking Member Waxman of the Committee on Government Reform, Chairman Walsh and Ranking Member Edwards on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Quality of Life and Veterans Affairs, and other members of this body introduced this legislation on July 19, 2006.

Since 2000, the Veterans' Affairs Committee and our subcommittees have held 16 hearings on information technology at the Department of Veterans Affairs, and as a subset, information security issues. These hearings have covered a variety of IT issues, including the budget, organization, authorities, actions VA has taken regarding its IT programs, and of course information security.

Last year, the House passed H.R. 4061 to address problems in IT at the VA. The Senate and the administration can best be described as having stiff-armed us in our proposals to centralize the IT architecture at the VA, opting for more of what they call now a federated model, or what I will also refer to as an incremental approach. That is how they wanted to proceed. Then bad things happened.

This summer, we held 8 hearings in response to the May 3 theft of a loaned lap-top belonging to the VA that held the sensitive personal data of 26.5 million veterans and 2.2 million Guard and Reserve component servicemembers and families. We heard from 23 witnesses during our hearings. These witnesses included the VA's Secretary, the Inspector General, the General Counsel, as well as others from academia, the Government Accountability Office, and experts in data security, information technology management, and identity theft.

Mr. Speaker, I applaud Secretary of Veterans Affairs Jim Nicholson for his stated commitment to making the VA the gold standard in information security. H.R. 5835, as amended, will provide the Secretary with some of the tools needed to make the VA that gold standard and set an example for the Federal Government.

H.R. 5835, as amended, provides the chief information officer the authority to enforce information security in the Department. It also requires a monthly briefing to the Secretary on VA's compliance with the Information Security Management Act of 2002, which we refer to as

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I will cherish the sincerity of the compliment from Mr. Filner. I do not question his commitment nor his motive to the service of veterans in this country. I think members of the committee over the last 14 years have recognized that Mr. Filner and I have had some real battles, but at the same time, when it comes to this particular issue on IT, there is no difference. We walk together in lockstep.

It is not just Mr. Filner and I. It is the entire committee over the years we have taken this on, even when I chaired the oversight investigations. So I appreciate the commitment on both sides on improving the IT infrastructure.

I also want to compliment the Government Reform Committee, because they have taken this issue on over the years.

Mr Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Tom Davis), chairman of the Government Reform Committee, and thank him for his cooperation in working with our committee. He introduced his own bill on notification provisions. He worked with us and waived jurisdiction. We incorporated that in our bill.

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from South Carolina has requested 2 minutes of me, and I have great fear that the slowest talking man from the First District of South Carolina may not make the mark. But let's see how he does.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Brown), the chairman of the Health Subcommittee of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs.

Mr. Speaker, I am so proud of my friend from South Carolina for delivering those remarks within the limits of time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Boozman).

I appreciate the chairman's contribution to the bill. He chairs the Economic Opportunity Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs.

At this time, I yield 2 minutes to Mr. Murphy of Pennsylvania, who also worked with us on the bill. He had his own bill, H.R. 6109, dealing with encryption; and we worked with the gentleman. We have three legacy platforms which are basically older operating systems. We were not able to achieve everything the gentleman has been seeking, but I want to appreciate the gentleman's sincerity and his effort and want to continue to work with the gentleman.

At this time, I would like to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from San Diego, California (Mr. Bilbray), who helped us work on the provisions of the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank you for allotting the time for us to bring this bill to the floor. This is bipartisan legislation. It reflects proposals introduced in this Chamber over the past months. I thank the Members and staff who contributed to this legislation. I am especially grateful for the support of Lane Evans and Bob Filner in moving this bill through the committee and to the floor.

I want to thank Chairman Davis and Ranking Member Waxman of the Government Reform Committee in our work on the FISMA component of the bill. I also would like to thank Chairman Oxley and Ranking Member Frank of the Financial Services Committee for their assistance in moving this bill to the floor, as well as the Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Quality of Life and Veterans Affairs Chairman Walsh and Ranking Member Edwards, and to recognize again that information security is crucial to our veterans and have provided valuable support for this legislation.

I also commend Mr. Bilirakis and Mr. Strickland, the chairman and ranking member of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, for their oversight of IT at the VA. I am indebted to the chairmen and ranking members of the committee's Subcommittees on Health, Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs and Economic Opportunity for their help in reviewing the VA's data security and coming up with this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, several Members introduced legislation after the May 3 loss, including Representatives Hooley, Salazar, and Bilbray from the Committee on Veterans Affairs. Representatives Blackburn, Andrews, Drake, Capito, and Granger also introduced legislation, and all of this legislation was taken into account to create this product that has come to the floor. So this is a pretty good work product, to also include that of the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

I also want to thank the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations; the staff director, Art Wu; and minority staff director, Lynn Sistek, for their work on this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support our veterans by passing H.R. 5835, the Veterans Identity and Credit Security Act of 2006. This legislation will safeguard the sensitive personal information of veterans, and help lay the groundwork for a national solution

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time and urge all Members to support this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for organizing this Special Order and her leadership.

At this time I would like to address the Deficit Reduction Act. It seemed like it was heavy lifting for a lot of people in this Congress; it should not be. It should not be when you are going to reduce by one- half of 1 percent the trajectory of the increase of Federal spending down range 5 years. I do not find that heavy lifting. I find that a piece of cake for somebody who has had to balance a family budget, a business budget, and meet payroll with my own employees for over 1,400 consecutive months. We had to find a way to make it work, and we did not have a budget like this to work with, and we made it work.

I want to talk about the agricultural aspect of this. First, we brought this package before the Committee on Agriculture, and we went for approximately 3 hours in debate, listening to demagoguery about how painful it was to squeeze down some of these categories within the agriculture budget. And this is over 5 years.

One of those subjects is the commodity programs direct payments. We reduce that, the projected spending, by 1 percent. That is $1 out of $100. The actual effect out in the field is approximately one-twentieth of the payments going into a region like I represent where we raise corn and soybeans.

The people that I represent there are fiscally responsible people. They watch their budget. They invest their dollars wisely and do a good job of marketing and managing, all because it is good business. That is what it takes to have black ink on the bottom line instead of red ink.

I am very confident I can take this back and look my neighbors in the eye and say we did the best we can for the agriculture economy. We did the best we could for our agriculture producers. We pinched that down by 1 percent on direct payments.

We are looking at WTO trade negotiations coming up in Hong Kong in December. We are talking with the rest of the world about how we want to really eliminate export subsidies, and we can do that without great pain to this country and reduce domestic subsidies and be able to get access to the developing world so we can sell our products.

Our agriculture producers know they can compete with anybody in the world if they can get access to the markets without having punishing tariffs at every developing country in the world. We brought some of those people in as trading partners. We are going to expand that. But if that 1 percent here is a painful thing, then I am going to say

we are going to have one difficult debate when the time comes to adjust our long-term trade trajectory.

By the way, there was not a single Democrat that would support any of this reconciliation package, and it became a partisan issue just to pass CAFTA. People in sugar said, no, it might take a teaspoon a day out of our markets. Possibly so. Aside from that, there was not even an argument that CAFTA was not good, but it became a partisan issue. I am watching trade become a partisan issue. I watched budget responsibility become a partisan issue, and I listened to criticism after criticism from the other side of the aisle about what we are doing to our producers during a time of need. It is always a time of need.

But it is also a time where we have just pulled in the best 3 years in agriculture ever where I live. We have harvested the best crops in the last 3 years. Their overall accumulated value is more than it has ever been. We raised more corn and soybeans this year than any time in history, except last year, which was a record. That came upon a good crop for 2003. It is a good time to be responsible in agriculture, and I believe the producers will stand up and take this just fine.

We minimized some of the damage to agriculture as well. Some money was left over in the watershed rehab program, and so we put that in our Deficit Reduction Act. The Conservation Security Program, I like that program. I spent my life in soil conservation. I have built more terraces than any Member of Congress, and I do not have to wonder who is second. More waterways, more watershed dams. I have spent my life protecting soil and water. I like those projects. We took no money out of any one that was qualified today, but were required to pull some money out down range in order to come with these savings that we needed to get, which is $3.7 billion out of agriculture.

Skipping across some of these, the food stamp program, that probably consumed, out of 3 hours, probably 2 hours of the apportioned demagoguery for the day. It was how we could take food out of the mouths of babes, pregnant mothers, senior citizens, everybody you can imagine. I sat there and listened to that, and if I did not have a brain of my own to work with, I would have felt so guilty I would have crawled out of that room after they got done with me. The truth is when you look at it, we did not take any food out of anybody's mouth. We saved overall $844 million up to the year 2010.

I went back and looked, how much waste do we have in food stamps just for the last year we have records. Well, $1 billion in food stamp waste. That is fraud.

Mr. Gingrey spoke about how we will cut waste, fraud and abuse. We did that in the food stamp program, and we did not do it randomly. We realized there are States that grant food stamps to people who do not qualify for any other benefit. That is a pretty good sign it is a fraud. We conditioned it if they need another benefit, like TANF, it will qualify them for food stamps. Unless they do, we are not going to give them a bunch of food stamps because, likely, they are not qualified. Most of the States are that way. Iowa is that way. It works for us. We do not hear complaints because it is a responsible way to manage.

The other side of the food stamp piece was we extended the period of time. When people come into this country legally, they pledge they are going to be self-sufficient. We say to them, under current law that means you do not get these benefits for 5 years. Then you can be unself-sufficient and we will help you out. We extend that time on food stamps from 5 years to 7 years. That picked up $275 million. We found our $3.7 billion without a lot of pain.

I will not say it was easy, because I had to listen to 3 hours of demagoguery; but we did not hurt anybody, and we helped people and we helped the taxpayer.

We have another way we can help this country. I have got to say this because agriculture is so susceptible to energy, but we have 406 trillion cubic feet of natural gas out there under the Outer Continental Shelf. We are paying $14.50 per million Btus here in this country. In Venezuela it is $1.60 compared to our $14.50. The same with Brazil, Argentina, and most places on this continent; and we have got 406 trillion cubic feet of natural gas right there next to the pipeline. All we have to do is move our drill rigs a little further to the east, sink them in the ground, hook the pipes up, and go to the same refineries and we can drive this price down. If we do so, we can cut fertilizer prices down and gas drawing prices down for our grain as well.

Go up and drill in ANWR, fix the energy piece in all of this, and we are going to see a big difference in this country. This is not all of the work we need to do, but this is a bunch of the important work we need to do. I am looking forward to getting on with it.