Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chair, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 8580, the fiscal year 2025 Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies bill. While I unfortunately cannot support the…
Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Chair, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 8580, the fiscal year 2025 Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies bill.
While I unfortunately cannot support the bill on the floor today, I am grateful to Chairman Carter for the work that we have been able to accomplish together over the years on this subcommittee.
I know we both prioritize quality of life for our servicemembers and their families and caring for our veterans, but, sadly, the bill before us today is built on a framework that once again walks away from the bipartisan Fiscal Responsibility Act agreement, which is law, which was the basis for the bills that we passed just a couple of months ago.
While the FY25 MILCON-VA bill doesn't face cuts nearly as dramatic as the other bills, veterans, servicemembers, and their families rely on programs throughout the Federal Government.
These funding levels only move us further from a bipartisan agreement on all of the funding bills that those who served our Nation rely on.
On the military construction side, this bill cuts funding for servicemembers and their families by $718 million, compared to last year's bill. This cut will slow crucial progress to modernize and improve DOD's infrastructure.
In fiscal year `24, we provided DOD with $30 million in dedicated funding for resiliency, a comparatively small sum of funding now, which will pay huge dividends in the future and ensure our national security in the face of our changing climate.
By eliminating the dedicated resilience funding this year, this bill will threaten future military readiness because we are not making sure we invest in hardening facilities to make sure that they can withstand the impact of natural disasters.
Cutting military construction now slows our historically bipartisan efforts to reduce the infrastructure backlog to strengthen our national security and to improve the quality of life of our servicemembers and their families.
Perhaps the most egregious part of the bill is all the partisan riders it includes. This bill is usually first up on the floor, like we are this fiscal year, because we have a bipartisan process.
Unfortunately, partisan culture war riders have distracted from our ability to accomplish that. We have riders that include preventing the VA from implementing its interim final file on abortion care, which is now final, by the way, to provide abortion services under limited circumstances, abortion counseling, and to ensure that veterans have equal access to healthcare regardless of what State they live in, especially in a time when reproductive rights are under attack around the country.
A woman's decision whether or not to have an abortion should be made between her and her doctor and her family. It should not be made by politicians in this Chamber.
This bill includes riders that do everything from prohibiting VA from implementing diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, as well as training, to a petty, bigoted prohibition from flying the Pride flag over VA facilities during Pride Month, to add insult to injury, from protecting people who speak or act under the guise of religious freedom, essentially authorizing the arbitrary discrimination against LGBTQI+ people and to prohibiting access to gender-affirming care, just to name a few, all aimed to disenfranchise veterans from the VA.
Let me just note: The United States did not make exceptions to the promises that we made our servicemembers in exchange for their service and sacrifice. We made promises to everyone.
This bill undermines VA's ability to report a beneficiary to the National Instant Criminal Background Check system to keep guns out of the hands of people who are prohibited under Federal law from purchasing or possessing firearms. It is prohibiting VA from following the law that is intended to protect veterans and those around them.
We have a dramatic suicide problem among our veteran population, and allowing people who are prohibited by law to possess a gun makes that suicide more likely, not less, and puts other people around them in their care circle at risk. That is unacceptable, irresponsible, and unnecessary.
This bill prioritizes guns over protecting veterans. It is truly a shame that this bill includes these poison pill riders.
They create division between us when we all should have a shared goal of providing healthcare and benefits to our veterans.
These culture war riders were rejected in conference negotiations last year, and we know that they will be rejected again this year in order to reach a final agreement. This bill can't pass with all of these poison pill riders attached to it.
I urge my colleagues to oppose this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. Chair, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro), the distinguished ranking member of the Appropriations Committee.
Mr. Chair, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Bishop), the current distinguished ranking member of the Agriculture-Rural Development Subcommittee and the former ranking member of the MILCON-VA Subcommittee.
Madam Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Deluzio), a veteran of our Armed Forces.
Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Stansbury).
Madam Chair, I am prepared to close, and I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Takano), who is the distinguished ranking member of the Veterans' Affairs Committee who goes to bat for our Nation's veterans every single day on the authorizing committee.
Mr. Chair, I have no further speakers, and I am prepared to close.
Mr. Chairman, it is with a heavy heart that we--unnecessarily--oppose this legislation on our side of the aisle because this bill was drafted in a way that it never should have been and doesn't have to be.
The stark reality, by any definition, is that this bill cuts military construction by $718 million from last fiscal year to this one, and it cuts funding for our veterans by $6 billion from last year to this one.
There is no way around that. That is actually what we are doing. That is the math.
It is also pretty unprecedented. We generally increase funding in this bill. That is why it is so bipartisan. It is why our committee goes first, because we have a bill that, as Judge Carter said, we are really able to work very closely together on the nuts and bolts of taking care of our veterans and our servicemembers.
Unfortunately, because the Republicans refused to adhere to the law-- that is, the Fiscal Responsibility Act--and refused to make sure that we, in that agreement, adhere to the agreement where we increased nondefense discretionary and defense discretionary by 1 percent, as a result, the allocations given to our committee were paltry. Republicans decided to make cuts to individuals who have signed up to defend our country, whom our committee is responsible for going to bat for improving our veterans' and servicemembers' quality of life, who are promised that protection no matter who they are, no matter whom they love, and no matter what gender they are.
It is wrong to cut funding for veterans and servicemembers, and it is also wrong to load this bill up with partisan political culture war riders that deny women access to reproductive healthcare.
Let's be clear. What the Republicans have done here is they are eliminating the ability of the Department of Veterans Affairs to ensure that no matter where a woman veteran lives in this country, she is able to access an abortion in conjunction with the recommendation of her medical provider in the cases of rape or incest and in the cases of the life and health of the mother.
What the Republicans do in this bill is that a woman veteran has to be dying in order to be able to get access to abortion care. That is wrong because no one who has signed up and who has served our country, committed to laying their life on the line in defense of our country, should have politicians, judges, or the government making the
most deeply difficult personal healthcare decisions for them.
That is what Republicans do in this bill.
In addition to eliminating our ability to ensure that we can have seamless communication and support for our veterans, they are eliminating the DEI programming.
We have a very large agency. It is an agency in which we need to make sure that it can run seamlessly, but they are discriminating against LGBTQ+ people, and they are loading up this bill with unrelated, controversial, and unnecessary amendments that are going to prevent us from being able to make sure this bill can become law.
In fact, all those poison pill culture war riders are not going to survive conference, just like they didn't last year. We are wasting time here when we should be devoted to making sure we care for our servicemembers and our veterans, which is what this committee has always committed to.
I am sad I cannot support this bill. It doesn't have to be this way. I have tremendous respect for my friend, Judge Carter. He is right. We do work very well together.
Mr. Chair, I also thank our incredible staff for the work that they have done. Both of our staffs have changed over a little bit, so we have some newbies managing this. We appreciate all the effort that they have put in.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Chairman, I rise to support this amendment. It contains a number of noncontroversial amendments from both sides of the aisle. I encourage its adoption, and I yield back the balance of my time.
Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.
Madam Chair, I will be clear that the gentleman who is offering this amendment has been committed to driving the VA toward privatization. That is what this is really all about.
Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition to this amendment because what his amendment would do is greatly expand the MISSION Act, which is designated access standards to all categories of care and would seek to greatly increase the privatization of the VA.
The MISSION Act was not envisioned to replace all care at all facilities within VA with private care. It was intended to supplement care at VA facilities, particularly, and specifically, when a veteran was too far away from a VA facility that could provide the service or when there was a prolonged period of time in which a veteran could get that service.
Let's be clear: Where we are now in terms of the care in the community and for veterans getting access to appointments, in many cases, all across the country is that it actually takes longer for a veteran to get an appointment when they try to get one in the community than it does to get one at the VA. The overwhelming majority of veterans, when they are surveyed, make very clear that they prefer their care at the VA.
Implementing this amendment could have far-reaching ramifications and would cost hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars a year based on past CBO scores for similar legislation. It is interesting given that the majority is cutting the funding at the VA by $6 billion in this bill, so how we would ever be able to pay for this proposal is incomprehensible to me. This amendment is a controversial authorizing issue which should be considered in the appropriate authorizing committee, which the sponsor of the amendment is chairman of that committee.
Madam Chair, I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.
Madam Chair, as I said, the gentleman from Illinois can put all the bows and ribbons and wrapping paper that he would like on what his amendment does, but it doesn't change the fact that it would move VA not only further toward privatization, but flies in the face of the original goal and the law that the MISSION Act is intended to implement, which is to ensure that veterans who are not able to get quick and timely access to care when they don't live close enough to a VA facility that can provide that care or when the length of time is unreasonable for them to get that care, that is not the case in the situation in which this amendment would apply.
Plus, this amendment would cost an extraordinary amount of money, millions and, likely, billions of dollars which has been previously scored by CBO, and this bill cuts the VA by $6 billion.
Again, the mathing on the other side of the aisle is really not working so well.
Madam Chair, I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.
Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.
Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.
Madam Chair, not only is this amendment bad policy, but the underlying bill includes a prohibition on ensuring that people who have been prohibited by law from getting access to a gun because they have had a fiduciary appointed to take care of their finances, meaning that they have had a determination that they are not competent to manage their finances, this amendment would go even further and eliminate the exception in the underlying bill that says if a court has judicially determined that a veteran is incompetent and appoints a fiduciary, even in that case, this amendment says that a veteran would be able to keep their guns.
Under Federal law, when someone is deemed mentally incompetent by a judge, which is a similar ruling that would occur in this case, the gentleman offering this amendment would allow a veteran to keep their firearms, even if a court had decided that they were not competent to handle their finances.
That is unacceptable. This provision not only prevents the VA from following the law that is intended to protect veterans and those around them, but it prioritizes firearms over the safety of veterans.
The existing program has a full due process system, and veterans have access to an appeals process.
This is an example of generating controversy where there is none.
The process of applying for disability benefits is separate from the processes by which veterans receive VA healthcare. The Veterans Health Administration does not take away veterans' firearms, but this amendment by implying that VA bureaucrats are going to take guns away from veterans, the provision not only does nothing to increase access to care, it seeks to dissuade veterans from even seeking the healthcare they have earned in the first place.
This is about whether we are going to keep veterans and those around them safe.
The Supreme Court has repeatedly emphasized that the core of the Second Amendment right is self-defense. Assigning a fiduciary to handle financial benefits does not interfere with self-defense, but rather, it is seeking to protect and avoid injuries and deaths from suicide and accidents, which are rising when a veteran who is not competent to handle much of their own personal business and a court has determined that, we know there is a greater risk when they are handling a firearm.
We know that suicide is more likely. We know that killings take place, and this amendment would make that more likely.
Madam Chair, I underscore my strong opposition to this amendment and urge Members to vote against it, and I yield back the balance of my time.
Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.
Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.
Madam Chair, this amendment would completely eliminate funding in this bill for the NATO Security Investment Program during a time when we should be investing in much-needed infrastructure projects.
I point out to my colleagues that worldwide in U.S. military infrastructure, 30 percent of our military infrastructure is in fair or poor condition. We should be investing in these much-needed infrastructure projects. Cutting funding for the NATO Security Investment Program is not only bad policy from a national security perspective, but it is also not sound long-term fiscal policy.
The deterrence that NATO provides now is a small cost to avoid future conflict. As I stated last year during debate on this issue, regardless of your stance on overall defense spending levels of various NATO countries, it is simply not true that the United States is paying more than its share of this direct contribution program.
This amendment does not recognize the cost-effective benefit the NATO Security Investment Program provides to the United States. The U.S. contributes less than 16 percent of the funding for the NATO Security Investment Program, but 44 percent of the locations for which projects are selected benefit U.S. posture locations.
If the U.S. contributed at the same cost share relative to national wealth that our allies do, our cost share would be 47 percent, rather than the under 16 percent that we actually pay.
The United States' contributions to NATO represent only a small portion of our defense spending, but the strength of the NATO alliance is an outsized and irreplaceable part of American national security. This amendment would not even reinvest the funding into other priorities. It simply cuts $434 million.
As I stated in my opening statement, this bill is already a cut of $718 million for military construction compared to the enacted level from last year. This amendment would take the bill further in the wrong direction and, if enacted, would leave military construction funded over a billion dollars less than in fiscal year 2024.
Madam Chair, I strongly urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.
Madam Chair, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining.
Madam Chair, I think the sponsor of the amendment has shown pretty clear evidence that she has no idea what the NATO Security Investment Program is actually funding.
We are talking about funding that is provided to build infrastructure that takes care of our troops who are overseas so that we can make sure that we invest properly in infrastructure for a vast array of training facilities, of national security facilities, of hangars that contain our airplanes, military aircraft that costs billions of dollars.
Everything about what the amendment does actually makes our own servicemembers, who are fighting overseas to defend our national security interests and to defend our country, less safe.
I am not sure if the sponsor of the amendment has traveled to see our military infrastructure around the world. I have.
Oftentimes, when we go as MILCON-VA Subcommittee, I have traveled with Judge Carter to see some of our infrastructure. The appalling conditions in which much of this infrastructure exists make it so that our servicemembers are less safe.
I have been in hangars in which the doors don't close because they are rusted, and the jury-rigging that our servicemembers have to do to close the doors of some hangars to protect our very expensive equipment that protects our national security interests would straighten my hair, and that is not easy, Madam Chair.
We have a responsibility to make sure that the infrastructure that we fund is in pristine, well-kept condition. What the sponsor of the amendment would do is decimate our ability to do that. That is irresponsible. It is unpatriotic.
We should not support this amendment. Members should vote against it.
Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.
Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition.
Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to this amendment. CBO has reviewed this amendment and has indicated that it would have significant budget authority and outlay effects in this year. Translate that into English. It means that it would cost a lot of money.
The bill already cuts $6 billion from the VA over the last fiscal year. Furthermore, veterans can still receive their travel reimbursements online, which simplifies the current process and the need for hard-copy and in-person submissions, which is cumbersome and unnecessary.
I believe we should let the VA manage this process in a way that is efficient and cost-effective. This amendment micromanages the VA on something that is really not appropriate for us to be doing in this bill, and so I would urge its opposition. I reserve the balance of my time.
Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Lois Frankel), my neighbor slightly to the north and a member of the Appropriations Committee.
Madam Chair, as I said, I rise in opposition to this amendment, particularly because CBO says that the cost of actually implementing this would be astronomical, and the majority is already cutting $6 billion out of this bill, so I don't understand how they would expect VA to pay for what this proposal would require. We are micromanaging the VA when we should be allowing them to manage this process in a way that they think is most efficient and cost-effective. I oppose the amendment and yield back the balance of my time.
Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition, although I am not opposed to the amendment.
Madam Chair, this amendment is noncontroversial. I do not oppose it. It supports community-based outpatient clinics and mobile medical units. I yield back the balance of my time.
Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition to the gentlewoman's amendment.
Madam Chair, the gentlewoman's amendment is bewildering to me. I understand and agree with the frustration toward the deficiencies in housing for our servicemembers, including unaccompanied housing, but a GAO report last year highlighted the horrible conditions of some military unaccompanied housing and inadequate oversight from the military services.
While the services are taking some steps to address these deficiencies, our subcommittee has remained focused on a bipartisan basis of addressing this issue. Privatization of unaccompanied housing is not a universal answer to these problems, and it should not be a first option. While the services are exploring pilot projects for unaccompanied barracks, the feedback that our subcommittee has heard in hearings this year is that the services do not view privatization as an answer to this problem in all or even most cases.
We don't have to look far to see how privatization can go horribly wrong. Privatized family housing has resulted in persistent, unacceptable conditions for many military families, including houses with mold, improperly addressed lead paint, untimely maintenance, and companies which have not been responsive to their concerns.
Why? Because even the fines that are levied once these private companies are held accountable are just a rounding error for these multinational corporations who really don't have to worry about whether they can afford the accountability that is meted out from their neglect.
Oversight of privatized family housing remains a major issue to this day. Even when privatization may result in better housing conditions now, it is not a solution if companies don't properly maintain these facilities for the full life cycle like they have neglected to do for family housing.
Sure, if you have a private company build a private barracks now, it is pristine and new, and has nothing wrong with it, but with the neglect that is the track record of these private companies, down the road we are going to end up potentially in the same boat.
We cannot repeat the mistakes of the past. There may be specific instances where privatized unaccompanied housing can be part of a holistic plan by the services to address the deficiencies of unaccompanied housing, but it is not and should not be the whole solution. That is where this amendment takes us.
We should not repeat the privatized housing horror stories of the past or waste untold millions more in critical taxpayer dollars on privatized housing schemes.
I strongly urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.
Madam Chair, the difference between the gentlewoman's approach and ours is that we believe that the services should continue to be able to take a measured approach to whether or not using privatized unaccompanied housing is appropriate and whether or not, as the gentlewoman's amendment would do, encourage the services to go to privatization for unaccompanied housing.
We see the track record that is unfettered. Going forward on privatizing housing has not gone well, and it has been expensive, costly, and it has also contributed to the problem that we are having with retention of our servicemembers.
We have heard testimony over the last few years from servicemembers who have been in neglected privatized family housing, and it has caused many of the servicemembers to throw the towel in and just say: You know what? I wanted to make a career out of being in the military, but obviously the services don't care about me and don't care about my family or exposing my children to lead paint, mold, and other really serious problems.
We are not at a point where we should be encouraging privatization of housing. We should allow the services to take a measured approach to pursue privatized unaccompanied housing when they think it is appropriate and make sure that there is appropriate accountability in place, which this amendment doesn't ensure.
I would urge Members to vote against it, and I yield back the balance of my time.
Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition, although I am not opposed to the amendment.
Madam Chair, I will address the tail end of the previous colleague's comments that represented a fundamental misunderstanding of the way privatized military housing works.
The privatized companies aren't taking over housing that the government built. They actually enter into a contract with the military, and they build the housing brand new themselves.
The problem is that for decades, they have neglected it. They have neglected the housing. They are terrible about follow-up on maintenance and making sure that the housing is well cared for. They are leaving people in mold, filth, vermin, and lead paint, and it is unacceptable.
Let's just be clear that the gentleman's reference to privatized companies coming and rescuing government housing that has declined is not correct.
The privatized family housing program and the barracks are new construction that the privatized companies build, and then they neglect taking care of it and neglect taking care of our servicemembers, which is why we need to be careful about our approach in the future to privatized family housing and privatized housing for unaccompanied servicemembers.
This amendment is not controversial, and I am not opposed to it. It supports medical care for veterans who reside in U.S. territories and Freely Associated States, which both Mr. Carter and I have gone together to see and to communicate about.
Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition, although I am not opposed to the amendment.
Mr. Chairman, I really would invite the gentlewoman from Virginia to take a tour of some of our privatized military family housing where she would have an opportunity to see that it is not better.
We have established some layer of oversight at the military service level, but we have really decrepit conditions that still exist.
There are some beginning improvements, but there are millions of dollars in fines that privatized military family housing companies have had to pay because of their neglect.
Like I said, encouraging more privatized housing for our unaccompanied servicemembers should be done in a selectful, choiceful way, not just encouraging it to occur across all of our services.
This amendment is noncontroversial, and I am not opposed to it. It supports mental health care programs with an emphasis on suicide prevention.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment, although I am not opposed to it.
Mr. Chairman, this amendment is noncontroversial, and I am not opposed to it. It encourages the Navy and Marine Corps to effectively use its demolition funding. I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Chair, I rise as the designee of the gentlewoman from Connecticut, and I move to strike the last word.
Mr. Chair, I rise to oppose the various harmful policy riders included in this bill.
Specifically, there are two sets of riders that I believe are the most poisonous. First, section 255 would prohibit the VA from implementing a rule on abortions, essentially making it the law that a woman veteran has to be dying in order to have access to an abortion. Never mind if an abortion is in the best medical interest of the veteran, this rider ignores that harsh but brutal reality that some veterans will face. It further limits women's access to reproductive care by prohibiting the VA from offering abortion counseling and making it more difficult for women veterans to access abortion services.
Many of our Republican colleagues are obsessed with adopting a national abortion ban, and their fanatic compulsion to control women's bodies will apparently spare no one, even if it means stealing away reproductive freedoms of the brave veterans who served to protect every last one of our freedoms.
This radical agenda is so out of sync with Americans' political mainstream, most self-described Republicans across
the country don't support it. It certainly should not be poisoning this historically bipartisan bill that our veterans and servicemembers desperately count on.
Further, sections 256, 257, and 416 are discriminatory riders against our LGBTQI+ community. The riders block gender-affirming care, limit the ability to fly the Pride flag at VA facilities, and create a license to discriminate against the LGBTQI+ community under the guise of religious freedom.
I was proud to sponsor amendments, joined by some of my Democratic colleagues, that would have stricken these provisions, but the majority blocked those amendments from receiving a vote.
Like the assaults on women's bodies, these extremist attacks undermine the basic tenets of equality and inclusivity at the very heart of our democratic values.
The VA should be welcoming and inclusive for everyone who volunteers to sacrifice and serve our Nation, not just some of them.
I single out these two particularly odious sets of riders, because unlike many of the genuine policy differences that we will have today, these are both especially cruel, discriminatory, and destined to shrivel under the unforgiving light of time and history.
We should all be uniting to ensure that veterans can find jobs, feed their families, keep roofs over their heads, and get the care they deserve, not dividing and politicizing their personal and medical decisions.
For these reasons, at the appropriate time, I will offer a motion to recommit this bill back to committee. If the House rules permitted, I would have offered the motion with an important amendment to this bill. My amendment would strike the harmful provisions I just described for you.
Mr. Chair, I include in the Record the text of my amendment.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz moves to recommit the bill H.R. 8580
to the Committee on Appropriations with the following
amendment:
Strike sections 255, 256, 257, and 416.
Mr. Chair, I hope my colleagues will join me in voting for the motion to recommit, and I yield back the balance of my time.
Amendment No. 28 Offered by Mr. Mast
Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment, even though I am not opposed to it.
Mr. Chairman, this amendment is noncontroversial, and I am not opposed to it. It assists veterans with disabilities and mental health and substance abuse challenges. We support it, and I yield back the balance of my time.
Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition, although I am not opposed to the amendment.
Madam Chair, this amendment is noncontroversial, and I am not opposed to it. It supports the VA home loan program, and I yield back the balance of my time.
Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition, although I am not opposed to the gentleman's amendment.
Madam Chair, this amendment is noncontroversial, and I am not opposed to it. It supports funding for medical services for the treatment of PTSD, and I yield back the balance of my time.
Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.
Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to
this amendment because this is yet another attempt at trying to privatize veterans' healthcare.
Veterans have consistently made it clear that they prefer to get their healthcare at the VA. That is where they are the most comfortable. That is where they are served by people who have served in the military, as well. It is a culture and an environment that ensures that veterans are seen and treated by people who understand what they have been through.
Multiple studies, in fact, have shown that non-VA care generally is of lower quality and higher cost. In fact, since the enactment of the MISSION Act, which was designed to shift patients from the Veterans Health Administration to the private sector, costs have exploded. Between fiscal year 2019 and fiscal year 2024, costs for medical community care have grown by over $21 billion, or almost 140 percent.
My colleagues across the aisle often lament that government spending is out of control. I agree that we shouldn't balance our budget on the backs of our veterans, but we can take reasonable measures to ensure that the care that we provide our veterans is not only of high quality but is cost effective.
We should not be kicking into overdrive to privatize the healthcare that our veterans receive. They wish and prefer to have their healthcare provided for them at the VA.
This amendment would lead to an expansion of privatization. For that reason, I oppose the amendment.
Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.
Madam Chair, what the gentleman's amendment does is it encourages the privatization of in-home healthcare that we provide to our veterans.
The difference between providing care to our veterans from the VA and providing privatized home healthcare is one can ensure that, within the VA system, the veteran is cared for, oftentimes by another veteran or by someone who is accustomed to treating veterans and understands the unique and specific needs that they have.
Moving toward more and more privatization makes it so that veterans are less likely to be treated soon, more likely to be treated with care that is more expensive, and more likely to be treated by someone who really doesn't have experience in caring for a veteran.
Madam Chair, none of those things are positive, so I urge opposition to that amendment for that reason, and I yield back the balance of my time.
Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment, even though I am not opposed to it.
Madam Chair, the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Ogles), had a better idea on this one. It is noncontroversial, and I do not oppose it because it supports the reduction in the backlog of veteran casework, which we are all committed to doing.
Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment, even though I am not opposed to it.
Madam Chair, this amendment is noncontroversial. I am not opposed to it because it supports the construction of State extended-care facilities, particularly for those who served in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. We need to take care of those valiant soldiers.
Madam Chair, for that reason, I do not oppose the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.
Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.
Madam Chair, it is not the place of Congress to be pushing for increased use of specific experimental treatments. The VA is currently in the midst of a multiyear clinical trial to collect data on this treatment for potential use in treating post- traumatic stress disorder, but they do not yet have sufficient data one way or the other regarding this treatment.
If this treatment is safe, effective, and appropriate for expanded use, then the healthcare experts at the VA should be the ones to expand the treatment for wider use. There is a deliberative process for expanding the use of emerging healthcare treatments, and we should let that process play out.
This specific treatment actually involves insertion into the neck of an individual and could be potentially dangerous. We should make sure that we are waiting out the results of the studies that are being done before trying to impose a decision from the House floor.
Madam Chair, I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.
Madam Chair, the leadership of this committee has been committed consistently to making sure that safe and effective treatments are able to be provided to the VA, to our veterans who get their care from the VA. It is just important to make sure that the care that they are receiving is efficacious and that it is safe.
It would be helpful if the sponsor of the amendment understood the sites that are offering this treatment are part of the study that is being done. There is not a new study being proposed. We are not adding time to this, but there is a process for expanding the use of emergency healthcare treatments, and that is the responsibility of the VA to manage.
Let's let them complete that process and then you could go fully forward assuming that it proves to be efficacious and safe. I realize that we have a horrific problem with PTSD, and we certainly are dedicating vast resources to make sure that we can address suicide prevention. Unfortunately, the Republican bill cuts the VA by $6 billion, so that commitment is not quite the same. Making sure that we are providing safe, efficacious treatments for our veterans and that we do not impose those decisions from the House floor is important.
That is why I oppose the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment, even though I am not opposed to the amendment.
Mr. Chair, this amendment is noncontroversial, and I am not opposed to it, particularly as a cancer survivor myself. It supports the study of various cancers in military aviators, and it is an important amendment.
Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. Chair, would the gentleman yield for the purpose of a colloquy?
There wasn't opposition. Procedurally, we rise to claim time in opposition and then say we are not opposed to the amendment. It is just procedural.
That way I have an opportunity to speak.
Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition, even though I am not opposed to the amendment.
Mr. Chair, this amendment is noncontroversial, and I am not opposed to it. It encourages the VA to address emergency care coverage for veterans. I thank the gentlewoman for introducing it, and I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment, even though I am not opposed to it.
Mr. Chair, the amendment is noncontroversial, and I am not opposed to it.
The gentlewoman should know that Mr. Carter and I, and our entire subcommittee, have worked for years to
help address the issues that we share your concerns on, particularly privatized military housing. The conditions under which our servicemen and -women and their families live have to be pristine. The response time for those who are responsible for taking care of it needs to be dramatically improved.
We have added funding in this bill at the DOD level to make sure that DOD doesn't have a hands-off policy and just leaves all the decisionmaking to the privatized companies. The DOD has a layer of accountability now, as well.
I thank the gentlewoman for raising the issue because this is important for us to provide good housing and safe roofs over the heads of our servicemembers and their families.
Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.
Mr. Chair, the gentleman's debate on this amendment was spoken like a man who is refusing to acknowledge that the fastest growing group of veterans served by the VA is women.
In March of last year, the VA announced it was updating its 1959 mission statement to read: ``To fulfill President Lincoln's promise to care for those who have served in our Nation's military and for their families, caregivers, and survivors.''
That was a way to make the VA a more inclusive and inviting place and to acknowledge that it is not only men who have served in our military, nor is it only men who are served at the VA.
The VA's previous mission statement read: ``To fulfill President Lincoln's promise `to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan,' by serving and honoring the men and women who are America's veterans.''
The VA is a place where all veterans should feel welcome, included, and cared for. The previous mission statement did not adequately reflect the modern-day veteran population by only honoring men's service.
As I said, today, women are the fastest growing group of veterans. It is about time that they are reflected in the VA's mission statement, and I am pleased that the VA made this important and meaningful change.
What we are doing here now is, again, wasting time debating a poison pill, culture war amendment that was put to bed and excluded in the FY24 conference report. This was language that was removed last year. We are going to have it removed again.
Essentially, what we are doing here is distracting from the fact that the Republican majority has proposed a bill that cuts $6 billion from the VA.
Forgive me if I really think it is disingenuous for the gentleman to suggest that they care more about caring for our veterans when they are cutting $6 billion out of our bill and, instead, focusing on the adaptation of the VA's motto to be more inclusive of the fastest growing group of veterans that are treated at the VA, which is women.
We should be focusing on that funding, actually meeting the Fiscal Responsibility Act targets, and increasing nondefense discretionary and defense discretionary by 1 percent, which the Republican majority reneges on in this bill, not debating petty partisan riders.
Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. Chair, for the fastest growing group of veterans, our women, who walk into a VA facility and see the VA mission statement displayed on the wall that only refers to men who served is outrageous. That is not inclusive, and that does not reflect or recognize that we have thousands and thousands of women serving in our military.
The VA is supposed to take care of all of those veterans. So I will close, Mr. Chairman, by saying that if people show you who they are, you should believe them. That is why I am opposed to this amendment.
Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.