Department of Veterans Affairs Expiring Authorities Act of 2018

Mr. President, I rise today to talk about an issue that, quite frankly, I do not think gets enough attention on the floor of the Senate or on the floor of the House of Representatives, and that is the state of historically Black colleges and universities, or, as they are commonly known, HBCUs.

Alabama is home to 14 of these institutions, the most of any State in the country. With all due respect to my colleagues, we don't just have the most HBCUs. I believe we have the best.

Tuskegee University is the only HBCU with a college of veterinary medicine. The school produces over 75 percent of African-American veterinarians in the world. It has also just hired its first female university president, Dr. Lily McNair.

Alabama A&M University is the only 1890 land grant university offering four Ph.D. programs. It is also the leading producer of African Americans with Ph.Ds in physics.

Oakwood University is the Nation's fifth highest producer of undergraduate African-American applicants to our country's medical schools.

Alabama State University, whose president, my friend Dr. Quinton Ross, has joined us in the Gallery today, is home to the National Center for the Study of Civil Rights and African-American Culture. ASU is currently doing preservation work on some never-before-seen documents, such as court pleadings, bond documents, and other official papers that are connected to the Montgomery bus boycott.

Lawson State Community College was also named a Champion of Change in 2011 by then-President Barack Obama.

There are over 100 accredited HBCUs today across the country, both public and private. They are in 19 States, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. They enroll approximately 300,000 students--80 percent of whom are African American and 70 percent of whom are from low-income families.

While HBCUs only make up 3 percent of the country's colleges and universities today, they produce nearly 20 percent of all African- American graduates. Among HBCU graduates, there are countless trailblazing Americans who have, quite literally, changed the course of our Nation's history: Dr. Martin Luther King, Thurgood Marshall, Marian Wright Edelman, Langston Hughes, Katherine Johnson, amongst so many others.

According to the National Science Foundation, between 2002 and 2011, the top eight institutions at which African-American Ph.Ds in science and engineering earned their bachelor's degrees were all HBCUs. HBCUs annually generate $14.8 billion in economic impact and add more than 134,000 jobs for local and regional economies, and 2014 Alabama HBCU graduates can expect total earnings of $130 billion over their lifetimes.

I could go on and on with these remarkable statistics for these remarkable colleges and universities. For all of these incredible achievements, though--for every achievement I have

just named--HBCUs in Alabama and across the country are working against the strong headwinds of serious financial struggles.

The Government Accountability Office recently investigated the capital finance needs of HBCUs at the request of my colleagues Senator Patty Murray and Senator Casey, also of Congressman Bobby Scott and Congressman G.K. Butterfield. The report estimates that 46 percent of all HBCU buildings are in need of replacement or repair. This is due to deferred maintenance, the evolution of higher education and technology, and the fact that many of these buildings are State or federally registered historic places. For example, Tuskegee University is designated as a National Historic Site by Congress. That is a remarkable figure--46 percent--of all buildings in need of repair or replacement. It is one that, I hope, all of my colleagues will agree is wholly unacceptable.

This is not a surprise, though, for those who understand the challenges these institutions have long faced. HBCUs lack a plethora of revenue sources. Public HBCUs rely heavily on State and Federal grants, appropriations, and bonds. Private HBCUs have to rely on private or alumni giving and tuition and fees. On top of that, the GAO found that an HBCU's average endowment is half the size of a similarly sized non- HBCU. That is half the size not of all non-HBCUs but half the size of similarly situated non-HBCUs.

None of the 90 institutions of higher education in this country with endowments greater than $1 billion is an HBCU. This results in an endless cycle for these schools that have contributed so greatly to our country and the talented students they serve. With their limited revenue resources and the discrimination they face in the bond market, it is difficult to maintain campus buildings that attract higher enrollment. Lower enrollment just leads to even less tuition and fewer fees that are collected by each institution. Thus, the cycle continues.

I didn't just come to talk about the problems our HBCUs face without offering some type of solution. I introduce today the Strengthening Minority-Serving Institutions Act, which will permanently extend and increase Federal funds to all minority-serving institutions. These Federal funds are currently set to expire after fiscal year 2019.

My bill goes beyond just supporting HBCUs and is inclusive of other minority-serving schools, like those that primarily admit Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians, Native Americans, and Hispanic Americans, among others. With this legislation, we will increase mandatory funding from $255 million to $300 million for each of these institutions. They will be able to put that money to good use for infrastructure improvements, technology upgrades, and other critical needs that have gone unfulfilled.

While I had hoped we could make this a bipartisan effort, I haven't yet heard back from any of my Republican colleagues. My Republican colleagues represent a fair share of these institutions, and I hope we will still gain some support from across the aisle and move this bill through the Senate.

This bill will not solve all of the challenges HBCUs face--all of the challenges they are working so hard to overcome. Yet I submit it is a step in the right direction. More importantly, it is the right thing to do for these schools that are part of the very foundation of our higher education system in Alabama and across the country.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (S. 3479) to amend title 38, United States Code, to extend certain expiring provisions of law administered by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of S. 3479, the Department of Veterans Affairs Expiring Authorities Act of 2018. This legislation represents bipartisan, bicameral agreement that would extend a number of expiring authorities impacting the lives of our veterans and their caregivers, their dependents, and their survivors. Swift passage of this legislation today would ensure that many of the benefits, programs, and services that they rely on would continue.

The authorities that would be extended in this bill include authorities to provide nursing home care, counseling for women veterans, assistance for homeless veterans, transportation, childcare, adaptive sports programs, and housing and home loan services, just to name a few.

To be clear, these are not new authorities. The costs associated with them have been assumed in the House-passed appropriations bill for fiscal year 2019 and the 2020 advance appropriations.

In addition to the extension of current programs, the bill would also make permanent several provisions, including provisions related to VA's home loan program. It makes permanent the authority for disabled servicemembers to begin using VA vocational rehabilitation and employment benefits while on Active Duty.

It makes permanent eligibility for specially adaptive housing grants for certain post-9/11 veterans who have sustained severe disabilities while on Active Duty. It makes permanent VA's authority to recover the cost of care for nonservice-connected care. Finally, it makes permanent supportive services for caregivers, homeless veterans, and their families.

The permanent authorization of these programs gives certainty to VA when administering them and certainty, most importantly, to the beneficiaries who rely on them.

The bill would also require that a school offer instate tuition rates to veterans using vocational rehabilitation and employment benefits in order to be eligible for the GI Bill. This change would align instate tuition rules for veterans using the benefit with those already in law for students using the Post-9/11 GI Bill.

The bill also includes bipartisan compromise language that clarifies conflict of interest rules for VA employees and for-profit schools.

Finally, the bill would also make a number of technical and clarifying changes to strengthen important legislation that Congress has previously passed, including the VA MISSION Act, the West Los Angeles Leasing Act, and the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support S. 3479, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague and friend on the committee, Mr. Takano, for his friendship, for his support, and for his leadership.

I think it is notable and remind our colleagues and the American people that we have passed out of this Chamber 80 bipartisan bills that support our veterans, our heroes. Twenty-seven have become law of the land, delivering on our promises to those who swore an oath and made the sacrifice and served and protected us and our freedom. God bless our veterans.

Mr. Speaker, once again, I encourage all Members to support S. 3479, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, again, we encourage all Members to support S. 3479, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of S. 3479, the Department of Veterans Affairs Expiring Authorities Act of 2018.

S. 3479 makes sure that some of the vital programs we have in place to take care of our veterans continue past the end of the fiscal year and continue to help our veterans. Included in this bill are provisions related to healthcare, benefits, homeless veterans, and other related issues.

I am pleased to support extending programs related to support services for caregivers, childcare for certain veterans receiving healthcare, and a pilot program on counseling in retreat settings for women veterans newly separated from service.

It also has provisions to extend the authority related to rehabilitation and vocational benefits to members of the Armed Forces with severe injuries or illnesses, homeless veterans reintegration programs, homeless women veterans and homeless veterans with children, and providing housing assistance and counseling to homeless and at-risk veterans.

Also included are several extensions of authority for programs to help our disabled veterans, as well as the authority to enter into agreements with the National Academy of Sciences to review the research on links between diseases and dioxin exposure, a critical step in creating new Agent Orange presumptions. These provisions are crucial in helping our aging Vietnam-era veteran population.

The package also contains several technical corrections to the MISSION Act that we passed earlier this year.

These corrections will help VA implement the law correctly, and all sides agree that they must become law quickly.

In short, this is a bill that both the majority and the minority support, and we all agree that it must be signed into law as soon as possible. I urge all my fellow Members to support its passage. I thank the chairman and his staff for working with the minority on this legislation.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, likewise, I thank the gentleman from Texas for his friendship and for the work that we have done together in a bipartisan fashion on the Veterans' Affairs Committee. I am also proud of the bipartisan work that we have accomplished together on behalf of our veterans. I say God bless our veterans as well.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join me in passing S. 3479, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. President, I wish to submit to the Senate the budget scorekeeping report for November 2018. The report compares current-law levels of spending and revenues with the amounts the Senate agreed to in the budget resolution for fiscal year 2018, H. Con. Res. 71, and the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018, BBA18. This information is necessary for the Senate Budget Committee to determine whether budgetary points of order lie against pending legislation. The Republican staff of the Budget Committee and the Congressional Budget Office, CBO, prepared this report pursuant to section 308(b) of the Congressional Budget Act,

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 3479, introduced earlier today.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time.

Mr. President, I know of no further debate on the bill.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.