Emergency Relief for Servicemembers Act

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill

(H.R. 7939) to make permanent certain educational assistance benefits under the laws administered by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs in the case of changes to courses of education by reason of emergency situations, and for other purposes, 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 to insert extraneous material on H.R. 7939, as amended.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 7939, as amended. This comprehensive package from Economic Opportunity Subcommittee Chairman Levin includes several improvements for student veterans.

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed many flaws in student veteran benefits. We never could have anticipated the need to shift nearly all students to remote learning, but without action, VA would have been forced to cut housing benefits for hundreds of thousands of student veterans nationwide because the students technically were no longer attending classes in person.

However, this committee acted swiftly during 2020, passing several crucial acts, including my Student Veteran Coronavirus Response Act of 2020, which was swiftly signed into law.

These actions meant student veterans were protected from losing their benefits--but only for a limited time. While I am relieved we never left student veterans without their benefits, we came close far too many times.

H.R. 7939, as amended, does away with these artificial benefit cliffs for student veterans and makes permanent many of the veteran protections passed as short-term measures during 2020 and 2021.

That means the next time there is an emergency--be it a flood, tornado, another pandemic, or another event that forces students to take their classes online for a short period of time--VA will be able to fully pay out benefits to student veterans who are forced to attend classes remotely.

I thank Chairman Levin of the Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity for introducing H.R. 7939, as amended, to safeguard these benefits. In addition, included in this legislation is H.R. 5752, also from Chairman Levin. This provision will allow servicemembers to get out of contracts they may be wrongly bound to because of their orders.

Families suffered fines, excessive bills, and damage to their credit scores due to circumstances completely outside of their control. Also, from Chairman Levin, H.R. 7939, as amended, includes the text from H.R. 7369, the VENTURE Act, which allows more disabled veterans to use the self-employment track for the Veteran Readiness and Employment Program.

Previously, this option was only available to a very small cohort of veterans. The VENTURE Act keeps prioritization of several disabled veterans but also allows additional veterans to pursue this option if they wish.

Finally, this package includes countless additional improvements for student veterans such as improving which programs are available for GI bill approval and removing unnecessary red tape for schools so school certifying officials can spend more time with students and less time on paperwork.

This legislation is supported by Disabled American Veterans, Veterans Education Success, Student Veterans of America, Veterans of Foreign Wars, and VA.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, again, I ask all of my colleagues to join me in passing H.R. 7939, as amended, the Student Veteran Emergency Relief Act of 2022, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 7939, as amended, the Student Veteran Emergency Relief Act of 2022.

This is a bipartisan bill led by Chairman Levin and Ranking Member Moore of the Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity. The base text would provide emergency protection for maintaining current GI bill payments for student veterans if a pandemic like COVID-19 hits our country again.

I am supportive of the entire package, but I am especially pleased that five Republican proposals have been included. This bill includes Congressman Joyce's language that would extend full post-9/11 GI bill benefits to the servicemembers who have been discharged under DOD's sole survivor rules.

A sole survivor discharge is designed to protect the members of a family if they have already lost family members to military service.

This issue directly impacts Congressman Joyce's constituents, the Weninger family, whose son, Sergeant Weninger, tragically passed away in 2020. I am happy to honor Sergeant Weninger for his service to the United States and provide this benefit to his brother.

I thank his family, Congressman Joyce, and the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors for bringing this important issue to our attention.

Now, this package also includes text from Congressman Moore's bill that would improve the way that schools are approved for the GI bill to help prevent waste, fraud, and abuse.

Recently, there has been a rise in schools abusing this benefit. GI bill fraud both takes away a veteran's benefit and wastes taxpayer dollars. This bill would make it much harder for a bad school to be approved for GI bill benefits and well before they could harm veterans.

I thank the Student Veterans of America, the VFW, and Veterans Education Success for assisting us in writing this provision.

I also thank the Office of Inspector General and Inspector General Missal for their hard work in protecting veterans by helping us draft this text.

H.R. 7939, as amended, also includes a GOP proposal that would help improve access to study-abroad programs while using the GI bill.

I thank the Student Veterans of America and other higher education groups for bringing this issue to our attention.

Another proposal in this bill would amend the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act to make it easier for military spouses to transfer licenses across the States.

This bipartisan proposal would allow spouses to transfer their State- based medical and professional license when they move due to their spouse's military orders. This is an important change that would help reduce unemployment among military spouses. I thank Congressman Mike Garcia for originally proposing this legislation, and I am pleased to see it in the list of bills today.

The bill also includes the text for H.R. 4702, originally introduced by Congressman Cawthorn, that would help clarify the State that a military spouse can file taxes in when their family is deployed to another State.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy).

Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to support the bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chair and the ranking member for their leadership.

Mr. Speaker, there are a number of bills here that pertain to the Committee on Veterans' Affairs' jurisdiction. I support a number of those bills--maybe not a couple of them. I certainly appreciate that we are having them down here.

As many people know, the House Freedom Caucus and a number of my other colleagues have simply been raising the issue that we should debate, amend on different issues. We should have a different conversation about how the floor operates so we continue to require roll call votes on a number of bills that might otherwise pass by voice. But in doing so, it is not a statement necessarily always on the content of the legislation in question. We will be making some roll call votes here this afternoon, but I just wanted to make sure, as a member of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, I make clear my support for a number of these measures, which will obviously be clear in the roll call vote later.

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