Veterans Economic Opportunity Act of 2013

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 2481) to amend title 38, United States Code, to codify and improve the election requirements for the receipt of educational assistance under the Post-9/11 Educational Assistance program of the Department of Veterans Affairs, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and add any extraneous material they may have on H.R. 2481, as amended.

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

H.R. 2481 represents the collective work of our Economic Opportunity Subcommittee. Provisions of this bill streamline eligibility for veterans' GI Bill benefits that would ensure that surviving loved ones of servicemembers who die as a result of service have all the educational assistance benefits that they are entitled to and makes improvements to the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act.

I know other Members are here today to speak on provisions of this bill that they have authored, so at this time, I will focus on just a few areas.

Sections 4 and 5 of the bill would establish, within existing resources, a Veterans Economic Opportunity Administration at the Department of Veterans Affairs as an Under Secretary to head the effort. The purpose of creating a parallel administration is to serve alongside VA's Veterans Benefits Administration, the Veterans Health Administration, and the National Cemetery Administration; it is to raise in importance the issues affecting veterans' readjustment to civilian life.

Too often these issues, such as education, job training, and vocational counseling, do not receive the focus that they deserve because they are subsumed within an administration that also has responsibility for disability claims processing. Highlighting and emphasizing the importance of jobs and careers for veterans was an important reason why the Committee on Veterans' Affairs created for itself a separate Economic Opportunity Subcommittee several years ago. These provisions would advance the same model within the Department of Veterans Affairs. It is my hope that the new Under Secretary for Economic Opportunity would be a powerful advocate serving veterans' readjustment interests, whether at school, during TAP transition classes for departing servicemembers, or as a liaison with the Department of Labor's Veterans Employment and Training Service.

The second provision I would like to touch on was authored by the late C.W. Bill Young. It would permit the children of certain severely disabled servicemembers, who die shortly after their military service and who have received a Purple Heart, to be eligible for the Fry Educational Scholarship. The Fry Scholarship provides certain post-9/11 GI Bill benefits for the children of servicemembers, but only those who die on Active Duty.

Chairman Young rightly believed that the kids of those who may have been mortally wounded in service but who died shortly thereafter ought to be eligible for this benefit as well. I am honored to say that section 7 of the bill carries forward Bill's provision and that his memory lives on in our work today in this legislation.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Flores), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Calvert).

Mr. Speaker, at this time, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Dayton, Ohio (Mr. Turner), home of the United States Air Force Museum.

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Again, Mr. Speaker, I want to thank all the members of our committee for their bipartisan efforts in bringing this piece of legislation to the floor.

I would ask all Members here to support this as we go forward with a vote to pass H.R. 2481, as amended.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 2481, as amended, and I thank Chairman Miller for allowing me to express my support for this bill today.

This bill contains the original text of the Veterans GI Bill Enrollment Clarification Act of 2013, which I introduced in June, as well as the collective work of the subcommittee that I am honored to chair, the Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity.

I want to thank the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity, Mr. Takano, as well as Chairman Miller and ranking member of the full committee, Mr. Michaud, for bringing this bill to the floor. Finally, I also thank the other members of the committee who authored the provisions that are included in this bill for their thoughtful legislation.

Mr. Speaker, sections 4 and 5, originally authored by Chairman Miller, would authorize using existing VA resources for the creation of a fourth administration at VA, which will improve oversight over VA's education, vocational rehabilitation, and home loan programs, and the Center for Veterans Enterprise. Too often, these programs are overshadowed by VA's efforts to reduce the disability claims backlog, and I am hopeful that this new fourth administration will streamline oversight over these important VA programs that will help veterans reach economic success.

Section 6 includes Mr. Cook's bill that would extend the Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program, which provides grant funding for job training services for homeless veterans.

Section 7 includes a bill authored by our late colleague, Mr. Young of Florida. This section would modify the Fry Scholarship program to include the children of certain veterans who die within 31 days of discharge from a service-connected cause. This is an issue that I know Mr. Young was personally passionate about, and I am thankful that we are able to include it in this bill that is being considered today.

Section 8 includes the original text of my bill, H.R. 2481, that would clarify the process to assist veterans in choosing the best GI Bill benefit to meet their unique education needs. I believe that, by making this one small change, we can reduce veterans' wait times and streamline their use of the benefits that they have earned.

Section 9 reflects a bill introduced by Mr. Calvert and cosponsored by Mr. Takano to streamline the reporting of student data by college consortiums.

Section 10 would extend several existing VA loan guarantee funding fees to provide CutGo funding offsets for the costs of the bill.

Sections 11 and 12 contain the provisions of Mr. Cummings' bill to expand several mortgage foreclosure and refinancing-related protections and rights in the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act to surviving spouses and Active Duty members. The section would also clarify refinancing options available for servicemembers, as well as penalties for violations of the SCRA law.

I want to thank Mr. Cummings and his staff for working with us on this section over the past year. I believe these provisions would go a long way in protecting servicemembers and their families.

The final section would amend SCRA to protect child custody agreements of servicemembers while they are deployed. This provision, sponsored by Mr. Turner, has passed the House multiple times in the last few Congresses, and it is designed to ensure that military service doesn't impact existing child custody agreements unless it is in the best interests of the child.

Once again, I thank all of the Members for their thoughtful contributions to this bill, and I encourage its passage.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Maine, the ranking member of our committee, for yielding time, and I thank Chairman Flores of the subcommittee for his hard work.

I am pleased to see that the Veterans Economic Opportunity Act of 2013 is receiving a vote today on the floor, as every Member of this distinguished

body has servicemembers in his or her congressional district, and all of us believe that taking care of these heroes, when they complete their service, should be a top priority.

Bipartisanship in this Congress is rare, but Republicans and Democrats all agree that Congress should be making it easier for our servicemembers as they transition back to civilian life.

The House Veterans' Affairs Committee has a strong track record of being the least partisan committee in Congress, and this very bill is consistent with that record, as it passed in committee unanimously this past September.

I am especially proud that H.R. 331, which I originally introduced with my Republican colleague from California, Representative Calvert, was included in the final legislation. With Riverside Community College District campuses in both of our congressional districts and with Riverside County having the eighth largest veterans population in the country, I am proud that Representative Calvert and I joined forces to make it easier for veterans to receive their veterans education benefits.

Our legislation will help decrease education benefit processing times by eliminating unnecessary and duplicative paperwork for individual community colleges that are part of a group, district, or consortium. Specifically, it will allow a multicollege system, such as the Riverside Community College District, to verify a student's class enrollment number with the Department of Veterans Affairs instead of requiring each individual constituent college to do so. Centralizing the reporting for veterans enrollment at multicollege systems will be a great benefit to veterans in the Inland Empire, as unnecessary and duplicative paperwork delays benefits, increases processing times, and increases costs to the Department of Veterans Affairs and multicollege systems, such as the Riverside Community College District.

I am also pleased to see the Military Family Home Protection Act, of which I was a lead cosponsor, included in the final bill. This portion of the legislation will expand foreclosure protections to all servicemembers regardless of when they purchased their home and will stay home foreclosures for servicemembers who are receiving hostile or imminent danger pay. It will also prohibit banks from discriminating against servicemembers, veterans, and surviving spouses who are looking for home loans and mortgages. Finally, it will double civil penalties for mortgage-related violations.

The veterans who so bravely served this country deserve every opportunity for success and every protection possible.

I thank my Republican colleagues from the Veterans' Affairs Committee for pushing this legislation, and I look forward to its passage.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the chairman for his diligence on a provision of this bill that would protect the custody rights of our servicemembers. I also want to thank the ranking member and the staff of the VA Committee for also being so diligent as to include this provision.

This provision has passed the House five times as part of the National Defense Authorization Act and three times as provisions coming from the VA Committee. It is an essential provision that would provide servicemembers the confidence and protection of the custody arrangements once they are deployed.

Unbelievably, across this Nation, family law court judges have been taking custody away from servicemembers upon their return from deployment, using their time against them in deciding a custody case. There are even cases in our Nation where the family law court judge took custody away based on the potential threat of deployment of servicemembers. I don't think anyone believes that it is in the best

interest of the child for them to believe that there is something wrong with serving your country.

We have a national military that needs a national standard. Men and women who are serving need to know what standard is going to be applied. Many of these cases have multiple State provisions. This does not provide Federal jurisdiction for custody cases. It retains the State's authority on this, but merely provides a minimum standard upon which servicemembers can rely that says that their custody decisions will not be based solely upon the issue of their past or future deployment. This is the minimum that we could do for our servicemembers.

This arises in part out of the case of Eva Slusher, who was a Kentucky National Guard member. Her daughter, Sara, she had raised for 6 years alone after divorce. Upon returning from deployment, the court awarded her ex-husband custody. She fought for 2 years and spent $25,000 to get her daughter back. She should be the type of servicemember who knows that there is a standard so that when she returns, that her time away will not be used against her.

This is important also so that servicemembers, when they are making arrangements upon departure, do not have the anxiety, when they are deployed, that when they return they might not get their families back.

Eva Slusher famously said that, under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, she is required to get her job back when she returns. She believes that, under that act, she should also be able to get her child back.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to support H.R. 2481, as amended, the Veterans Economic Opportunity Act of 2013, and yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 2481, as amended, makes several significant improvements to VA's structure as well as several benefits programs. This bill represents the work of Members, both on and off the Veterans' Affairs Committee, to improve veterans lives. I want to take a few minutes to highlight two of the key provisions of this measure.

Mr. Cummings of Maryland originally introduced H.R. 1842, the Military Family Home Protection Act. Language from this measure is included in H.R. 2481, as amended, and aims to strengthen the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act foreclosure protections for servicemembers and their families during the course of deployment, regardless of when the home was purchased. Military homeowners deserve these protections so they can have peace of mind while they serve. We all have heard the horror stories of families fighting for their homes and, sadly, losing their homes while the family members were in harm's way in Iraq or Afghanistan.

The 5-year extension of the Homeless Veterans' Reintegration Program in this bill is vital to veterans. There are still approximately 62,000 homeless veterans on the streets each night. This program provides services to assist in reintegrating them into meaningful employment in the labor force. The HVRP is the only nationwide program that focuses on assisting homeless veterans by connecting them to employment. If we are to meet the goal of ending homeless veterans by 2015, we need to extend the help that is included in this bill.

I strongly support H.R. 2481, as amended, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.

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

Mr. Speaker, at this time, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Takano).

Mr. Speaker, at this time, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings).

Mr. Speaker, once again, I would like to thank Chairman Miller for bringing this bill to the floor, as well as Chairman Flores and Ranking Member Takano of the Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity for their work on this particular bill, and I would encourage my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support it unanimously.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.