To require the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to establish a program for the provision of readjustment and mental health services to veterans who served in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 2874) to amend title 38, United States Code, to make certain improvements in the provision of health care to veterans, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, as with the last bill, I want to just thank both the chair, Mr. Michaud of Maine, and the ranking member, Mr. Miller from Florida, for their great leadership and bipartisan cooperation to get an important piece of legislation out.

This bill, the Veterans' Health Care Improvement Act of 2007, combines a lot of different ideas from Members on both sides of the aisle, and we are pleased to have this bill on the floor today.

Certainly, the mental health and well-being of our newest generation of veterans is a serious cause for concern and deserves our fullest attention.

The VA reported in April of this year that of the OEF/OIF veterans who have separated and sought health care through the VA, mental disorders rank second of frequency of possible diagnoses amongst these veterans.

Post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD, is the number one health concern. At this point, over 39,000 returning veterans have received a provisional diagnosis of this, and we are looking into, in fact, maybe a systemic underestimation of those who are diagnosed and, therefore, to get treatment.

Mr. Speaker, the composition of the fighting forces in Iraq and Afghanistan today is unique from past conflicts. Guard and Reserve forces make up a large percentage of those fighting, around 50 percent or a little more. Though only 19 percent of the Nation lives in rural America, 44 percent of U.S. military recruits come from rural areas.

We must ensure that their health care and services meet the needs that they deserve and have earned. It must be available and accessible to all, and I would say we will take up as a committee the broad subject of rural veterans sometime in the near future.

This bill requires the VA to award grants to conduct workshop programs to help heal and better the lives of veterans who need it through therapeutic programs such as art, writing and music to name just a few. It establishes a grant program to provide transportation options to veterans living in rural areas that will help to lessen the burden on veterans who are unable to drive long distances due to their disability or illness.

It also provides permanent authority to the VA to treat veterans who are subject to chemical and biological testing. This is an obligation we owe to those who have served.

We provide also for readjustment counseling and mental health services. We include contracting with community mental health centers in areas not adequately served by VA and contracting with nonprofit mental health organizations to train OEF/OIF veterans in outreach and peer support.

We address issues affecting homeless veterans and their families. The VA has now become the largest single provider of direct services to homeless veterans, reaching 25 percent of homeless veterans a year through various programs. Our aim is to make it 100 percent. Many communities have recently gone through what they call stand-downs, 2- or 3-day efforts to bring the whole community in cooperation to provide the services that homeless veterans need, whether they be medical or dental or legal or drug abuse counseling, of course, food and clothing; and we do that in 3 days a year in many communities. It is up to the VA to do that 365 days a year for all our veterans, and we estimate over 200,000 on the streets tonight who served our Nation.

Prior to becoming homeless, a large number of veterans have struggled with PTSD or had addictions acquired during or worsened by their military service, and we want to expand and extend the counseling services for these veterans. We expand programs to 12 locations throughout the Veterans Health Administration and extend this program through 2011.

The VA domiciliary care programs are an essential piece in assisting veterans and providing needed services to help them recover and become productive citizens again. We enhance in this bill the capacity of such domiciliary care programs, for female veterans especially.

Finally, we want to authorize VA to provide financial assistance to provide supportive services for very low-income veteran families who reside in permanent housing.

In short, Mr. Speaker, H.R. 2874 takes care of the men and women who have so selflessly taken care of us. It provides our veterans with the quality health care programs and services they need and they so richly deserve. It is another down payment, another measurable piece of keeping our promise to those who have kept their promise to us

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

Mr. Speaker, again, I yield 3 minutes to the Chair of our Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity, Ms. Herseth Sandlin.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Rodriguez from Texas has been particularly active and energetic in advocating for the treatment of the mental health needs of our veterans, and I yield 3 minutes to him.

Mr. Speaker, one of our new Members, Congressman Murphy from Pennsylvania, returned from Operation Iraqi Freedom. He gives us the benefit of that experience both as an advocate for our active duty and to the veterans who have served. We welcome you to the Congress. We thank you for your expertise, and I yield as much time as he may consume to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

Again, I thank Mr. Miller and Mr. Michaud for their leadership on the bill and all the Members on both sides of the aisle that have contributed to it.

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 2874.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Kennedy).

I thank the gentleman for his leadership on mental health parity in this Nation.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Chairman Filner and Ranking Member Buyer for their leadership on the Committee and for moving these four bills forward to help our veterans. I would also like to thank Ranking Member Miller for working with me on the veterans' health care bills we are considering today.

I will limit my comments to H.R. 2874, although I support each of the bills we are considering today. H.R. 2874 was passed unanimously by our Committee. It represents a bipartisan effort to address a variety of issues facing our veterans.

Section 2 of H.R. 2874 supports therapeutic readjustment programs to assist veterans in their long physical and mental journey home through a new grant program. Veterans already participate in these programs without any financial assistance or guidance from the VA. It is my hope that this new grant program will increase the number of veterans using these rehabilitative options and that this will enable VA and providers to better assess the benefits of these programs to veterans.

Section 3 authorizes funding for transportation grants for rural veterans. Access to care is a significant challenge for rural veterans. This program will provide grants to VSOs to implement innovative ways of overcoming this challenge. This section was authored by Mr. Salazar.

Section 4 provides permanent authority for VA treatment of participants in the DOD chemical and biological testing conducted by Deseret Test Center, including Project SHAD (Shipboard Hazard and Defense). This permanent authority was requested by the VA. Section 5 extends collections authorities for the VA until 2009. This extension was also requested by the VA.

Section 6 authorizes the VA to provide expanded readjustment and mental health services in areas determined by the secretary to be underserved, especially peer-to-peer outreach services, for Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom veterans.

Sections 7 and 8 come from Congressman Patrick Murphy's legislation, H.R. 2699. It is no surprise that Congressman Murphy has taken a leadership role in helping our Nation's veterans, and I thank him for his work. There are as many as 200,000 veterans on the streets each night. This is a shame on our Nation that must be addressed. The provisions from Congressman Murphy's bill are critical to ending this shame and helping these veterans find their way home.

Section 7 expands and extends the successful VA program of referral and counseling for at-risk veterans transitioning from certain institutions. The program is extended to 2011 and expanded from six locations to 12. These services are largely directed toward incarcerated veterans. There were over 225,000 veterans in prison in 1998. I believe it is important that we make every effort to make sure that they do not return to prison.

Section 8 requires the Secretary to ensure that VA domiciliary programs are adequate in capacity and safety to meet the needs of women veterans. Homeless women veterans are an increasing proportion of the homeless veteran population. We need to make sure that facilities are capable of safely caring for this population and helping them get back on their feet.

Section 9 authorizes funding for the Secretary to provide financial assistance to eligible entities to provide supportive services for very low-income veteran families residing in permanent housing. This section comes from a bill authored by Congresswoman Herseth Sandlin.

Section 10 changes from 60 days to 30 days the required time for a homeless veteran to be in a VA program before they are eligible for dental care. Section 11 makes technical amendments to title 38.

Overall, this bill continues the ongoing efforts of our Committee and this Congress to address the needs of our veterans and their families. It is my hope that when we return in September, we can work quickly with the Senate to create an omnibus package that includes H.R. 2874, H.R. 2199, Mr. Miller's bill H.R. 2623, and other important veterans' health care initiatives to send to the President for his signature.

I believe this is a good bipartisan bill and I ask my colleagues for their support.

Mr. Speaker, once again, the eloquence of our able chairman, he has done an excellent job in explaining the bill that's before us on the floor today.

Mr. Speaker, this is an outstanding bill. It was a true bipartisan effort. I appreciate the chairman of the committee, Mr. Michaud's, able leadership

in bringing this bill to the floor. It does all of the things that our chairman had talked about.

It deals with veterans in rural and remote areas. It does deal with certain DOD biological and chemical warfare testing that was done during the Cold War. It also deals with domiciliary programs, providing adequate and safe environments to meet the needs of women veterans.

This is not just a good bill. It is a very good bill that helps VA provide better care for our Nation's veteran, and I do urge my colleagues to support this legislation

H.R. 2874, the Veterans' Health Care Improvement Act of 2007, as amended, has strong bipartisan support and I want to express my sincere thanks to Subcommittee Chairman Michaud for his leadership and hard work to develop this legislation.

H.R. 2874, as amended, would establish a number of meaningful improvements that will help VA to provide better care for our Nation's veterans.

Veterans in remote rural areas would benefit with the establishment of a grant program to provide innovative transportation options to access VA medical facilities.

Readjustment counseling and mental health services for OIF/OEF veterans would be enhanced through programs that would provide peer outreach and support services, with special emphasis for Guard and Reservists.

Veterans who participated in certain Department of Defense biological and chemical warfare testing during the Cold War would permanently be granted free VA medical care for conditions that may have resulted from their participation in such testing.

VA domiciliary programs would be required to have adequate and safe environments to meet the needs of women veterans.

Very low-income veteran families residing in or transitioning to permanent housing would be eligible for VA financial assistance for supportive services.

This is a good bill that would help VA provide better care for our Nation's veterans.

I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

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

Mr. Speaker, I see that the chairman has other speakers that he may wish to yield time to, so we will reserve the balance of our time.

Mr. Speaker, we continue to reserve.

Mr. Speaker, in closing, I would just say H.R. 2874, as amended, would establish a number of meaningful improvements that would help VA to provide better care for our Nation's veterans. Once again, I support my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 2874, The Veterans' Health Care Improvement Act of 2007. I would also like to take this opportunity to recognize our chairman, Bob Filner, for his leadership on this issue, and I want to personally thank him for what's accomplished on a variety of issues regarding veterans.

I also want to acknowledge my friend, Congressman Miller, for his efforts also on this particular bill.

This is an important piece of legislation and the nearly 60,000 veterans in my mostly rural district will certainly benefit from this particular bill.

Earlier this year, I sponsored H.R. 2689, a bill that improves mental health services for Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom veterans. This bill would establish a program for peer-to-peer outreach and counseling for veterans. Many experts believe this method is critical for getting veterans in need of services into the VA system.

Additionally, under H.R. 2689, the VA would be required to look beyond its current services to ensure that veterans have access to the services that they need by embracing the expertise available in our communities and contract out to qualified providers such as community mental health centers who have been providing quality mental health services for families for many years.

Under the leadership of the chairman, my bill was incorporated into this bill, and I want to personally thank him.

Also included in this bill are provisions critical to veterans, as our Speaker today understands, in Texas, such as the transportation grants for rural veterans service organizations. In some parts of my district and throughout this country, veterans have to drive long hours to get access to services. This bill allows an opportunity for us to provide some needed assistance and services in this specific area.

I also want to acknowledge that this bill also has language that deals with Project SHAD, a bill that was extremely important to begin to identify those thousands of soldiers that we also used weapons such as nerve gas and other types of testing on, that we did on our own soldiers that allows an opportunity for them to continue to get service.

And other members of this committee, I want to personally thank them for their efforts. Once again, I want to take this opportunity to thank the chairman for his leadership.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to give voice to a terrible injustice. On any given night in America, nearly 200,000 veterans go homeless and twice as many will go homeless over the course of the year. This is shameful.

In my district in southeastern Pennsylvania, this problem is very real. There are more than 3,300 homeless veterans in Pennsylvania and at least 550 in the greater Philadelphia area alone. These are veterans who saw combat in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq.

As someone who spent 10 years in the Army and walked the streets of Baghdad, I cannot stand by while more of my fellow soldiers go hungry and seek shelter. Over the last 3 years, as many as 1,300 veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan have participated in homeless outreach programs by the VA in their community. Who knows how many others went without help.

That's why, Mr. Speaker, I proudly support the Veterans' Health Care Improvement Act, which looks after those who have sacrificed so much for our country.

This much-needed bill makes permanent a program to identify at-risk servicemembers to prevent them from

ever becoming homeless once they leave the military. With the rapidly increasing number of women veterans, the bill also instructs the VA to make their programs for homeless veterans more accommodating for female veterans.

I was proud to introduce these important provisions, and I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Filner), and the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Michaud), for bringing this bill to the floor and their leadership on this issue. These brave American veterans, who once faced down our enemies, shouldn't have to face one more night out on the street.