Providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 5822) making appropriations for military construction, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2011, and for other purposes and providing for consideration of motions to suspend the rules.

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

Madam Chair, it's a privilege for me to present the fiscal year 2011 Military Construction and Veterans Affairs appropriations bill. I believe this bill and the work we have done since January of 2007 is a work all of us can be very proud of.

In this time of war, we have continued our tradition of a bipartisan Military Construction and Veterans Affairs appropriation bill. It has honored in a meaningful way the service and sacrifice of our servicemen and -women, our veterans and their families.

With passage of this fiscal year 2011 bill, the Congress will have increased veterans health care and benefits funding by 70 percent in the last 3\1/2\ years. In addition, we have funded a new 21st century GI education bill that 510,000 servicemen and -women, veterans, and military children have used to further their education. This is an unprecedented increase in Congress' commitment to veterans.

In our book, our veterans have earned every dime of this funding. We have, among other things, increased by 10,200 the number of permanent claims processors in the VA to reduce VA case backlogs, provided an additional 145 community-based outpatient clinics, built 92 new vet centers. This bill will add 30 mobile vet centers to serve rural communities. It allowed the Veterans Health Administration to hire an additional 18,000 new doctors and nurses.

These resources mean that our veterans have better access to the health care they need and deserve, including improved access in rural areas, increased access for VA health care for low- and middle-income vets. Additionally, these resources ensure that our veterans receive, on a more timely basis, the services and benefits that they have earned.

We have also worked hard to make sure that our military knows that the Congress respects the sacrifices that they and their families have made each and every day to keep our great Nation safe. We have heard time and time again in testimony that the best support we can give our military when

they are deployed is the knowledge that their families are cared for here at home.

We have listened and funded initiatives, such as:

$2.8 billion for new military hospitals so servicemen and -women know that their families will get the best possible health care in high quality facilities;

New child care centers to serve 20,000 military children;

Over $500 million in additional funding for barracks, because Congress needs to show our volunteer forces from day one that we respect and honor their decision to serve.

The Subcommittee for Military Construction and Veterans Affairs did not accomplish this alone. There are several key leaders that have worked tirelessly behind the scenes to support our efforts.

Speaker Pelosi promised our veterans that they would be a top priority for her, and the fact is she has more than honored that promise. Her fingerprints are on every bill that has provided for our military and veterans in the past 3\1/2\ years through our subcommittee, and I thank her for her leadership in these efforts.

Also, we would not have seen the historic funding increases that I have just highlighted were it not for the dedicated support of Chairman Dave Obey, who, in my book, is the unsung hero of America's veterans.

I must also salute, and want to salute, the VA Committee chairman, Bob Filner, for his strong leadership every day on behalf of America's veterans. He has truly made a difference.

Lastly, but definitely not least, our ranking member, Mr. Wamp of Tennessee, has been a vital partner in putting together this bill, and last year's bill as well. Mr. Wamp has a genuine heart for America's servicemen and -women and our veterans, and he has championed their cause. It has been a privilege to work with him, and also with Ander Crenshaw, who has filled in when Mr. Wamp could not be with us in some of our deliberations this year. Mr. Crenshaw has truly been a partner every step of the way in putting together this bipartisan bill, and I thank him for that.

I also thank Mr. Farr on the Democratic side, the vice chairman of our subcommittee, who has done an outstanding job for our veterans and our military.

Madam Chair, I would like to highlight several key initiatives in this bill.

First, this bill continues an initiative begun last year to provide advance appropriation for VA medical care. This will allow the VA to invest taxpayer dollars more effectively and efficiently, and it is a top priority of America's veterans' service organizations.

Second, we provide $190 million to new troop housing for Army trainees, over 60,000 of whom are presently living in barracks that don't even meet minimum DOD standards. Our 18- and 19-year-old military recruits don't have many lobbyists running around the halls of Capitol Hill, but they deserve our Nation's respect and support for their decision to serve in our military during a time of war.

Third, we provide $200 million for a Guard and Reserve construction initiative, recognizing the vital role these troops are playing in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Fourth, the bill provides $1.3 billion in emergency appropriations for military construction of facilities in support of our military operations in Afghanistan.

Fifth, recognizing the mental wounds of war can sometimes be more painful and long lasting than the physical wounds of combat, we provide $5.2 billion for the VA to continue its improvements in PTSD and mental health care for America's veterans.

Sixth, this bill includes funding for 4,048 new permanent VA claims processors in order to help veterans receive their earned benefits on a more timely basis.

The seventh initiative I would highlight, this bill also continues to open up VA medical care to more middle-and low-income veterans by 292,000, the number of veterans receiving health care since reopening enrollment in 2009.

Finally, we want to ensure that historic increases in funding for the VA are spent wisely. To increase oversight of the taxpayers' dollars, we provide an additional $6 million to VA's Office of Inspector General.

Madam Chair, I am going to skip over some of the numbers that we have in this bill, but I would be remiss if I did not thank the committee staff, very professional committee staff, a very dedicated committee staff, for their hard work and long hours during this process: the minority staff, led by Martin Delgado, Liz Dawson and Kelly Shea; and Erin Fogleman and Gilbert DMeza from Mr. Wamp's staff; and the majority staff led by Subcommittee Clerk Tim Peterson, Mary Arnold, Walter Hearne, Sue Quantius and Todd Friedman and Michelle Dominguez on my staff. They don't get public credit for the work, but the work of this bill would not have been done had it not been for their professionalism, and I thank each of them personally.

In conclusion, this bill keeps our promise to our veterans. That is what the Paralyzed Veterans of America, AMVETS, Disabled American Veterans, and Veterans of Foreign Wars have said. In fact, they state, ``We offer our strong support for the FY 2011 Military Construction and Veterans Affairs appropriations bill and we hope that the House will quickly pass this critical legislation.''

This bill sends a clear message to America's servicemen and -women, their families, and our veterans. We appreciate and respect their service and sacrifice.

[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH28JY10.001

[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH28JY10.002

[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH28JY10.003

[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH28JY10.004

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, before introducing Chairman Obey, I would like to join with my friend and colleague, Mr. Crenshaw, in saluting Mr. Young of Florida. While he is not here because of an illness today, he has spent a lifetime of service and commitment to our servicemen

and women, our veterans and their families.

I also see Mr. Lewis on the floor, the ranking member of the full committee, the former chairman of the full committee, the former chairman of the Defense Appropriations Committee. I thank Mr. Lewis also for working on this bill and for his leadership throughout his long career here in Congress in support of our servicemen and -women.

Madam Chair, it is one of two honors of my lifetime to recognize and introduce Chairman Dave Obey. I must say that in the last 3\1/2\ years, this Congress has increased veterans funding by more than any 3\1/2\- year period in history. That would not have happened had it not been for the allocations and the personal leadership of Chairman Dave Obey. And while others of us at the subcommittee level or the VA authorizing subcommittee level have been the ones sometimes recognized by veterans groups for our work over these past 3\1/2\ years, it has been Chairman Obey's leadership and partnership with Speaker Pelosi behind the scenes that have made all of these new programs, including the funding of the GI bill, that has helped over 500,000 servicemen and -women and veterans and their families.

It's been Mr. Obey's leadership that has truly made a difference in this process. Of his many great legacies of his service to this country and Congress, I hope he will always be remembered as a true champion of America's veterans.

Madam Chair, I yield 5 minutes to Chairman Obey.

Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the vice chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, the gentleman from California (Mr. Farr), who has been a champion on this committee for veterans, our troops, their families, and for all of the many issues involved in this subcommittee's affairs.

Madam Chair, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to a very important member of our Appropriations subcommittee, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Salazar), who has been a real champion for our vets and our troops.

Will the gentleman yield?

I want to thank the gentleman both for the points he is making now and also for his focus on oversight.

As we have provided these historic increases in veterans' funding over the last several years, and as we have been working together on a bipartisan basis, I think it is also very important that we see that those tax dollars are spent wisely, efficiently, and effectively.

I have been concerned for some time that the large increases we have provided the VA health care system have not always made their way down to the individual hospitals on a very rapid basis as quickly as we would like.

Because of that and our work together, we asked the S&I staff to do this study to help us understand the process the Department's using in distributing money and to highlight areas where we can exert more oversight, if necessary, to ensure the efficient use of taxpayer dollars.

The report just completed is quite large, and in the coming weeks, staff on both sides of the aisle will be evaluating it to determine how its recommendations can be incorporated into our final bill and report. And I certainly look forward to working with the gentleman on examining that report and seeing how we can incorporate some of its ideas into the final conference report on this bill.

Madam Chair, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Donnelly) for the purpose of my entering into a colloquy with him.

I want to thank the gentleman for his hard work on behalf of our veterans. He's been a leader on these issues. And thanks to you, Mr. Donnelly, this bill directs $15 million that you referenced to planning the VA health care centers across the country. It's an innovative way to make more services available to veterans locally.

I understand that among the locations due to have a new VA health care center is South Bend, in the gentleman's district. And South Bend's demonstrated need for such an expansion of VA health care services was noted by the committee in its report language.

Furthermore, the committee expects that this account will be utilized by the VA as soon as possible.

Madam Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Murphy), who has worked very hard on behalf of our veterans and troops.

Madam Chair, there are several other speakers on our side of the aisle who said they would like to speak, but perhaps we have progressed more quickly than they thought.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Rodriguez), a member of the Appropriations Committee who has been vocal in his strong support of our veterans and troops.

Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Hall), who is a leading voice of America's veterans on the Veterans' Affairs Authorizing Committee.

Madam Chair, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Kennedy). And as he approaches the well, let me just thank him. This will be his last year to be in the House, a member of this committee. And he has been an inspiration to veterans throughout America and to every member of our subcommittee on both sides of the aisle in his championing the cause of mental health care services and other services for veterans, care for our homeless veterans. I thank the gentleman. It will be a legacy that will live on for many decades to come.

I yield the gentleman an additional 15 seconds.

Madam Chair, I want to finish by thanking Mr. Crenshaw for, again, his leadership on this and working together importantly on so many parts of this bill, and doing so in a bipartisan manner. We thanked a lot of people in this process. It's been a work of good faith on both sides of the aisle.

I always want to save the best for the last in thanking our veterans service organizations for their partnership in putting together this legislation.

I add two letters, one from the DAV, AMVETS, Paralyzed Veterans of America, and Veterans of Foreign Wars; another from the president of the National Guard Association of the United States, in support of this legislation.

The Independent Budget,

July 27, 2010.

Hon. Chet Edwards,

Chairman, Subcommittee on Military Construction and Veterans

Affairs, House Committee on Appropriations, The Capitol,

Washington, DC.

Dear Chairman Edwards: On behalf of the co-authors of the

Independent Budget, we would like to take this opportunity to

thank you for your unwavering support for our nation's sick

and disabled veterans, as well as all of the men and women

who have so honorably served this country. We appreciate your

efforts as Chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee

on Military Construction and Veterans' Affairs to achieve an

excellent funding level for the Department of Veterans

Affairs (VA) once again this year. Through your leadership,

the VA will receive another significant funding increase for

I just want to commend the gentleman for his leadership on this effort. It is a heartbreaking tragedy every time a veteran takes his or her life as a result of their service to our country. I look forward to working with the gentleman and with the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Crenshaw) and the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Wamp) as we go to conference committee to see that we do more than everything that is already being done to see that we prevent suicides from occurring.

If we save one life, then the gentleman's and our service here in Congress will have been time well served.

I want to commend Mr. Buyer for offering this amendment.

Without this amendment, the VA would actually be reducing at the very worst time the number of vocational rehab employees. We ought to be increasing those numbers, and that's what we will be doing with this, particularly given a lot of our troops coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan are having difficult times finding jobs. They need this support.

The VA gets a lot of things right, but I don't think they got this part of their budget right. And I thank the gentleman for correcting it, and it's a privilege to support his amendment.

I just want to commend Mr. Buyer for his leadership. This is not the first time he has come to the floor fighting for renewable energy projects and conservation projects for the VA. And as he leaves Congress at the end of this Congress, I want to thank him for this effort. Every dollar we save by conservation investments and renewable energy investments is a dollar that's either back into the taxpayers' pocket or a dollar that goes to actually provide better health care for America's veterans. So that's why I'm enthusiastic in my support of this amendment, and I commend the gentleman for his authorship of it.

I just want to commend him and commend Mr. Buyer for this effort. These photographs are an inspiration to all of us, to our veterans, to our Wounded Warriors, but to every American. This program is an inspiration to our Wounded Warriors, our veterans, and all Americans who hear about it. I am in full support of this amendment. I also want to thank again Mr. Buyer, along with Mr. Perlmutter and Mr. Langevin, who over the last several years have been real champions, along with Mr. Buyer, of this program, and again, I'm honored to support the amendment.

I am glad to support this amendment.

Madam Chair, I claim time in opposition.

Madam Chair, I respect the gentleman. He takes a principled position on congressionally sponsored projects, but I strongly oppose this amendment.

The Flake amendment, regardless of its intentions, would cut $163 million out of important military construction projects for the National Guard and Reserves, which are playing a key role in our war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This amendment would cut $57 million out of force protection, safety and security forces facilities, including more secure entrance gates at our military installations, fire stations to protect our troops and their families on posts.

The Flake amendment would cut $30 million from quality of life facilities--much needed by our troops and earned by our troops, deserved by our troops--barracks, youth and community centers, roads. It cuts 44 projects that are in the Department of Defense's Future Years Defense Program.

One of the programs this would cut is $1 million I put in this bill as an earmark to provide for a new Soldier Readiness Processing Center at Fort Hood so those soldiers, over 40,000 serving there, will not have to go through a processing center which was the site of the murder of 12 of their Army comrades and one civilian just months ago.

A ``yes'' vote on this amendment will cut these kinds of worthy projects.

Now, Mr. Flake will claim and has claimed that DOD will still have the money to spend, but that's not correct because this amendment is flawed in the way it's drafted because--well, first of all, let me say that let's at least get rid of the pretence that cutting earmarks would save taxpayer dollars if he says, well, this money could still be spent by DOD.

But the reality is, because of the flawed nature of the way this amendment was put together, it would be the best--the worst, actually, of both worlds. One, it wouldn't save taxpayers' dollars because the appropriations would go to the Department of Defense; but because it would be in an account for programs not authorized, that money could not be spent for all of the worthwhile kinds of projects that I have just mentioned.

Let me put in perspective what we are talking about here. This is a $140 billion bill. Less than three-tenths of 1 percent of this bill was designated by Members of Congress working with community leaders, military leaders, military base leaders.

If I can ask my staff for a chart, I would just like to show, in perspective, what a small part of this total bill actually goes to congressionally sponsored projects.

Now, Mr. Flake apparently has more trust in the Obama administration than I did. I don't think bureaucrats in Washington are right 100 percent of the time, and it's not wrong--in fact, it's right--to say that Members of Congress, working with military leaders and community leaders, ought to have some voice in where their taxpayers' dollars go.

Madam Chair, I want to point out this is a chart. This graph shows how much is spent in this bill. The part of the bill that Mr. Flake is objecting to is this red part right here. Probably from that side of the aisle it would be very, very hard to see it.

But I just want people to understand that the administration gets a voice on this amount of money in the bill. Members of Congress working with military leaders get a voice on this amount. This is what we are talking about.

But I want to talk and say this amount is significant because, if this amendment were to pass, and I hope it will not and I do not believe it will, it would harm important quality of life and protection projects for our service men and women. It would kill a major initiative in this bill to increase funding for the National Guard and Reserves who are playing a vitally important role in Iraq and Afghanistan.

May I inquire how much time I have remaining?

I would yield that time to my colleague Mr. Ortiz.

I appreciate that, and I do respect his principled position on this, not with just this bill but with other bills.

I just want to point out the reason we don't spread out earmarks evenly among 435 Members is military bases in the United States are not spread out evenly among 435 congressional districts. So it is logical and it makes sense and it's good policy that Members that represent military bases get more earmarks than Members that don't represent military bases.

I thank the gentleman. I support this amendment.

Through no one's malicious intentions, students--our veteran servicemen and -women or their children using the new 21st Century GI Bill--are being punished for mistakes that they did not make, perhaps paperwork mistakes by a school administration or by the VA. The result can be that sometimes students can have halted their additional GI benefits in order to continue college. So this is really an important issue. I salute the gentleman. We are going to see that this issue is solved with his leadership, and I look forward to working with him.

I want to thank the gentleman. I will support his amendment.

I want to make it clear there is nothing, to my knowledge, in this bill intended to allow the exercise of eminent domain without payment of just compensation, but I believe in the principle of just compensation, and I would be glad to support the gentleman's amendment.

Madam Chair, I claim time in opposition to the amendment, though I am not opposed to the amendment.

I will support this amendment, Madam Chair.

I do want to clarify that there is no funding in this bill of any type to fund any kind of facility to house detainees from Guantanamo. Having said that, I would be glad to support the gentleman's amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I rise to claim time in opposition to the amendment.

I want to salute the gentleman's focus, his genuine commitment on the important need of providing long-term care for our veterans and wounded warriors with traumatic brain injury.

I care deeply about this. We all care deeply about it. In fact, several years ago I personally put the money in our VA appropriations bill to build a new polytrauma center where there was not one in the entire southwestern part of the United States.

I wish the gentleman could agree to work with the majority and the minority, the conference committee, to try to find a way to also work with the VA to find a way to address the very important needs that he is wanting to address.

If he's not willing to pull this amendment down, I must reluctantly rise in opposition to it for several reasons:

First, the VA is studying this issue right now, and we ought to sit down with them and find out what they have learned and what they think are the best ways to use taxpayers' dollars to address these needs.

Secondly, I don't know if we need four of these long-term centers or six or eight or 10. Rather than spending money on four centers, perhaps it would be better to do smaller renovations on 10 to 20 centers where our traumatically injured veterans could receive care closer to the homes of their loved ones.

Third, I don't know what the full cost of this is going to be. The $9.5 million doesn't, I don't think, even come close to providing for the full cost of the construction of these four projects. Perhaps the gentleman could help illuminate for all of us both the cost of the construction plus the cost of the operations of those centers. And there are a lot of unanswered questions, important questions, such as: Where would the staff come from to man these centers? Would they come from existing VA facilities? I don't know. Perhaps there are good answers to those questions. I just don't think the committee has them at this point.

Finally, there are pay-fors on this. The consequences of how this gentleman would pay for these would be that we would have a domiciliary extended-stay unit would not be replaced in Butler, Pennsylvania; a kidney dialysis unit expansion would not occur in Richmond, Virginia; an ambulatory surgery center would not be completed in Albuquerque, New Mexico; an urgent care center will not be renovated at Castle Point, New York; and a psychiatric residential rehab facility will not be replaced in Perry Point, Maryland.

It was not the intention of the gentleman to try to prevent these five important projects from being completed, but it is the consequence of his amendment as written.

I yield to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott).

I would be glad to yield.

Reclaiming my time, if Mr. Bilirakis would be willing to ask unanimous consent to bring down his amendment, I will make my genuine commitment to work with him, because I salute him for pointing out the important need that needs to be addressed here.

I'll work with Mr. Crenshaw, the acting ranking member, Mr. Wamp, the ranking member of the subcommittee, and we will get together with the VA and try to find a pay-for that doesn't take away from awfully important projects such as Mr. Scott's in Virginia and others.

If the gentleman will yield, I appreciate that. I will work in good faith. And let's see if by working with the VA, the majority and minority, see if we can find a way to most efficiently and effectively take care of these great Americans that have suffered such a sacrifice on behalf of our country, and do so without impacting these other important projects throughout the country.

I just want to commend the gentleman. This is such a good amendment. Sometimes common sense can prevail, because it certainly makes no sense to take drugs that a veteran is using, prescription drugs used in a VA hospital, and then have a half a bottle or three-quarters of a bottle of those pills left, have to throw them away, and then go directly to the pharmacy at the VA hospital to get those exact same prescription drugs to take for use at home.

So this is going to save taxpayers money. And every dollar that's saved can be put back into much-needed medical care for our veterans. So I am thrilled to support the gentleman's amendment and salute him for working on this.

I once again on this amendment want to thank the gentleman for bringing this before the House. This could save up to $55 million in taxpayer funding according to the Inspector General. It's a good amendment, and I am glad to support it.

Madam Chair, I will salute the gentleman from New Jersey for focusing on the need to fund our State veterans cemeteries. I believe in those cemeteries. I think they're an important partnership between the Federal Government and our State governments. So I have absolutely no objection to his wanting to try to find additional funding for State cemeteries.

However, I will object and ask my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this amendment because of the way in which he pays for it. While not intended in any way, it just turns out the money that he would be taking out of the VA minor construction project would come out of these specific projects:

A domiciliary extended stay unit will not be replaced in Butler, Pennsylvania; a kidney dialysis unit expansion will not occur in Richmond, Virginia; an ambulatory surgery center will not be completed in Albuquerque, New Mexico; and an urgent care center will not be renovated at Castle Point, New York.

So you have an amendment that won't even guarantee that even one dime of this amendment's funding will go to State veterans cemeteries in New Jersey. In fact, the last list I saw the VA has put out officially has the New Jersey project significantly down the list. But regardless of that, I think it's just not right to take funding out of these much- needed health care construction projects.

I would like to yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Altmire) for any time he would care to consume.

I would like to now yield time to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott).

I now yield to the gentleman from New York.

Madam Chair, do I have any time remaining?

Let me just conclude by saying no one objects to the gentleman's goal. We would be glad to try to work in good faith to see if we can find another pay-for to improve funding for our veterans cemeteries. But I will strongly object and ask my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this amendment because of the damage done to veterans at these facilities that need the care that they would otherwise not get if this amendment is passed into law.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 1559 and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

I appreciate the thoughts of my colleague from Arizona.

I would say that I wouldn't stand up here and criticize nurses, dairy farmers, small breweries, which I have many of in my State, or even the pollinators. I actually have a daughter who's a beekeeper, and I think we all recognize the importance of pollination.

But let me get serious here. Once again, my friends on the other side of the aisle, I think, are trying to block important legislation by using a procedural tactic. They want to prevent this rule and the underlying legislation from going forward without any opportunity for debate, without an opportunity for an up-or-down vote on the legislation itself.

I think that's wrong. I hope my colleagues will vote ``yes'' so we can consider this legislation on its merits and not kill it with a procedural motion.

I say, let's not waste any more time on unrelated parliamentary measures. Those who oppose the bill can vote against it on final passage. We must consider this rule, and we must pass the bill today.

I have the right to close but, in the end, I will urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' to consider the rule.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, to the questions of my colleague from Arizona, I have to say you have far more experience in this body than I do. As you know, I'm a freshman Member. So I have only operated under the current process that we have today. I can't speak to what the process was like in the past.

I can say, as a member of the Rules Committee, a tremendous number of amendments come before our committee. And if all of them were allowed to come to the floor, and if this were an open rule, I'm sure there would be some advantages and some opportunities for greater debate.

On the other hand, on the issues that we're about to take up today, the essential issue of veterans benefits, which I'm going to look forward to speaking to in a few minutes, assuming that we vote down this current point of privilege, I am looking forward to the opportunity to move forward on taking better care of our veterans. And if we had a tremendous number of amendments before us today, I am not sure we would ever get there.

In fact, when I look at some of the information that I have before me, I am reminded that during the DOD appropriations bill in 2009, when I was sitting on the Rules Committee, we actually had 606 amendments come before us. Many of them were just there, I think everybody would agree on both sides of the aisle, many of them were just there to score political points. So do our constituents want us to take up our time today with listening to political back and forth taking up day after day with 606 amendments, or do they want us to get right to the heart of the matter, and that is to move forward on the issue of taking better care of our veterans?

And let me make one other point. You know, you've talked about earmarks, and you are very eloquent on the topic of earmarks; and I appreciate that. I think a lot of our constituents have great concerns about earmarks, how are they handed out, how does the budgeting process work here. But I do have to say as a freshman Member, I have taken great care to have a tremendous amount of transparency around the topic of earmarks.

We hold appropriations meetings in our district. We invite individuals with any kind of issue to come before us that they would like to see appropriated, whether it's a highway bridge, or whether it's a community center, or whether it's a particular project that might benefit anyone in our district, the university, or some system. We actually ask each person who comes before us with an earmark request to make a 3-minute video. Then we post it on our Web site. Then we ask our constituents, do you have opinions on this?

So while I understand much of the concerns about the earmark process, I have to say as one Member who I can't say is in the top 13 percent of the highest recipients of earmarks, I still appreciate the process which allows me to take my constituents' wishes before the Appropriations Committee and say, you know, this would benefit my district, this would benefit my university, this would create more jobs. And I do it in a fully transparent manner. So I believe my constituents have the benefit of knowing all of the information around earmarking and doing the very best we can with making sure that process isn't handled in back rooms or in the dark of the night, but is actually a very transparent process.

So I appreciate the concerns that you have brought before us today. I look forward to moving forward on the debate on this rule so that we can move forward on what I think is a vital part of our appropriations process, that's taking care of our veterans.

So again, I want to urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on this motion to consider so we can debate and pass this important legislation today.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Lincoln Diaz-Balart). All time yielded during consideration of this rule is for debate only.

General Leave

I ask unanimous consent that all Members be given 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on House Resolution 1559.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 1559 provides for consideration of H.R. 5822, the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Appropriations Act of 2011, under a structured rule. The rule provides 1 hour of general debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Appropriations. The rule waives all points of order against consideration of the bill except those arising under clause 9 or 10 of rule XXI. The rule waives points of order against provisions of the bill for failure to comply with clause 2 of rule XXI. The rule makes in order only those amendments printed in the report. All points of order against the amendments except those arising under clause 9 or 10 of rule XXI are waived.

The rule provides that for those amendments reported from the Committee of the Whole, the question of their adoption shall be put to the House en gros and without division of the question. The rule provides one motion to recommit with or without instructions. The rule provides that after consideration of the bill for amendment, the chair and the ranking minority member of the Committee on Appropriations or their designees each may offer one pro forma amendment to the bill for the purpose of debate. Finally, the Chair may entertain a motion that the Committee rise only if offered by the chair of the Committee on Appropriations or his designee.

Mr. Speaker, for more than 9 years our country has been engaged in two conflicts halfway around the world. The number of wounded military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan has put a financial strain on the Department of Veterans Affairs. The VA expects to treat more than 6.1 million patients in 2011, including more than 439,000 veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. In addition, the constant training, deployment, and redeployment of our troops have put a significant burden on our military.

H.R. 5822 appropriates funding for military construction, veterans programs, and four related agencies. Our troops have performed admirably wherever they have been deployed, and Congress has an obligation to provide the care and compensation to every eligible veteran. This bill also provides additional funding for the Guard and Reserves to address critical unfunded requirements as a result of prolonged and repeated deployments. In my home State of Maine, thousands of Guard and Reservists have made invaluable contributions to our national defense, and I am proud to see this funding included in the bill.

H.R. 5822 renews our commitment to redevelop closed military bases and their surrounding communities. The bill provides necessary funding to implement the 2005 BRAC and address the enormous backlog of environmental cleanup projects from previous BRAC rounds. This funding is essential to communities across the country, including the towns of Brunswick and Topsham in my district, which are already experiencing economic difficulties from the closing of Brunswick Naval Air Station. We must do everything we can to support the communities that the BRAC bases leave behind.

While the investments in military construction are vital, they are only a small portion of this bill. The vast majority of legislation is devoted to veterans' programs. The bill provides the necessary funding for veterans' medical care, claims processors, and facility improvements, including increased funding for mental health services, assistance programs for homeless veterans, and innovative services for veterans in rural areas.

The military construction projects in this bill are vital to ensure that the

missions of each installation are carried out in the most efficient manner possible. One great example is the funding contained in this bill for Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine. The shipyard provides world-class overhaul, repair, and modernization of nuclear submarines. The yard has a reputation of delivering subs back to the fleet on time and under budget.

This fall, the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard will welcome the first Virginia-class submarine to Maine for an overhaul. This bill contains $11.9 million to modernize the structural shops at the yard, which will improve the equipment layout and streamline process flow within the shipyard. It will help workers at the yard continue to do high quality work while increasing their efficiency. And this funding is essential to this mission. Increasing maintenance efficiencies and eliminating redundancies will no doubt make the yard more competitive for Navy sub projects in the future.

The Portsmouth Naval Shipyard is an economic success story in Maine. The yard is in the middle of adding approximately 160 new jobs this year, jobs like painters, sheet metal workers, electricians, welders, and engineers. And the construction work that this bill will fund will be done by outside contractors, bringing even more jobs to the area. The funding in this bill will help this economic engine in southern Maine remain competitive and create new, good-paying jobs.

Finally, I am very proud of what this bill does for our Nation's veterans. Their service has earned them world-class health care and benefits, and Congress has a moral obligation to provide the best benefits possible.

This bill is an example of what happens when politics is put aside and veterans come first. I strongly support this rule which provides for consideration of this essential legislation.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to yield 2 minutes to

the gentlewoman from Nevada (Ms. Berkley).

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, and I appreciate the words of my colleague and far more experienced Member from California. Thank you very much.

I take your criticism that perhaps, although you didn't hear my words earlier today, that had I been here for the amount of time that you had or had the previous experience, I wouldn't have said exactly what I said about the political posturing that could go on under an open rule.

You are right, 18 months I have been here. I have never had any experience in this legislative body about the process of which of you speak. So, far be it from me to say what the differences were from then until today, but I will say a little bit about my own experience.

I have the good fortune of sitting on the Rules Committee, and perhaps some day, if I am here long enough, and I move my way up the chairs and I am the ranking member or the chair, I will want to advocate for doing things differently. But I only know the experience that I have had up to today, Mr. Speaker, as a member of the Rules Committee.

Now, I see frequent meetings of the Rules Committee. I see a tremendous number of amendments come before us. As my fellow members well know, Mr. Speaker, we often spend hours listening to potential amendments that could be heard here on the floor. I think this afternoon we will have the pleasure of joining the other members of the Rules Committee, Mr. Speaker, and hearing 120 or more amendments to the next potential appropriation bill that could come to the floor.

I hear lively debate. I have been there to submit amendments. Sometimes they are accepted; sometimes they are not. I see amendments come to the floor that I agree with and I disagree with. So I see a lot of back-and-forth about the number of amendments. Perhaps it's not an open rule. You are right, I have never had the experience of an open rule here in this Chamber, but I have also had the experience of a tremendous number of amendments, some of which are politically motivated, some of which could take up a tremendous amount of our time, and I feel that generally the Rules Committee pares down the number of amendments to a reasonable number from each side, probably more for the majority than the minority, and I am sure that happened when the other party was in control, too.

But the fact is, I hear a lot of lively debate. I have only the experiences that I have had, and I can't defend what might have happened in the past or what may happen in the future.

I yield to the gentleman.

I thank my friend for those words.

I happen to enjoy many of the meetings we have when we have the time consider both sides, the rules on both sides and the opportunities for what discussion will come to the floor. I appreciate being a member of the Rules Committee and being a part of that filtering process. I don't know if the process will change in the future, but I will say today we have a goodly number of amendments that will be considered on this.

From my perspective, the most important thing that we are doing today is moving forward on this rule, which I hope will pass with a great majority, and moving forward to the consideration of this bill which, I will remind my colleagues, holds a tremendous amount of benefit for our home communities and our veterans, and that is actually why we are here today.

I wouldn't want to see extensive consideration of so many amendments that we never got to the point of what people asked us to do. In this case, it's taking care of our veterans and making sure that they get the services that they deserve after they have served our country.

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

I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, the passage of this rule is a vital step towards improving our military infrastructure and ensuring that the quality of care for our veterans and their families is worthy of their sacrifice.

My home State has one of the highest populations of veterans per capita in the country. In a State of 1.3 million people, Maine is home to over 155,000 veterans.

These men and women have served without question, without politics and without hesitation. We must make a promise to them and to all of our veterans that we will do the same. We must provide them with the health care and the benefits that they deserve--without question, without politics, and without hesitation. By passing H.R. 5822, we will begin to keep that promise.

I urge a ``yes'' vote on the previous question and on the rule.

I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

The previous question was ordered.

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

First let me just say that I rise in support of this appropriations bill. It's the first appropriations bill that we will bring to the floor today, and I think it's an excellent bill.

I would like to start by thanking Chairman Edwards, not only for his leadership, but for the example that he sets to make every member of the subcommittee feel like they are valued. He has treated everyone with a sense of fairness. It has been an open process, bipartisan process, and we appreciate that very much. I think because of that atmosphere that everything we do in this subcommittee is really geared to make sure that we put the best interests of the men and women in uniform first, and put their families first, the veterans, and those fallen heroes.

I want to say a word about Ranking Member Zach Wamp. I am here in his stead. He is back home in Tennessee trying to represent the people of Tennessee in a different way, as the Governor of that State. But I can tell you that even though he is not here, as Mr. Edwards mentioned, he has been very much a part of this process. I think this bill is a reflection of his dedication, his commitment to the men and women in uniform. And I know that I've heard Mr. Wamp say on occasion that serving as the ranking member of this subcommittee has been the highest achievement of his career here in the House of Representatives, and so we wish him well as he leaves.

I want to also say a word about Mr. Young. He's not here today, but he has been a long-time member of this subcommittee. I think Chairman Edwards agrees that he has been a great champion of the men and women in uniform. He and his wife, Beverly, are often visitors at our military hospitals to see the folks that have come back, the wounded warriors. If he were here, I'm sure he would stand up and say that he believes this is a very good bipartisan bill. He is recovering from some surgery himself, so I know we all wish him well in this committee.

Mr. Edwards has done a great job of talking about kind of an overview of what goes on here, and so I don't want to repeat that. I certainly want to echo his words of congratulations to the staff; we thank everyone for their hard work. But I want to mention a couple of items that were brought up that were concerns that, because of the open process, because of the bipartisan nature in our subcommittee markup, members had a chance to talk about some issues of concern.

One was, and Mr. Edwards mentioned that, we found that while we were adding dollars to most of the programs in the VA, the Inspector General was kind of held to last year's level. We all felt like--it was a bipartisan agreement--that the Inspector General has so much to offer in terms of oversight, in terms of accountability, by doing audits, that they ought to have additional resources, and so we added $6 million there.

Another concern that was raised at the subcommittee level was the VA had decided that they wanted to reduce the number of claims processors they had in the new GI bill as part of the veterans affairs. You all remember when we passed that updated version of the GI bill and added benefits that are so important to our veterans as they come back, and yet we found out that last year there had been quite a bit of problems just because of the increased demand on those claims processors. We thought it would be a bad idea to reduce the number of folks that were processing those claims when last year this chaos was created--and my office got calls, I know other Members got calls because the tuition payments weren't being made in a timely fashion, the claims weren't being processed; in fact, sometimes the checks were written by hand and delivered without much accountability.

And so while we applaud the VA for saying we want to try to do more with less, we thought right now that would be penny wise and pound foolish. And so we added back those claims processors. We want to make sure that we get everything done on time. Next year, they're actually estimating the increase will be 31 percent. There will be over 2.2 million claims made under those new GI benefits, and we want to make sure that they are paid on time. So we added back those individuals.

And, finally, there was a concern about Arlington National Cemetery. I think a lot of people read about some of the horror stories that went on there. We found out that the management was really a little bit behind in terms of modern day. So the Secretary of the Army, John McHugh, acted very quickly and very forcefully. He set up some guidelines to improve what's going on at Arlington National Cemetery. Mr. Young offered some report language to make sure that the members of this subcommittee will have a chance to exercise appropriate oversight.

So those were areas of concern that I think were addressed because of this open process, and those amendments were adopted unanimously on a bipartisan basis.

I would say from the big-picture standpoint, as Mr. Edwards has talked about, I came to Congress primarily because I believed that the number one responsibility of the Federal Government is to protect American lives, and I still believe that today. But what I found when I was assigned to this subcommittee was that we also have a sacred responsibility to make sure that the men and women who wear the uniform are treated with respect, that they have adequate housing, and that they have the quality of life they so richly deserve.

This bill continues the commitment that we've made there. Sometimes when you think about military construction projects, you think about a new hangar or a new dock or a ship or a landing strip or a wharf; but as Mr. Edwards pointed out, housing is so very vital. We've done a great job, and we continue that commitment. Whether it's a barracks or whether it's married housing, we want to have the housing we would want our sons and daughters to live in, and we're making great progress in that area.

I think we all agree we've got the best trained and the most equipped military in the world, and we've worked hard to do that. But we are also beginning to make sure that when people come back that have been under some stress, under unique situations, that they have adequate counseling, that they have those kinds of programs that are so very important; and I think this bill continues that commitment.

And just finally I would say there are a couple of important projects that are funded this year as part of the administration's budget deal with my district in northeast Florida. There is a naval station, Mayport, that the Navy has decided to make that home port for a nuclear carrier; and so last year there was money to begin dredging, to begin wharf upgrades. This year, there is $2 million for planning and design to continue that process. I worked with the chief of naval operations-- in fact, spoke with him just about a month ago--and the Navy is still very committed, because of national security, to make sure that we have the ability to disperse our assets, to make sure we have a backup nuclear maintenance facility, and I thank the subcommittee and the members for their support.

Also in northeast Florida, the Marines have a project called Blount Island, where a great deal of the materiel goes back and forth through that port to the Middle East. There is money to upgrade and make that more of a world-class facility.

So this is a great bill that I think we can all be proud of. And it really is the result of the leadership of Mr. Edwards and his hard work, the leadership of Mr. Wamp and his hard work and, actually, the hard work of every member of this subcommittee. And I think because of that, we have a bill that truly honors our American heroes. It speaks to the people that defend us today, it speaks to those who have returned as veterans, and also to those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice. And so for those reasons, Madam Chair, I urge everyone to support this bill.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I yield myself 1 minute.

I would ask Chairman Edwards if he would engage in a brief colloquy.

Mr. Edwards, it is my understanding that the committee authorized a study in March to review various portions of the Veterans Health Administration. As I understand it, the committee has just received the report. Once the report has been analyzed by the committee staff, I believe it would be important, as we move this veterans' appropriations bill forward, that we use the recommendations in the report, if feasible, to provide better oversight and better transparency to the health care spending at the VA.

I yield to the gentleman.

I yield myself 1 additional minute.

Mr. Edwards, please continue.

I continue to reserve.

Madam Chair, I continue to reserve my time.

Madam Chair, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I think we have heard today what a well-balanced bill this is, as we said at the beginning. And I think it demonstrates--it's an example of what happens when people come together in an open process, in a fair process, in a bipartisan process. I think this bill demonstrates the work that we can do when we work together. So again, I am honored to be part of this process, to work with the chairman and the ranking member.

I urge everyone to support this bill.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I would like to claim the time in opposition, although I'm not necessarily opposed to the amendment.

Madam Chair, I just want to also commend the gentleman for offering this amendment. I think so often we have resources that are available like this that sometimes our veterans are not aware of. I think we've made great strides in dealing with this. We have a suicide prevention hotline we're working every day, but I think he makes an excellent point that so often people are not aware of the services they might avail themselves of.

I commend him for this. I would certainly favor this amendment so that we can get the word out to know that we're trying to help folks.

I yield to the gentleman from Rhode Island.

Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition, although I'm not necessarily opposing this amendment.

I just wanted to say that I think this is a wonderful program. I'm a little bit aware of that because in my home district in Jacksonville, Florida, there's an organization called the Wounded Warriors, and they work in conjunction with this program, and I've had the chance to visit that program to see and meet some of these Wounded Warriors.

The thing that I hear over and over again is they say this is something that gives us our spirit back. We can compete. We can enjoy life. We can be with our families, and I think it is something that is very, very worthwhile and commend the gentleman for bringing it up.

I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Madam Chair, I claim time in opposition, though I am not opposed to the gentlewoman's amendment.

I have a couple of questions.

We have a process for building outpatient clinics. I just wondered: Does this amendment, in any way, try to circumvent the process? Does it direct where the money would be spent in any way?

I yield to the gentlewoman.

Reclaiming my time, the amendment allows the VA to use this funding at any location that it seeks?

Reclaiming my time, I would just point out to the gentlewoman that there is $1.166 billion for construction. That is $15 million above the request.

I can appreciate that the gentlewoman would like to spend even more and that she, apparently, is not trying to circumvent the process, because a lot of people would like to have clinics in their districts, and a lot of people have been waiting in line and have been watching this process work, but if it doesn't seek to spend it at any one location, then that is helpful to me.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Edwards, I appreciate the concerns that have been raised here, and I think, as you point out, this is a very important subject, very worthwhile. And to the question of where the money comes from, those minor construction projects, I think everyone has a concern about that.

But I think if Mr. Bilirakis is willing to work, there is probably a way to find an offset that doesn't impact the minor construction. There are some funds, as you know, that might be available. And I would encourage Mr. Bilirakis, with your commitment, to say let's try to figure out a way to do this, find a way to pay for it, find out what the real costs are. And it says up to four. Maybe there is a way just to begin that process, because we know, based on what Mr. Kennedy had said earlier, it's a very, very important issue.

Mr. Speaker, I raise a point of order against H. Res. 1559 because the resolution violates section 426(a) of the Congressional Budget Act. The resolution contains a waiver of all points of order against consideration of the bill, which includes a waiver of section 425 of the Congressional Budget Act, which causes the violation of section 426(a).

Mr. Speaker, I raise this point of order today not because of unfunded mandates in the bill, although, there are probably some, but because it is about the only opportunity we have here in the minority to protest the kind of treatment that these appropriation bills are getting in the Rules Committee and to protest the manner in which they are coming to the floor.

It used to be that it was a time-honored tradition in this House to have appropriation bills come to the floor under an open rule. Over the past couple of years, that has turned into a structured rule, so many Members in this body, in the minority and the majority, have not had this opportunity. Let's take last year, for example.

Every appropriation bill, all 12, came to the floor under structured rules. There were some Members on both sides of the aisle who offered multiple amendments throughout the year. That is the one chance they have to actually offer amendments on appropriation bills--the things that we are supposed to be doing here in Congress--and they weren't allowed to offer one. Many Members were denied the opportunity to offer any amendments.

There were some 1,500 amendments offered last year. Just 12 percent, fewer than 200, were made in order. And, in fact, I offered about 635 myself. I was only permitted to offer 50, after the structured rule took effect.

Now, the leadership on the majority side will often say, well, we have to keep order in this place, and people would simply offer dilatory amendments and take too long in the process. I remember times in years past, and I haven't been here that long, but just a couple of years ago where we would spend 2 or 3 or 4 days on one appropriation bill because that's what we do here. That's the important part of what we do. Yet, the majority can't seem to find time to allow all amendments to these bills.

Instead of allowing debate on amendments to appropriation bills, let me give you some idea of what we've been doing over the past couple of months and why the statement that we simply can't allow people to offer this many amendments would be proper because we don't have time. Well, here's what we've had time for. And let me note that each one of these that I mention, and this is just a fraction of these kind of suspension bills that we've dealt with, each one of these allows for 10 minutes of debate. That's as much time as we allow on any amendment coming before on the appropriation bill.

H.R. 1460, Recognizing the important role of pollinators. That one we dealt with just a month or so ago.

H.R. 1491, Congratulating the University of South Carolina, the Gamecocks, for winning the 2010 NCAA Division I College World Series.

H. Res. 1463, Supporting the goals and ideals of Railroad Retirement Day.

Now, these things may be nice to do and nice to those who receive these kind of accolades, but it's not the important business of this House. And so to say that we don't have time to actually debate amendments to these appropriation bills, and the one that we

are dealing with today, many amendments that were submitted by Members were turned away, were not allowed in this structured role.

Another thing we dealt with, supporting the goals of National Dairy Month. Now, how in the world is that more important than allowing Members to strike funding from appropriation bills?

I need not remind this Chamber that 42 cents of every dollar we spend this year, 42 cents of every dollar we spend this year will be borrowed from our kids, from our grandkids, from whomever overseas who buys our bonds. And yet we can't allow time to let Members offer amendments to strike spending from these bills. We only allow a certain percentage of them.

Supporting the goals and ideals of American Craft Beer Week. That was H.R. 1297 that we dealt with in the last couple of months, the time that we usually designate in this body to deal with appropriation bills.

Congratulating the Chicago Blackhawks. That was H.R. 1439.

Supporting National Men's Health Week.

Recognizing June 8, 2010, as World Ocean Day.

As I mentioned, these might be good things to do, but when they're taking up time that the majority seems to say now we don't have time for appropriation bills, that's wrong.

And when they, in the Rules Committee, will say, sorry, the gentleman from Colorado or wherever else can't offer his amendment because we've taken too much time recognizing National Nurses Week or supporting the goals and ideals of National Learn to Fly Day or expressing support for the goals and ideals of Children's Book Week, recognizing the 75th anniversary of the establishment of the East Bay Regional Park District in California, I think you're getting the picture here.

It's a hollow statement to say that we don't have time to deal with these amendments on appropriation bills. The truth is the leadership simply doesn't want these things debated all that much.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time, and I will explain why in a minute.

Mr. Speaker, I want to respond to the gentlelady.

The gentlelady says that I am criticizing pollinators or beer distillers or whomever. I'm not. I'm just saying the Congress doesn't need to congratulate everybody who wins a championship or everybody who distills beer. I mean, it's just nutty for us to spend so much time on these things and then say, I'm sorry, we don't have time for Members to offer amendments on appropriation bills to actually strike spending so that we're not borrowing 43 cents on every dollar that we spend this year.

Let me mention why it is that the leadership and the Appropriations Committee may not be so anxious for Members to debate these bills-- because there are a lot of earmarks in them. This chart shows 11 of the 12 appropriation bills that have gone through either the subcommittee or committee. It looks like a hungry Pacman here, but what this shows in the red is the percentage of earmark dollars associated with powerful Members of Congress. That includes members of the Appropriations Committee, members of leadership, or chairmen of committees. That represents about 13 percent of this body.

Yet, when you look at the number of earmark dollars or percentage of earmark dollars, Homeland Security, that 13 percent is garnering 52 percent of the earmark dollars. CJS, 57 percent; Agriculture, 76 percent of the earmark dollars are going to just 13 percent of this body, the 13 percent that are writing the rules here and are deciding that certain amendments simply won't be offered. That is wrong. We shouldn't be doing that. TTHUD, which we'll be doing just tomorrow, 42 percent of the earmark dollars are going to just 13 percent of this body.

Is it any wonder that the leadership on the majority side does not want certain amendments debated here?

MILCON VA, 51 percent going to just 13 percent of this body. Energy and Water, 53 percent; Labor/HHS, 66 percent; Interior, 60; Defense, 55.

In Defense, we just learned today that an amendment has been submitted--I'm sorry, an earmark has been submitted, $10 million for the John Murtha Center, our beloved Member who deceased just a few months ago. We're going to earmark $10 million to create a center in his honor in the Defense bill. I think that that ought to be debated here, but chances are we won't even get to the Defense bill.

It's unlikely we're going to get to very many of the appropriation bills this year, and the ones that we do will come to the floor under a structured rule where Members will not be allowed to offer amendments, or just a few of them on the ones that the majority chooses to hear. They can choose the ones they don't want to hear and choose the ones that they hear.

I would like to hear a response from the Rules Committee as to what reasoning goes behind which amendments will be allowed under what is traditionally an open rule and which ones will not.

And I would yield to the gentlelady if she would explain the rule or how the Rules Committee arrives at this rule.

I guess the gentlelady doesn't want to respond on this. I wouldn't either. I wouldn't want to try to justify closed rules or structured rules coming to this body on appropriation bills when we're spending more time doing things like recognizing the 50th anniversary of Title VI international education programs, recognizing the importance of manufactured and modular housing in the United States. These are all goods things. It doesn't mean we should spend time that could otherwise be debating appropriation bills, which is what we do here. We prioritize by funding. That's what Congress does. We have the power of the purse. And yet we're shortchanging that process so that we can support the goals and ideals of Student Financial Aid Awareness Month and raise awareness of student financial aid. Like I said, not a bad thing, but not something that should supplanting what we should be doing here.

And so, Mr. Speaker, I would just plead with the Rules Committee and, more importantly, the leadership on the majority side to realize that the traditions of this body, the institutional things that we have here, open rules on appropriations, should be honored.

Now, I've come here for the past 10 years and offered a lot of amendments, many of which when we were in the majority. My own party didn't like these amendments, but they suffered through them because they knew that things matter here like tradition or upholding the institution.

So they allowed all amendments, some of which targeted Members of our own party. But the majority in power now doesn't seem to want that. They want to shield their Members from difficult votes and also shield those who are getting these earmarks from any scrutiny. These amendments aren't really scrutinized in the Appropriations Committee. So if they aren't argued and debated here, they simply aren't going to get a vetting.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Madam Chair, I rise today in support of my amendment to H.R. 5822. This amendment would fence off $10 million in the VA's general operating expenses account.

The goal of the VA's vocational rehabilitation and employment program is to put disabled veterans back to work or, for the most severely disabled, to live as independently as possible.

VA's counselors currently have an average caseload of over 130 disabled veterans. Because of the heavy workload which includes a significant amount of case management and regular interaction with their clients, the time to actually enter vocational training is nearly six months. That is on top of the average of the 6 months it takes to receive a disability rating needed to even become eligible for this benefit.

The $10 million included in this amendment would fund one hundred additional professional level staff and will be a small step towards reducing the caseload to a more manageable average of 100 per counselor thereby shortening the time it takes to begin training. For many veterans and servicemembers VR&E training is the bridge to meaningful and productive employment.

I urge all members to vote in favor of my amendment to H.R. 5822.

I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I ask unanimous consent to modify my amendment.

I will proceed on the modified amendment.

After discussion with Chairman Edwards and with the ranking member, Mr. Crenshaw, we've all agreed to a better way forward on the amendment. So I appreciate your efforts on the modification.

Accordingly, what we're seeking to do here is overcome some challenges that we have with regard to the advance appropriation and how dollars can be dedicated to particular uses. So the Appropriations Committee has worked with me, and for that I am deeply appreciative.

I want to express my thanks to Chairman Edwards and to Mr. Crenshaw. Both of you have been very good friends. I respect your leadership, and I appreciate your good faith in working with myself and my staff.

Over the years, the 18 years I've been here, the years I've been privileged to work in leadership as chairman and as ranking member, I have respected the interoperability and cooperation between the Appropriations staff and the authorizers. It has worked really, really well. At times they can disagree, but they can professionally work it out. I've been impressed by that, and it has continued.

So I want to thank you for that. And this is a prime example. This is one of them whereby I look back to 2008 when we wanted to do these renewable energy projects, and you were challenged at the time because the Speaker didn't want renewable projects in the bill, but you agreed that this was something that we needed to do and tried to figure out how we're going to do it.

So I recognize it couldn't be done at the time, but it was something that you also embraced and supported. And I went on down the street like I said I was going to do, and we did 16 of these renewable energy projects. Then we come back in 2009, you and I do a colloquy, and we're $147 million already down the road. That's how far we're into this now, Chairman Edwards and Mr. Crenshaw, and this is a good thing.

The VA, such a very large enterprise, large consumer of energy and being the second largest department here of government, what you're doing here in this green management and renewable energy, geothermal, wind, solar, this is smart. It really is. It's smart what you're doing. So I really want to thank you for doing this.

We've got more projects identified. They're around 60. These moneys will allow the VA to stay on track on their timelines, and I really appreciate your working with me to do this.

I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Reclaiming my time, I also want to extend my appreciation to Secretary Shinseki for his work and the previous Secretary.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I rise today in support of my amendment to H.R. 5822, as reported.

This amendment would provide $10 million in VA general operating expense funding for the VA-US Paralympic Adaptive Sports Grant Program.

Madam Chairwoman, several years ago I had the opportunity to visit the U.S. Olympic Training Center in San Diego. From that moment we then set the course to restructure the United States Olympic Committee. Once we did that, by the relationships that developed, by the reorganization of the Olympic Committee, we then became a Nation at war. I then sought to leverage these relationships with the VA and their sports programs.

I looked at this and how we can use sports as a platform for healing, and you know, when I looked back on this, yes, you know, we moved out and we embraced it. I started at the top and probably should have started at the bottom. I started where I started and it was with the Olympics, the Olympic Committee. Not everyone is an Olympian. That's the reality of this. Not everyone was blessed with an Olympic body or the mind or the will. But it's how do we, as a Nation, use sports as a platform for healing? And most of our warriors are athletes. And so when they get injured, how do we inspire them?

Now, when we brought the Olympic Committee and the sports programs from the VA together, we were able to leverage that whereby our military athletes then could actually have an avenue to be part of the Olympic team. And that has, in fact, happened and has been done.

Last year--and I want to thank Chairman Edwards--he supported the $10 million that went into this adaptive sports program.

The Olympic committee helps with this grant program now to take the same ideal, the Olympic ideal, and move it out to all the communities across the country. And so an individual who may not be an Olympian can be an Olympian of their own community, can actually compete. It is that competition--it's not the winning. It's have you improved yourself, have you bettered your time, and making someone feel good about that, this Adaptive Sports program, whereby it's done at the local level and then builds up is really good, and this is a very good program. We're in our infancy, and I want to thank the chairman and for supporting this last time.

So the concept I think is pretty simple. I do have some pictures here I'd like to share with everyone. This is a picture of disabled veterans and servicemembers running the 100 meter dash at the Warrior Games in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and this was in May of this year. And when you see this running the 100 meter dash, you know we've got a mixture here. This gentleman lost--this is a below the ankle, here is a below the knee amputation, and this is a double amputation, and they're sprinting the 100 meter dash. Think about the inspiration that they have. I mean, these warrior athletes are truly remarkable.

I want to show you another photo of a double amputee. This Olympian right here during the winter games, this is Heath Calhoun, a Paralympian, and this was in Vancouver in March of this year. Mr. Calhoun is an Army Ranger. He was wounded when a rocket-propelled grenade hit his Humvee while he was serving in Iraq. He lost both legs as a result of that attack. His grandfather served in World War II, his father served in Vietnam, and he then sought to serve his country and lost both legs. He dedicated himself then to overcome this challenge and made the United States Olympic team and competed in Vancouver.

So these Olympians also then mentor and aspire others into the Adaptive Sports Grant Program. So this is remarkable. This is building off the Olympic ideal to really help our warriors, and we're achieving the goal, and that is to use sports as a platform for healing.

So $10 million can be a lot of money, but talking about what we get out of this, the intangibles that we can get out of this, when these men and women that go through this feel so good about themselves and take their bodies to new levels, guess what? They feel good about their families, they feel good about their jobs, and our goal here is to make sure that they can live as full a life as they possibly can.

That's what we want to do.