Comprehensive Department of Veterans Affairs Performance Management and Accountability Reform Act of 2014

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 4031) to amend title 38, United States Code, to provide for the removal of the Senior Executive Service employees of the Department of Veterans Affairs for performance, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks on H.R. 4031.

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

Mr. Speaker, for the past 3 years, the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs has uncovered, and continues to uncover, numerous instances of gross negligence and incompetence by senior VA officials that have led to delays in care, growing patient wait times, and lengthy backlogs of disability claims. Regrettably, some of these instances have resulted in lack of proper care for veterans and for preventable deaths.

Despite repeated promises of accountability and change, the committee has received nothing but disturbing silence from the White House and only one excuse after another from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Mr. Speaker, we have all seen the heartbreaking news or spoken personally to family after family coming forward, sharing their stories of how the VA has failed to fulfill their promise to our veterans. The time is past due for us, as the House of Representatives, to take action.

The troubling stories that have come out of Phoenix, Arizona, where whistleblowers allege that as many as 40 veterans died while waiting for care and alleged secret waiting lists are unconscionable if in fact proven true. We would not be doing our sworn duty if we sat idly by and allowed these preventable deaths of those who made sacrifices for this great country to become the status quo at the VA.

Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, these incidents do not seem to be isolated. They are under the watch of not just one senior VA manager. Similar stories of mismanagement and negligence have arisen in Fort Collins, Colorado; San Antonio, Texas; Augusta, Georgia; Atlanta, Georgia; Memphis, Tennessee; Columbia, South Carolina; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Chicago, Illinois, with news stories being covered almost every single day.

Mr. Speaker, these stories were crystallized for me and other Members at a recent hearing that we had on patient wait times on April 9. Mr. Barry Coates, a veteran from Columbia, South Carolina, informed the committee that he waited almost a year to receive a colonoscopy at VA. When he finally received his appointment, it was revealed that he had stage IV colon cancer.

Mr. Coates testified: ``The gross negligence and crippling backlog epidemic of the VA health care system has not only handed me a death sentence, but ruined my quality of life.''

Mr. Speaker, the need for accountability to help veterans like Mr. Coates is the reason why H.R. 4031 is so critically important. The VA Management Accountability Act of 2014 would give the Secretary the authority to fire or to demote VA Senior Executive Service or equivalent employees based on performance at any time. The current system is so calcified in bureaucratic red tape that it is easier for someone to get a bonus than it is to be given some type of discipline at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Is this what our citizens want? Is this what our veterans deserve? I don't think so, and neither do the 150 bipartisan cosponsors of this piece of legislation or the leading VSOs that support it.

Now, the actions of these few senior executives do not tarnish the hard work of 300,000 frontline VA employees who come to work every day and by and large provide excellent care and services to our veterans. Too many of these employees have in fact been continually let down by poor-performing senior executives. It is time to restore their trust and America's trust in the leadership at VA.

Look, General Shinseki is a good man. He wants to hold others accountable, but he is being held back by a failed civil service that makes it nearly impossible to remove SES employees. If this bill becomes law, he and his successors will have no excuse. He will have every tool to hold managers accountable and restore faith in the VA.

I am truly grateful to the 150 sponsors from both sides of the aisle of this vital piece of legislation.

I also want to thank the following VSOs, veterans service organizations, who have tirelessly advocated on behalf of this bill, including the American Legion, Concerned Veterans for America, IAVA, AMVETS, the Reserve Officers, Vietnam Veterans of America, and the Military Officers Association of America.

Finally, I thank Leader Cantor and Speaker Boehner for their help in bringing this bill to the floor.

Mr. Speaker, it is time that VA's status quo is upended, which is why I believe this bill, the House's earlier action this year to suspend VA bonuses for 5 years, and my call on President Obama to establish a bipartisan VA medical care access commission is crucial to getting a resolution to this problem.

I believe the question presented before each Member here today is very clear: Do you stand with our veterans or do you stand with a bureaucratic-entrenched failing system?

I urge all of my colleagues to support H.R. 4031 and maintain our promises to our veterans and their families.

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

The best way to reform the VA is to get rid of the deadwood, and that is what this bill actually gives the Secretary the opportunity to do, and that is to fire the people that aren't doing their job, especially--especially--those that are at the senior level.

With that, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Lamborn).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Michigan, Dr. Benishek, a former doctor within the Department of Veterans Affairs, somebody who serves his subcommittee as chairman of the Health Subcommittee very well.

Mr. Speaker, I would add another statistic to those that my colleague from Florida just said. There have been 23--at least 23 preventable deaths within the Department of Veterans Affairs.

I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Coffman), my friend, the chairman of the O&I Subcommittee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlelady from

Indiana (Mrs. Walorski), a very capable member of the VA committee.

Mr. Speaker, it is now my pleasure to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Jolly). He is the newest member on the VA Committee, somebody who just came to Congress, but who, as a staff member, had been an advocate for veterans prior to his arrival here.

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

We have just been told that this is a knee-jerk reaction to a crisis. It is the only action to a crisis.

The President, for 3 weeks, has said nothing until today. He still said nothing today. The Secretary has not been involved. We have to take care of the veterans we have fighting for our freedoms every single day.

Nothing in this bill takes away the recruitment process through SES, and if the Secretary does fire somebody or demote somebody because of this law, he has to provide notice to Congress within 30 days. If you don't do your job, you get fired.

I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Kelly).

Mr. Speaker, I now yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. LaMalfa).

Mr. Speaker, at this time, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from the 12th District of Pennsylvania (Mr. Rothfus), who has been very involved in issues as they relate to Pittsburgh.

Mr. Speaker, I have one more speaker I have been told is on his way, but he is not here at this point, so we are prepared to close.

Mr. Speaker, I have a request of the gentleman from Maine.

My speaker has now shown up. May I yield him 1 minute?

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Gainesville, Florida, Dr. Yoho, who has a facility that, in fact, is in question at this point and from which several people have been put on administrative leave.

First, I want to say thank you very much to the gentleman from Maine, who in fact has

been very bipartisan in the way that we have approached this. Our committee has in fact worked in a very bipartisan way in trying to get to the bottom of the issue that lays out there.

I would like to say that it has been said on the floor that there were no hearings on this bill. In fact, it has been heard in subcommittee. It has also been said that the Secretary has the tools that he needs in order to hold people accountable.

Folks, here is where we are.

Back in January, I went to Augusta, Georgia, and Columbia, South Carolina, at the request of Congressman Joe Wilson and Congressman John Barrow. We know--and VA has said--that there were deaths that occurred. There were some 5,000 veterans that were on waiting lists for colonoscopies. I talked about one of those veterans who testified before our committee today.

Shortly after that, I wrote a letter to the Secretary and I asked him to please provide me the names of the people, what their positions were, and what type of accountability, what disciplinary actions have you taken.

We are now in the closing weeks of the month of May, and I have heard absolutely nothing out of the Department of Veterans Affairs. He may have the tools, but he won't use the tools that he has at his disposal to get rid of or to discipline the very people who are at the crux of the problem that we are talking about all across this Nation today.

Let me tell you something else.

The very director of the Phoenix hospital that is now on administrative leave, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs today, got an $8,500 bonus in April of this year, even though they knew that there was an open Office of Inspector General investigation ongoing at the time. He got a bonus while there was an ongoing investigation.

In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where the director of the health care system up there knew that there was Legionella inside the water system that led to the death of at least six veterans--they knew it for a year--that person got a $63,000 Presidential bonus.

It is easier to get rewarded at VA than it is to be disciplined.

That is why I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of H.R. 4031, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of our Nation's veterans and in support of action that will fundamentally address the systematic failures that are clearly occurring across the Department of Veterans Affairs. I reluctantly support this legislation because I believe we owe it to the brave men and women who have sacrificed so much for our Nation to do everything in our power to ensure the VA is accountable for its performance.

I share with the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Miller), my good friend and colleague, fundamental goals of addressing shortcomings in VA leadership. I am proud of our bipartisan working relationship. Not only does our working together usually allow us to get more done, but I believe it makes our efforts better.

I am disappointed, however, that the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs was not given the opportunity to consider this bill. I believe that members of the committee, Republicans and Democrats, could have improved this bill before it was brought to the floor. I believe this bill would be stronger and more reflective of the substantive reforms necessary in the Department if it had been allowed to go through the committee markup process.

H.R. 4031 has been put forth as an accountability bill, but it falls short of providing substantive beneficial changes in the VA's executive performance management system.

The Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs already has the authority to fire any employee, including executives who are not doing their job. This bill will simply turn approximately 400 senior executive civil service positions across the VA into essentially at- will positions, of which 165 are in the Veterans Health Administration.

More importantly, H.R. 4031 does not adequately address the performance metrics of VA executives. It doesn't provide any framework for ensuring problems and failures don't occur in the first place.

I introduced H.R. 4399, which the American Legion also supports, which establishes upfront organizational goals and expected outcomes for veterans that every single VA senior leader must deliver. It would require these goals and their outcomes to be the driving factor in performance assessment for these executives and the basis for any awards or bonuses.

This bill before us today does not address the senior physicians and dentists, known as title 38 employees, who receive executive-level pay and have organizational-level responsibility for veteran care and services. This is important because one of the executives implicated in manipulating the wait times in Phoenix was a title 38 employee, which this bill does not cover that we are voting on today. So the very individual responsible for the catastrophic failures that we have seen across the VA recently may not even be impacted by the current legislation that we are dealing with.

My bill, H.R. 4399, does address title 38 physicians and dentists, which covers approximately 80,000 employees within the VA, title 38 employees, mandating standardized, rigorous performance management tools that hold employees accountable and justifies any performance pay.

Finally, my bill would prohibit one of the most egregious examples of the failure of the current system as it applies to title 38 employees. A doctor was provided partial performance pay even though he had failed to maintain a current license. That is correct. He received partial performance pay even though he failed to maintain a current license, because maintaining a valid license was not one of his performance objectives. This bill that we are dealing with today does not address that issue.

Good policy, good legislation comes from conversation, collaboration, and compromise. I am supporting moving this bill forward today because I believe we need to begin this discussion as how to best ensure VA employees are held accountable when they fail to perform.

Let me be clear. We can and we must do more to ensure that our veterans get the quality services that they deserve and have earned. I am hopeful that we can have the necessary dialogue in conference to ensure that any bill that we send to the President is a more comprehensive reform measure that is well-considered and actually has the desired and needed impact of changing the VA and ensuring the best outcomes for our Nation's veterans.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. David Scott).

I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Georgia.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlelady from Florida (Ms. Brown).

I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman.

Mr. Speaker, at this time, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

May I inquire from the Speaker how much time I have remaining?

Mr. Speaker, I now yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).

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

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire, is the gentleman from Florida ready to close?

Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have remaining?

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

I want to thank the chairman, but I will reiterate that the Secretary currently does have the authority to fire any Senior Executive Servicemember if he is not performing his job. This bill does not address the problem systemically within the VA. We are dealing with the Veterans Health Administration. This bill only covers 165 SES's who work in the Veterans Health Administration, but there are 400 throughout the VA.

The legislation that I would much prefer voting on today deals with not only the SES's, but also with the title 38 employees.

The reason it is important to deal with the title 38 employees--and it is important to note--is that one of the executives implicated in manipulating the wait times in Phoenix is a title 38 employee. This bill does not address that employee.

The bill also does not address some of the most egregious examples of failure in the system within the Department. As I mentioned earlier, a doctor was provided partial performance pay, even though he had let his license expire, because that was not part of the performance objective.

I will be supporting this legislation, so we can move it through the process and so we can go to conference to actually address some of these issues. I hope that we will be able to address these issues. They are very serious issues, and they are issues that are important to our veterans.

It is important for us on the committee that we deal with this, and I hope, Mr. Chairman, that we will work together like we have in the past, but I am disappointed that this bill is before us, as we were not able to improve upon the bill.

I would also hope that the President would look very seriously at the performance evaluations within the Department of Veterans Affairs and that he would immediately issue an executive order, similar to the legislation that I have submitted, which will address a lot of the systemic problems within the Department of Veterans Affairs. This is unacceptable, and we must move forward to deal with this issue.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I would encourage my colleagues to support the legislation.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Yes.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this legislation, and I urge my Members to vote against it. I don't know that they will, but I urge them to do so.

All of us in this body need to be for accountability. None of us in this body, however, ought to be for turning a civil service system into a patronage system. None of us ought to be for turning a civil service system--one of the best in the world, if not the best in the world-- into a system which allows for no reason that needs to be articulated to turn senior executives into at-will employees.

I am disappointed that this bill has been brought to the floor with little notice and with no markup in committee. We talk about considered judgment. We talk about thoughtfulness. We talk about reading the bills. Then we bring them to the floor without hearings.

We must ensure that those who serve our veterans in the VA system do so with accountability and oversight. All of us are outraged at the allegations that have been made. Not one of us should step back and say we should not respond vigorously to the offenses that have allegedly taken place because, if the allegations are true, heads ought to roll, period; but that is not what this legislation is about.

This legislation is about a knee-jerk reaction to a bad situation, painted with a very broad brush, and undermining a system that can work, has worked, and has the mechanism to work.

I cannot support this bill as written, and I believe it opens the door to a slippery slope of undoing the careful civil service protections that have been in place for decades. This is about due process.

Now, due process is put under stress at critical times. Pursuing due process at times when there is no stress is not difficult. The test of a society is whether, at times of stress, it can follow due process and the law. This bill does not provide for that.

With regard to protections that have been put in place for decades to ensure that politically appointed managers cannot fire nonpolitical senior executives in Federal service without proper cause, neither party ought to be for that. The civil service reforms adopted decades ago were there for a purpose.

As a result, Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition, and I urge my colleagues to vote against this premature and not-thought-out piece of legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I am disappointed that Republicans brought this bill to the floor with little notice and no markup in committee.

We must ensure that those who serve our veterans in the VA system do so with accountability and oversight, especially in light of recent allegations of misconduct at certain VA offices.

However, I cannot support this bill as written, and I believe it opens the door to a slippery slope of undoing the careful civil service protections that have been in place for decades to ensure that politically appointed managers cannot fire non-political senior executives in federal service without proper cause.

Already, the Secretary has the power to remove employees who are not performing their jobs properly--and it is a power he employs whenever called for.

I will continue to stand up for our Nation's veterans and work to ensure they receive the benefits and care they have earned through their service.

I hope that the Congress and Administration can work together in a bipartisan way over the coming weeks to ensure the egregious behavior that has been reported is never repeated and that any VA officials proven to have acted inappropriately continue to be held accountable-- without undermining the Civil Service System that has served us so well for so long.

Mr. Speaker, the issue here before us on this bill--and first let me say I am a proud cosponsor of this bill to replace and be able to fire people. The problem is the first person we need to fire is the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Mr. Shinseki himself. Now, we respect him; we respect his sacrifice for this country and everything else, but the buck stops at the top.

Here are the facts: 5,600 veterans are committing suicide every year. That is almost 20 every day under his watch--under his watch. In my own hospital in Atlanta, four of our soldiers committed suicide in the hospital, and the inspector general of the VA laid the blame directly at the foot of the VA administration for the lack of management of the death of these soldiers.

When Chairman Miller and I went down and visited them, we asked: Is there one more, are there any more that have committed suicide? No, there have been no more. And they told a damn lie, because the very next day it was exposed there was another soldier that committed suicide and they covered it up.

This has been a pattern that has been going on ever since General Shinseki has been the chairman there. I respect a sacrifice, I respect what he did, but it is under his watch that we are in this situation in the hospital out in the western part of this country where The Washington Post has accurately reported that 40 of our soldiers lost their lives, died because they couldn't get service. Our veterans are the heart and soul of this country, they are precious, and we must not turn our back on them.

I listened to the President today, and I was very disappointed with President Obama today. There was no urgency. Mr. President, we need urgency. We need you to roll up our sleeves and get into these hospitals. We need you to set a pattern that if the VA hospitals can't handle it, let's give partnerships to some of the Republicans and the other public hospitals.

God bless you, because there are things I want to say.

Reports are out that the taxpayers are going to have to pay or have paid $1 billion for medical malpractice. A reputable news organization, Cox Media's WSB Television down in Atlanta, it went all over this country: $1 billion the taxpayer paying because the VA cut off the wrong arm, cut off the wrong leg, the wrong testicle, the wrong kidney.

Let me tell you all something, folks. Time--that is what I was just so disturbed about--we don't have time for any more investigations. The reports are in.

Jesus Christ himself said: There is no more greater sacrifice than to give your life for your friend. Our soldiers

have given their lives on the battlefield for them. We need to give our lives up here and give our veterans the respect that they deserve.

Mr. Speaker, it is an honor to stand on this floor in the midst of Military Appreciation Month and be from a State that had the highest numbers of young men and women returning from Afghanistan and Iraq, comparing to States like California and certainly some others. We are grateful for all, in all States, who have gone and put on the uniform unselfishly and stood in the line of danger for us.

Let me thank the Veterans' Affairs Committee of this Congress. I have never seen a more bipartisan and dedicated group of men and women. If the committee was opened up to all of us, we would all stand up and serve.

Today, as a family in the United States Congress, we have a problem. We have a disease problem, whether it is a heart attack or stroke or cancer, or whether or not it is the terrible injuries of war, posttraumatic stress disorder, or those who have lost limbs, who have suffered traumatic brain injury. We have men and women who have worked, and our veterans have now come in their later years who suffer the illnesses of age.

All of us will take our fist and bang on this podium to be able to say that they are first and our priority. No one counters or accepts the death of those that may have died in Texas, died in Arizona, or places elsewhere.

If this is a measure to begin that healing, to give the Secretary the ability to be able to focus in on those beyond the surgeons that are in the operating rooms, the nurses that I visit with along the hallways when I go to the veterans hospital in my area, then we should go forward.

I stand with this legislation working toward making the system work. I want to make it work by curing the systemic and the problematic way that we have veterans wait on services. Let's cut it out, cut the red tape out. Embrace them this weekend, one of the most emotional days we serve with our veterans, and tell them we will not rest until we answer the concerns of families, until we pray over those who have lost their lives, until we cure this, not by one person or another. They may have to go, but let's fix the system that they will have no waiting time when they come with lung cancer or last stage, with their life to be extended if they just get in the door. I want all of them to be able to get in the door and to use those resources that we have expended, those large numbers that my colleague and friend from Florida, both from Florida, and from Maine, have spoken about, and we use those resources to break the barrier of confusion and red tape, and when they walk through those doors someone says: Come in, we are ready to serve.