Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to let everyone know of a bill I have introduced that will eliminate what we call the Disabled Veterans Tax and to provide immediate concurrent receipt of military retired pay and VA disability compensation to all deserving disabled military retirees.

H.R. 3730 is called the Immediate and Full Repeal of the Disabled Veterans Tax Act of 2004 and does exactly what the title says. It eliminates the years of waiting before all disabled military retirees receive all the retired pay and compensation they have earned and deserve.

Last year, our Nation's veterans waged a long and determined campaign to eliminate this Disabled Veterans Tax. As my colleagues know, we did take a step that some say was a legitimate compromise but I call an insult to our veterans. That law makes veterans with a disability rating of 50 percent or more wait 10 years before their tax is completely eliminated. A great number of those veterans are elderly and unfortunately may not live to see the day that they get their full compensation.

Even worse, fully two thirds of America's disabled veterans have been left behind and will continue to be taxed as before, nearly 400,000 of our veterans. Despite the actions of Congress, the Disabled Veterans Tax is alive and well.

Some of the veterans left behind include a veteran of the Kuwait theatre who had below-the-knee amputation after being hit by a drunk driver while jogging near the Pentagon to maintain

physical fitness. He does not qualify under the act we passed. Neither does a retiree who cannot work on a family farm because of pain, numbness, and osteoarthritis of both feet due to exposure of cold during noncombatant military service; a veteran who lost an eye when an air hose accidentally detached from an airplane being worked on and who cannot work as an airline pilot. He still pays the tax; as does a female retiree who has weekly panic attacks and chronic sleep disturbances as the result of a sexual assault which occurred while on active duty.

Mr. Speaker, we took the first step towards eliminating the Disabled Veterans Tax, but I would give us a grade of incomplete. We did not do the ``A'' work that our veterans deserve. During the time I have been in Congress, I cannot recall more than one or two other issues where I have received so many letters, e-mails, and phone calls. Our veterans have been telling us that this is an important issue to them. They deserve that we complete our work and do it at an ``A'' level.

I understand there are costs to concurrent receipt, but I also understand that the now disabled veterans did not hesitate when they were called to duty. They have returned home with disabilities they have had to live with ever since. How can we doubt the imperative that we keep our promise and give them what they deserve? They earned their military retired pay. They deserve their VA disability compensation. We should not make them wait any longer for justice to prevail.

Well, there they go again. The Commander in Chief has signalled the start of the culture wars, so they are here with their wedge politics, trying to divide us, trying to divide us as a Nation.

Three million jobs lost since this President took office, a war in Iraq that we cannot seem to win, 545 of our bravest young men and women killed, more waiting as sitting ducks; but what we are going to talk about in this House is a constitutional amendment to preserve marriage. Talk about wedge politics at its finest. Talk about something to divide the Nation.

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Indiana, and I assume all those who are going to come after him, should look at the history of the United States and the Constitution, the Constitution which represents for us expanding the rights of all Americans, expanding.

We went from giving the right to citizenship to African Americans to giving the right to vote to women, always expanding what the American Dream was about, always expanding what America ought to be. But now we are going to pass an amendment that restricts rights. Now we are going to pass an amendment that says do not look at jobs, do not look at the war in Iraq, do not look at any of the things that bother the American people at their dinner table, their lack of health insurance, their lack of quality education. No, let us focus on this constitutional amendment.

Mr. Speaker, the Commander in Chief has unleashed his Weapon of Mass Distraction.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 2707. I thank the gentleman from New Mexico for his sponsorship and leadership. We have heard about how important it is to the areas of Texas and New Mexico. It is also important to my district, one of the most important agricultural areas in the United States, the Imperial Valley of California.

We use water from the Colorado River, and we have heard how invasive this Salt Cedar can be. In fact, the Imperial County Agriculture Commissioners Office and the Brawley, California Research Station have been studying for a long time now how to control Salt Cedar. John Kershaw, the president of the Imperial Valley Conservation Research Center Committee, and Stephen Birdsall, Imperial County Agricultural Commissioner, have briefed me on the great strides that have been made to controlling Salt Cedar in our area. This bill will greatly help with those efforts.

We have heard how much water these species use. Salt Cedar is like a giant straw: One tree can suck up to 200 gallons of water a day.

It can cause an increase in fire and flooding, a decrease in water quantity and quality and an increase in soil salinity. It can replace native species, degrade wildlife habitat, and limit the human use of riverbanks.

Salt Cedar was originally introduced in order to stabilize stream banks, but it has turned into a nightmare for our farming communities. We have spent millions of dollars trying to eradicate this pest. Million of gallons of water

have been wasted. We have become increasingly concerned about water conservation and the best use of our natural resources in this Nation. Those of us who rely on the Colorado River see that Salt Cedar squanders this precious, precious water.

Removing it would allow native plants which have been squeezed out by the noxious tree to come back to our community. Removing the tree would also encourage wildlife populations to increase, including several species, such as the Willow Flycatcher, that are declining or are threatened or endangered. The Flycatcher is an endangered bird that eats insects that thrive on native plants in my district, which the Salt Cedar has displaced.

I commend the Departments of Interior and Agriculture for their dedication to controlling or eradicating invasive species such as Salt Cedar. We must continue this important work. We can protect our most precious natural resources, water, wildlife, and soil, by eradicating this invasive species.

Mr. Speaker, clearly these species are serious problems across all the United States, but particularly in the Southwest. The challenges they present to our communities are enormous, but we cannot let them ruin our natural native resources. We can and we must take back the land and water for our communities.

I thank the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Pearce) for his leadership in this struggle.

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained for rollcall vote 22 due to a family emergency. Had I been present, I would have voted ``no'' on the previous question.

Mr. Speaker and colleagues, I was truly sad when today in the Committee on Veterans' Affairs hearing I saw the figures in the administration's budget request for the Department of Veterans Affairs for the coming fiscal year.

Last year in an effort that was actually just completed a couple weeks ago, many Members of Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, worked with the support of our Nation's veteran service organizations to finally arrive at a budget, while not completely adequate, at least addressing many of the needs of our veterans.

So I was very disheartened to find ourselves in the same place we were a year ago. We were faced with the same tired old proposals to raise the copayments on prescription drugs at the VA, a proposal that Congress soundly defeated probably many times.

We are faced with a proposal for a $250 annual fee for many veterans, which Congress also has defeated. So we are faced with a VA policy of continuing to suspend enrollments for the so-called priority 8 veterans. These are veterans, but they cannot be enrolled because we cannot handle them.

And this budget request from the administration cuts the VA nursing home program and cuts funding, if you can believe this, for medical research. Imagine how our veterans must feel. Actually, we know how they feel. The Paralyzed Veterans of America has issued a press release entitled. ``Another Year, Another Inadequate Budget Request for Veterans' Health Care.''

They go on to point out that this request includes the lowest appropriation request for VA health care made by any administration for a decade. Although the VA Under Secretary for Health has testified that an average yearly medical care increase of 12 to 14 percent is needed to meet the cost of inflation and mandatory salary increases, there is less than 2 percent more than last year's appropriation recommended in the President's budget.

Likewise, the leaders of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and other veterans organizations have expressed dismay, if I can say the least, at the proposed VA medical care funding. In fact, I feel I should just pull out the old tapes and old speeches from last year and rerun them, except it is not last year. And since the last budget request from this administration, the Nation has sent our young men and women to a war in Iraq, and they will be coming home as, guess what? Veterans.

Caring for our veterans is one of the costs of war, and the budget request does not take note of this fact.

I have enormous respect for Secretary Principi, who I believe does a great deal with inadequate budgets. But even this Secretary, or should I say especially this Secretary, needs a Congress that will pass a budget that is worthy of our veterans.

So sign me up for the battle again this year. Whatever is needed we will do to fill the budget holes that the President has left in this fiscal year.

Most of all, let us take note that this budget request points out the need for mandatory funding for VA health care. Let me repeat, mandatory funding of VA health care. It is now called discretionary, so we have to go through this battle every single year. Let us pass mandatory funding for VA health care so we will not have to rerun the same tapes next year and the next year and the next year.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize Joaquin Reclosado, Jr., a Marine and California National Guard veteran who is the driving force behind the Annual Sunset Retreat Ceremonies held in Imperial County, California in my Congressional District.

On November 11, 2003, the Eighth Annual Sunset Retreat was conducted by local veterans to celebrate Veterans' Day. Each year, a ceremony is held for veterans, with special attention to veterans of a prior war, women veterans, and this year, Native American veterans.

The Sunset Retreat is the brainchild of Mr. Reclosado, universally recognized as ``Junior''. He organized the first event in 1996. He oversaw the committees, obtained equipment and the venue, contacted participants, and made certain that the event took place. But for Junior, all agree that the Sunset Retreat Ceremony would not happen!

He was born in Calexico, California in 1935 of Mexican and Filipino parents and attended school in Calexico. He joined the Marines in 1953, serving in Korea and leaving active service in 1963. The next 27 years, Junior spent with the Imperial County Sheriff's Department and serving in the California National Guard. He retired from the Guard at the age of 60 with the rank of Sgt. Major.

In addition to his duties with the annual Sunset Retreat, Junior is active with the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Korean War Veterans Association, and the 1st Marine Division Association, both in Imperial Valley and in the state of California. He organizes Memorial Day ceremonies, MIA-POW recognitions, and the details of veterans' funerals. He arranges for veterans to visit local schools. He is a frequent participant in events of the Imperial Valley United Veterans Council.

Junior Reclosado is someone who is deeply involved in bringing deserved attention to the contributions of the men and women in the Armed Forces and to our country's veterans. He is a veterans' veteran!

I am pleased to take this opportunity to honor him and his service to his community and to our nation.

Mr. Speaker, Colonel Earl McCandless lived in Solana Beach, California, near my Congressional District--and he and his family have been longtime friends of mine. Earl McCandless died last December 8, 2003, and I think his passing should be noted by the House of Representatives. He was a true Korean War hero, as well as being a musical genius who entertained Presidents and captains of industry at the Bohemian Grove in Northern California.

Mr. Speaker, I submit for inclusion in the Record at this time a wonderful outline of his life, as written in his obituary in the Daily Oklahoman, Oklahoma's largest daily newspaper.

Earl R. ``Mac'' McCandless, accomplished pianist, retired

Army Colonel and former military aide to Presidents Dwight

Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy, died Monday (12/8) of cancer

in San Diego. He was 78. Before entering elementary school,

McCandless discovered he had a gift for music. Without ever

taking a lesson, he taught himself piano and organ, a talent

that would later pay his way through his studies at UCLA and

land him a job in his 20s playing background music on Art

Linkletter's ``House Party.''

He enlisted in the Army right after graduating from Hobart

High School (Hobart, Oklahoma) in 1943, served briefly in

Guam and remained in the Army Reserve after his discharge in

1946. McCandless had just begun what seemed a promising

career in music on Linkletter's show, when he was called up

again to serve in the Korean War, in the Army Medical Service

Corps. During his service there he was awarded a Silver Star

and a Bronze Star. After another discharge and another call

back, this time to Germany in 1953, McCandless decided to

make the Army his career.

He earned a Masters' degree in hospital administration, and

at one point in his career oversaw CHAMPUS, the Army's

medical insurance program. As a handsome, unmarried young

officer stationed in Washington, DC, he was offered the off-

hours job of serving as a military social aide to President

Eisenhower. The task involved attending State dinners and

other formal White House functions, giving discreet protocol

instructions to guests, escorting single women through

receiving lines and whispering names of guests in the

President's ear. He continued the social staffing duties

through the administration of President Kennedy. He was a

staunchly liberal Democrat who diplomatically avoided

political discussions with many in his mostly conservative

circle of friends, offering a drink or a ``tune'' to change

the subject.

Col. McCandless retired from the Army in 1976 and settled

in Solana Beach, where his small condominium overlooking the

Pacific Ocean was dominated by a grand piano and his wall-to-

wall collection of music on albums and tapes. Though devoted

to his Army career, music was always a strong avocation. He

enlivened hundreds of parties and events with his piano

playing, and in his later years wrote, arranged and played

two full musical productions for the Bohemian Club in

Northern California.

He is survived by his brothers Jack McCandless of Denver,

John McCandless of Oklahoma City, Bob McCandless of

Washington, DC, and sisters-in-law Betty and Anne McCandless

of Oklahoma City. Services will be private. Memorials can be

made to the McCandless Fund, in memory of Earl and his

mother, Leah, c/o Oklahoma University College of Fine Arts,

540 Parrington Oval, Rm. 122, Norman, Oklahoma, 73019. Checks

should be made payable to the OU Foundation.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask the Congress to correct an injustice that has been inflicted upon a group of World War II veterans, the World War II United States Merchant Mariners.

World War II Merchant Mariners suffered the highest casualty rate of any of the branches of services while they delivered troops, tanks, food, airplanes, fuel and other needed supplies to every theater of the war. Compared to the large number of men and women serving in World War II, the numbers of Merchant Mariners were small, but their chance of dying during service was extremely high. Enemy forces sank over 800 ships between 1941 and 1944 alone.

Unfortunately, this group of brave men were denied their rights under the GI Bill of Rights which Congress enacted in 1945. All those who served in the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force or Coast Guard were recipients of benefits under the GI Bill. The United States Merchant Marine was not included.

Mr. Speaker, the Merchant Marine became the forgotten service. For four decades, no effort was made to recognize the contribution made by this branch of the Armed Forces. The fact that merchant seamen had borne arms during wartime in the defense of their country did not seem to matter.

No legislation to benefit merchant seamen was passed by Congress until 1988 when the Seaman Acts of 1988 finally granted them the status of veteran and a ``watered down'' GI Bill of Rights. Some portions of the GI Bill have never been made available to veterans of the Merchant Marine.

While it is impossible to make up for over 40 years of unpaid benefits, I propose a bill that will acknowledge the service of the veterans of the Merchant Marine and offer compensation for years and years of lost benefits. My bill, H.R. 3729, the Belated Thank You to the Merchant Mariners of World War II Act of 2004, would pay each eligible veteran a monthly benefit of $1,000. That payment would also go to their surviving spouse.

The average age of Merchant Marine veterans is now 81. Many have outlived their savings. A monthly benefit to compensate for the loss of nearly a lifetime of ineligibility for the GI Bill would be of comfort and would provide some measure of security for veterans of the Merchant Marine.

I owe a debt of gratitude to Ian Allison, Merchant Marine combat veteran, Co-Chairman of the Just Compensation Committee, for bringing to me the plight of the Merchant Mariners. To recognize Mr. Allison, his Co-Chairman, Henry Van Gemert, and the thousands of veterans of the United States Merchant Marine, I today introduce the Belated Thank You to the Merchant Mariners of World War II Act of 2004, today, January 27, 2004, the date of Mr. Allison's 84th birthday.

I urge my colleagues to join me in cosponsoring this legislation. We can never make up for the years lost, but we can fix the injustice by passing H.R. 3729 as quickly as possible.

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 672, due to urgent constituent support commitments in my congressional district, I missed the vote. Had I been present, I would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 673, due to urgent constituent support commitments in my congressional district, I missed the vote. Had I been present, I would have voted ``no.''

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 674, due to urgent constituent support commitments in my Congressional District, I missed the vote. Had I been present, I would have voted ``no.''

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 675, due to urgent constituent support commitments in my congressional district, I missed the vote. Had I been present, I would have voted ``no.''

Mr. Speaker and colleagues, I must express my extreme disappointment and dismay at the amount of funding in the Consolidated Appropriations Act for FY2004 for the health care of our nation's veterans.

For almost an entire year, the Members of the House Veterans Affairs Committee (both Democratic and Republican) have been fighting for a budget that is worthy of our veterans. The $26.3 billion that is included for the FY2004 VA Medical Care Budget in this appropriations bill is approaching a billion less than the figure recommended by the House VA Committee and by the Independent Budget, the budget that is drafted by veterans. One billion dollars would fund approximately 5000 doctors or 10,000 nurses or 3 million additional outpatient visits.

As many of you know, VA Secretary Anthony Principi has been forced, because of lack of funds, to refuse enrollment to many veterans in the VA health care system. Waiting lists for health care appointments include tens of thousands of veterans who are waiting more than six months for their first health care appointment at the VA. This is not the message that we want to send to our troops who are fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. Now, at this time more than ever, we must place veterans as a top priority. This appropriations bill does not do that.

Veterans' health care is one of our most important funding issues. We hope and pray that we do not have veterans from the current conflict who become ill with Gulf War illnesses. But we must be prepared for that possibility. We must also not forget the warriors of the first Gulf War who are sick and still waiting to learn the cause and the cure for their illnesses. We must be ready to give treatment and care to all the men and women who have sacrificed for our country. We cannot guarantee that with the budget figures in this bill.

It is time to stop this frustrating and ineffective funding for veterans' health care. It is time to change the process of funding VA medical

care. Congressman Lane Evans, Ranking Democratic Member of the House VA Committee, has introduced a bill (H.R. 2318), which I have co- sponsored, to automatically increase VA health care funding each year to accommodate inflation and new enrollees. We must change from our current practice of discretionary funding for VA health care to mandatory (or assured) funding, the way we fund many other veterans' benefits. That change would do away with the fight we have to make each year in Congress for our veterans--a fight that, unfortunately, we often end up losing.

We have the resources. It is a question of priorities. It is a question of will. Join me in vowing that this will be the last year we end up with less money than is needed for veterans' health care. Join me in pushing for passage of assured funding for our nation's veterans.

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 676, due to urgent constituent support commitments in my Congressional District, I missed the vote. Had I been present, I would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 677, due to urgent constituent support commitments in my congressional district, I missed the vote. Had I been present, I would have voted ``no.''

Madam Speaker, I also rise in support of S. 1156 as it comes to the House.

As I said yesterday on the floor of the House and I will say again to the chairman of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs and the ranking member, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith) and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Evans), if we take the benefits package that we passed yesterday and the health package that we will pass today, the sum together of these make this year one of the most productive years ever for benefits and health care for our Nation's veterans.

I want to congratulate our leadership on that.

Let me just speak quickly to two of the provisions in this bill. One of them provides access to the veterans medical facilities to all Filipino World War II veterans who legally reside in the United States. This is a benefit that comes from my bill, H.R. 664, and for which I have been fighting for many years, and I thank all the folks involved, the gentleman from Connecticut (Chairman Simmons), the gentleman from Texas (Ranking Member Rodriguez), as well as Veterans' Affairs Secretary Principi for bringing this to the floor today.

The Filipino soldiers during World War II helped us win the war in the Pacific, and their brave, courageous stands in the epic battles of Bataan and Corregidor, their critical participation in guerrilla warfare that slowed up the Japanese advance, caused them to suffer greatly after the war when the Congress of 1946 deprived them of the very benefits in both health and benefits that they had been promised.

These veterans are now in their seventies and eighties. Their most urgent need is health care. So it is with great joy that I urge my colleagues to vote for this bill. It will restore dignity and honor to these brave veterans where over 50 years of injustice burns in their hearts. Their sons and daughters and they themselves, I know, are watching this floor today and are going to have great celebration when we pass this bill later on.

What we are saying here today is that these veterans are indeed United States veterans, and we are going to begin remedying the historical injustice that we inflicted upon them. We will make good on the promise of America for these brave veterans.

In addition, as has been mentioned, this bill contains major medical investments in many areas of this country, including San Diego, California. The average health care facility in the VA is more than 50 years old. So we have to update these buildings. The building in San Diego is in dire need of seismic correction, and it is one of 60 projects that the VA has identified that need these seismic corrections. So we cannot turn our heads away without acting any longer. We cannot continue to leave VA patients and employees in harm's way.

For all these reasons and more, I urge passage of Senate bill 1156.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to say shame on this body for passing this reprehensible Medicare bill that has been rammed through Congress today by the Republican leadership.

This legislation does nothing that its supporters claim it does. They claim that this bill will help seniors with their prescription drug costs and give them more choices in their healthcare. But actually, this bill does none of that. It does not provide a comprehensive, affordable or reliable prescription drug benefit. Further, it unravels the consistent, guaranteed healthcare coverage that seniors have come to expect under Medicare. This bill is so bad, that even some Republicans refused to support it. Opponents of this terrible legislation see through the smoke and mirrors that supporters are putting up and realize that this bill was not about helping seniors pay for their prescription drugs or giving them access to better care, but that this bill was actually about helping the bottom lines of private insurance companies, HMOs and the pharmaceutical companies.

There are many, many bad provisions in this legislation, and I would like to highlight some of the worst of them here.

One: Under this bill, Medicare as we know it is completely unraveled. First, Medicare Part B will be forced to compete with private managed care plans. This leaves the health of our seniors to the whims of private insurance companies and does not guarantee that all seniors will be receiving the same benefits across the country. That means seniors in my District in San Diego, CA, might have better coverage than seniors in New York. Or seniors in New York might have better coverage than those in San Diego--we just don't know--it's completely up to the private insurance companies and HMOs to decide how much coverage they want to provide. Not only is the amount of coverage going to vary, but so are the costs of the premiums. Again, that means seniors in San Diego might pay more than seniors in New York--or vice versa--depending on how much the private insurance companies and the HMOs decide they want to charge!

Secondly, this bill would institute a ``means test.'' In layman's terms, that means that in 2007, the Medicare part B premium would be linked to income. This not only goes against the main tenet of Medicare--which grants coverage to everyone, regardless of income--but also, higher premiums create an incentive for healthier seniors to leave Medicare. This would leave only the sickest seniors in Medicare and drive up premiums even more.

Two: The so-called prescription drug ``benefit'' is absolutely inadequate and actually decreases coverage for some seniors and can cost them more than they're paying right now. Supporters of this bill claim that the prescription drug benefit will help seniors cover the costs of their medications. However, there are so many problems with this benefit that it's hard to decide where to begin. First of all, this benefit does not even kick in until 2006. When it finally does begin, seniors are expected to pay a high deductible. Then, there is a piece de resistance of this so-called benefit: there is a big hole in coverage. Rather than providing continuous coverage throughout the year, this bill has a $2,850 coverage gap in which seniors don't receive any coverage at all. Half of America's seniors fall into this hole. The icing on the cake is that despite the fact that they would not be receiving coverage for part of the year, they are still expected to continue to pay the premiums.

Additionally, more than 2 million retirees, who currently have drug coverage through

their former employers, will lose that coverage. Because drug costs keep rising and this bill has no measures to keep drug costs low, it is very tempting for employers to simply drop their coverage and force seniors onto this inadequate drug coverage plan. Furthermore, rather than having Medicare kick in when a retiree reaches catastrophic coverage, this bill forces the employer-provided benefits to cover those costs--yet another reason for employers to pull their coverage.

Three: This bill explicitly prohibits the government from negotiating with drug companies for lower drug prices. One of the greatest strengths of a prescription drug plan under Medicare is that it could reduce drug prices for participants using the large number of participants in the Medicare program to bargain with pharmaceutical companies for better prices on their products. Yet this bill denies Medicare participants those lower costs, ensuring continued skyrocketing prescription drug prices.

It is for those reasons--and many many more--that I could not support this poison pill for Medicare and a placebo of a prescription drug benefit.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and we are, of course, supporting H.R. 2297, a bill that incorporates many provisions that have been discussed at the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs and in the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, and it includes provisions that upgrade benefits in many, many areas.

I would suspect, Mr. Chairman, that if this bill was taken one by one in terms of the provisions in there and the health bill that we hope will follow sometime later today, veterans across the Nation would understand that we are really keeping our promise to our Nation's veterans in both our benefits and our health provisions.

I would say to the chairman of the full committee, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith) and to the ranking member, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Evans), the combination of the benefit and the health bill probably represents one of the most productive years in the history of this Congress in terms of veterans' benefits and veterans' health care. So I thank the chairman, and I thank the ranking member for bringing all these provisions together and working so hard and allowing Members from both sides of the aisle to contribute. There are provisions in these bills that represent both Democratic and Republican contributions, and I think that is the way we ought to behave here, and that is what this bill represents.

I just want to add a few comments to what has been stated previously. Two provisions which I helped to write are in the bill. The first involves a cause for which I have been fighting ever since I became a Member of Congress, and it is exceptionally gratifying to see progress on an important issue, and that is restoring the rightful benefits to Filipino World War II veterans.

Many of us know that after being drafted into service by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, after bravely fighting alongside soldiers from the U.S. mainland, many Filipino veterans were deprived of their promised benefits by the Congress of 1946. In the intervening years, many of these veterans have emigrated to the United States and have become American citizens. This bill will increase the compensation received by one part of the Filipino Armed Forces, and that is the new Filipino Scouts.

They had been given what is called the ``peso rate'' in their disability compensation. That is one-half of what an American soldier would get. And they have been receiving that peso rate since the end of the war, whether they have lived in the United States or in the Philippines. For these that live in the United States, their cost of living is equal to the veterans here, and paying half is just simply not acceptable. Upon the passage of this bill, the widows of the Filipino World War II veterans will also receive the full amount of their DIC benefits, and burial benefits for the new Scouts will also be restored. So this is justice restored after almost 60 years of being denied.

There is another provision which I am pleased to see in this bill, and that involves life insurance policies. The VA currently holds about 4,000 insurance policies, valued at about $23 million, on which payment has not been made because the VA has not been able to locate the identified beneficiary.

What will happen after this bill passes is that the VA can pay secondary benefits if we cannot locate the primary beneficiary. And if no beneficiary files within 4 years, the VA secretary may pay another appropriate relative. It is a shame to have Veterans paying for life insurance throughout

their lifetimes only to have their insurance unclaimed. So this will benefit the families of many of our veterans in this country.

Mr. Speaker, these are just two portions of the bill. There are many, many provisions which have been described by my colleagues. Again, I think it is a great advance for veterans to be able to receive the benefits that are in H.R. 2297, so I urge Members to support this bill.