Steve Buyer

I thank the gentleman. Let me also thank Ike Skelton, who came to this compromise and led that back in 1993, when I was a freshman right out of Desert Storm, came here to the Congress and began to learn about compromise.

Something that's being thrown around here today that those of us who have service in the military understand, combat effectiveness is measured by small unit cohesion. It is measured by your buddy to your left and to your right. That's the reality. This Congress is about to dump a policy onto the services which the service chiefs have already told us can have a detrimental impact upon our warriors in harm's way. Why are we doing this? This is discrimination.

The Supreme Court allows Congress to discriminate on how our services are put together--if you're too tall, if you're too heavy, if you don't run fast enough, if you can't do the pushups, if you're color blind. There's a whole array. Why do we do that? Because we want the very best able and fit to do what? To go fight and defend America.

I end with this: Tolerance does not require a moral equivalency. Think about it. This is a bad thing to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

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

I rise in reluctant support of Senate bill 3860, as amended, which would require reports on the management of Arlington National Cemetery. The reason I say reluctant support is the Veterans' Affairs Committee itself, really

we didn't take up the issues on Arlington, and we allowed the Senate and the House Armed Services Committee to do their work, but the House Veterans' Affairs Committee, we did not do ours. And so this is very unfortunate that we're proceeding with this bill in a lame duck session when we have not even held hearings ourselves on this issue. So I cannot speak from firsthand, other than my conversations with the Secretary of the Army myself, but the committee did not hold hearings on this piece of legislation at all.

Since the founding of Arlington in June of 1864, the cemetery has been revered as the ``crown jewel'' of the national cemetery system. It is the final resting place of several American Presidents, Supreme Court justices, and over 300,000 veterans and their families. Like most Americans, I was deeply disturbed and appalled by revelations by the Department of Army Inspector General's report regarding the mismanagement and possible criminal behavior at Arlington.

I do want to praise Secretary of the Army John McHugh for his swift action in response to this report, also for his following up on the recommendations of Secretary Geren's request for the investigation. So, once again, I extend my compliments to my good friend, the Secretary of the Army, John McHugh.

Secretary McHugh has installed a new management team that is reaching out to the National Cemetery Administration at the VA for their help in implementing the needed changes to defend Arlington's reputation and ensure that the cemetery operations are conducted in a way that honors our warriors who have given so much in the defense of our Nation.

No family should ever have to wonder if their loved one is accounted for or buried in a proper location. They should assume that all has been done correctly. Our heroes and their families deserve the highest possible standards with regard to burial honors, and this bill seeks to prove this assurance.

This bill, as amended, requires several reports on the new management team's progress to improve Arlington's IT systems, the contracting practices, organizational structure, and report on the feasibility of transferring the operation of Arlington from the Department of the Army to the VA's National Cemetery Administration. While additional reports will be beneficial, I believe it is important to first allow the Army to complete its ongoing investigations of these same issues. Different studies on overlapping issues can provide unique insights; however, providing these simultaneous investigations, performed by different agencies, might also create unnecessary hindrances to the ongoing studies.

Also, with regard to the final provisions on the feasibility of transferring the operation of Arlington National Cemetery to the VA National Cemetery Administration, I want to offer my recommendation that Arlington National Cemetery remain under the jurisdiction of the United States Army. It is hasty to assume that we should immediately just transfer the jurisdiction. It is very important for us to define what, in fact, are the challenges and what are the problems. It is so much like an American: We hear a problem, and we want to run out and create a solution before we totally understand the scope of our challenge. So before we get the cart before the horse, let's not run out there and talk about, Let's immediately transfer.

Now I can assure you that when the Department of Interior was not doing their job, what I believe, correctly, I made a suggestion that we should transfer those cemeteries from the Department of Interior to the VA. I don't have a problem. You can make that a holder out there. You get people to do what they believe are the right things to do, and maybe that is what Senator McCaskill was attempting to do here. So I have to respect her in setting a benchmark to do that, and maybe that is, in fact, what her goal here is, to make sure that everybody does what they are supposed to do.

The VA does an excellent job of administering the National Cemetery Administration. However, ANC imposes a comprehensive array of issues and logistical arrangements that are completely unique and separate from those at the VA that they, in fact, handle. For example, in addition to coordinating approximately 25 military funerals per day, the Army's duties at Arlington, including the responsibility for the horse teams, for the caissons, and guarding the Tomb of the Unknowns, is truly unique. Certainly Arlington National Cemetery can benefit by emulating VA practices that are applicable, and such information sharing is, in fact, underway. But ultimately, Arlington National Cemetery, under the jurisdiction of the United States Army is where it should remain until we can achieve some answers.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, yielding myself such time as I may consume, I do associate myself with the gentleman's comments regarding Chairman Skelton Ike not only being a very dear friend, but I really appreciate him stepping forward with these hearings.

With that, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia, Representative Bob Goodlatte.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I thank the gentleman, Mr. Bob Goodlatte of Virginia, a classmate of mine, and I respect all he has been able to do on the Ag Committee.

I will yield now 3 minutes to another Virginian, Congressman Robert J. Wittman.

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

What I would like to comment on now, Mr. Speaker, really deals with a problem in the House rules that I think needs to be corrected as we go into the next session of Congress. So with regard to jurisdiction, lines of jurisdiction with regard to committees and how bills are assigned through the Parliamentarian, at the direction of the Speaker, I sent a letter to the Speaker dated December 9, 2010.

This Senate bill that came to us, it appears that it invokes the jurisdiction also of the House Armed Services Committee. The Army personnel manage and operate Arlington National Cemetery, and the cemetery is under the jurisdiction of the United States Army. So Chairman Skelton properly moved out and held his hearings in the House Armed Services Committee relative to Arlington. So I can begin to understand why the chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee then allowed the House Armed Services Committee to proceed.

Then when the Senate conducts their hearings, and they did so, the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee passed their bill, and immediately they sent it to us in a lame duck session.

Now, you say, why wouldn't this bill also have either a joint referral or to the Armed Services Committee, or why did it only go to the House Veterans' Affairs Committee?

Well, you go to the House rules. So even though I sent the letter to Madam Speaker Pelosi saying, please invoke jurisdiction of the House Armed Services Committee, the response obviously was ``no'' because here we now are on the House floor doing this bill by a committee who had never done hearings on the bill.

The problem is in the House rules itself. When you turn to the House rules, I think this has got to be an error in the drafting of these rules. Rule X, 2 cites that cemeteries under the United States in which veterans of any war or conflict are or may be buried, whether in the United States, abroad, except cemeteries administered by the Secretary of the VA, it goes to the Veterans' Affairs Committee. This has to be corrected. So, hopefully, when you go into the next Congress, this rule gets corrected so that the cemeteries that are under the jurisdiction of the United States Army, such as the two, Old Soldiers Home and Arlington National Cemetery, that that legislation regarding that jurisdiction rests with the Armed Services Committee. The VA Committee, we have oversight; but with regard to this, it's a jurisdictional question, and it needs to be corrected.

And that's why you have two individuals here managing a bill on the floor that really the House Armed Services Committee, Mr. Speaker, should also be here. But I want all the Members to know that's why this is happening.

I suppose, yes, we can all be very upset with regard to the management and the markings of some of these graves; but those of us who have had the opportunity to go to Arlington and see the job in which the Old Guard perform, it is pretty extraordinary. I was last there on Monday of Thanksgiving week. I joined Lieutenant General John Kelly, his family and hundreds of his friends at the chapel at Fort Myer. We all left the chapel. We proceeded down the windy road, down the hill, led by the Army Band, a platoon of soldiers, horse-drawn caisson that carried the body of John's youngest son, Lieutenant Robert Kelly, killed in Afghanistan.

The wind was crisp. The sky was blue. The oak and maple trees were clutching onto their red, yellow, gold and light-green leaves. Others were slowly drifting to the ground. The sun shined brightly upon them all.

Each grave marker properly and perfectly aligned in columns, in rows and angles, each was offset by rich green grass signifying the etchings in our national book of remembrance. That's my firsthand account of having attended the funeral of Lieutenant Robert Kelly at his burial on Thanksgiving week. That has been replicated since that Monday of Thanksgiving week, and it has been no different than how the Old Guard pays their honor and respect to so many, and it goes back so far in time.

That rich heritage is what causes each one of us to rise when we get so concerned with regard to mismanagement of such a sacred ground.

With that, I'm going to ask all Members to support the legislation.

Committee on Veterans' Affairs,

House of Representatives,

Washington, DC, December 9, 2010.

Hon. Nancy Pelosi,

Speaker of the House, House of Representatives, H232, The

Capitol, Washington, DC.

Dear Madam Speaker, in reviewing S. 3860, as amended, a

bill to require reports on the management of Arlington

National Cemetery, it appears that the bill invokes authority

under the jurisdiction of the House Committee on Armed

Services.

Army personnel manage and operate Arlington National

Cemetery and the cemetery is under the jurisdiction of the

United States Army. Accordingly, as the Ranking Member of the

Committee of jurisdiction, I request that an additional

referral be made to House Committee on Armed Services to

provide for its full consideration of this bill.

It is important that the Committee on Armed Services be

permitted to weigh in on this legislation prior to further

consideration, as that Committee has legislative and

oversight jurisdiction over the Department of the Army, and

held a hearing on management issues at Arlington National

Cemetery on June 30, 2010.

Thank you for your consideration of this matter.

Sincerely,

Steve Buyer,

Ranking Republican Member.

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

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I don't know since when the GI bill all of a sudden became the greatest hallmark of Democrats. It's of both parties, Mr. Chairman.

I rise to express my concerns about the way, once again, we are legislating outside of regular order, leaving undone significant fixes needed to correct known substantive and technical problems with the bill. And this all goes back to the way the GI bill came to us. It came to us as a political instrument, not properly even vetted through the House. It came as a political instrument in a highly Presidential election time.

The House committee was doing its work on modernizing the Montgomery GI bill. Stephanie Herseth and John

Boozman were doing yeoman's work, under the guidance of Chairman Filner, and they were doing everything that they were supposed to do to that bill. Sure enough, they took a bill that was drafted by one staffer who had not been properly vetted in the Senate and sent that bill over to the House without even being vetted here by the House. And then Speaker Pelosi wanted to do that, and it was all about, at that time, jamming John McCain.

Now I voted for that when it came here to the House floor. The reason I did that is I wanted a seat at the table. I wanted to be able to correct problems with the bill. We cited 10 or 11 of the problems that we had with the bill, all of which were ignored.

So what happened? All these inequities, all these poor drafting errors, the challenge that the administration even had with regard to the implementation of the legislation. Oh, once again we'll just do something quickly, with expediency, bypass the House process, ignore regular order, dump it on the administration, and then force them to fix it. And then, if they don't do things according to the timeline for which we foresee, then we'll just beat 'em up. This is like the worst way to legislate.

If you want to do proper governing, you don't worry about winning and losing and who's getting credit, whether a Democrat is getting credit or a Republican is getting credit. You don't think about winning and losing. Good government is about the collective ideas of all people of this House.

So, once again, what are we doing? Here comes a bill, once again, coming from the Senate to us on issues that we haven't even had a chance to pore through. Oh, let's come to the floor. Let's cheerlead. Let's embrace. And you're doing it, once again, in a lame duck session.

Then-Speaker Dennis Hastert, in 2006, when Democrats took over the House, what did Dennis Hastert do? He held a conference and he told Republicans: Respect the will of the American people. We will not legislate our agenda in a lame duck.

What are you doing? You're ignoring the will of the American people and trying to jam everything imaginable that you can before you, quote, lose power. So let's do gays in the military and let's jam everything imaginable you can. Let's do this. You're creating even more inequities in this bill than you think that you're correcting.

In order to understand my concerns: Originally the bill cost nearly $80 billion and was not paid for. We could be headed for a similar situation by passing this bill today without going through regular order.

I received a long list of technical changes from the VA that would have facilitated successful implementation. Unfortunately, the majority continues to block my efforts for these changes. In the end, the House once again will have no say in a major piece of legislation expanding veterans' benefits.

So be careful getting out there and pounding your chest thinking that you've done a lot of great things or that you've had all the input. We have not.

I am concerned about the policy change in this bill that ends living stipend payments to veterans during periods of time between semesters. You had better think about what you are about to vote on. This cut in veterans' benefits will hit veterans and their families hard, especially during the holiday season, since many schools dismiss for the winter break veterans who would receive their living stipend check during that period. I can't think of a worse idea than to cut a veteran benefit during the Christmas and holiday season. All Americans know that the month of December is already a strain on their pocketbook, and to have your paycheck cut during a devastating time period is pretty tough.

My second policy concern deals with the national cap on tuition and fees. Current law allows the VA to pay up to the maximum in-state tuition and fees for each veteran enrolled in an institution of higher learning. This means that each State has a different maximum amount of tuition and fees that the VA is required to pay. While the revised benefit of up to $17,500 a year will be a windfall for most veterans, there are veterans in several States, including Texas, New York, and New Hampshire that will see their tuition and fees payments reduced. Veterans in these States will be forced to pay for this reduction from other sources or from their own pocket.

For example, a veteran who is a junior studying at Baylor University in Texas currently receives roughly $26,000 in tuition and fee payments per year. Under this bill, that veteran would receive only $17,500 in tuition and fee payments for a difference of $8,500 per year; or, $34,000 over a 4-year time period will be cut from their benefit.

This bill should have included a provision to grandfather the current students in these high-cost States so they are not required to make up the difference in tuition, but the Members of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs did not get that change, or any other change, for that matter. By removing these interval payments and excluding a grandfather clause, the drafters of this bill were able to pay for their other enhancements of the bill. However, these enhancements are being done at the expense of some veterans to the benefit of other veterans.

It is one of those things which we are always cautious about, cutting one veteran's benefit to the benefit of some other veteran. If you went out and surveyed the average student veteran, I believe they would oppose improving their own benefit at the expense of one of their comrades.

What is even more disturbing to me is that by rushing this bill through without regular order, the majority and the veterans service organizations who support this move don't seem to have a problem with either of these issues that will hurt some of America's veterans in the name of expediency and of the apparent need to score some kind of point here in the lame duck.

I am surprised that the veterans service organizations have jumped on board in support of this bill despite the fact of its cuts of veterans benefits. I am quite certain they are very uncomfortable with me standing here on the House floor talking about the veterans service organizations' support of the cut in veterans benefits.

In a press release on Tuesday, the commander of the American Legion, Jimmie Foster, stated: ``This is great news. This bill rectifies the inequities and shortcomings of the well-intentioned but incomplete Post-9/11 GI Bill and makes it whole.''

It does not. We create even more inequities and make the matter even worse.

In testimony in July before the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America stated: ``The discussion draft of Senate 3447 will improve the new GI Bill and ensure that all student veterans have access to the most generous investment in veterans education since World War II.''

At the same hearing, the Veterans of Foreign Wars stated: ``Senator Akaka, your legislation addresses every area of concern the VFW has with improving the Post-9/11 GI Bill. We cannot say enough about the noble intent driving this legislation.''

Madam Speaker, I guess we have a few questions for the veterans who are members of these veterans service organizations. Number one, are your Representatives in Washington really standing up for you when they endorse a bill that cuts your living stipend during the holidays?

Please understand what this does. When an individual finishes their fall semester and before they start their spring semester, their benefits are cut. At some schools they might be out 5 weeks, or 3 weeks, or 4 weeks. We are going to cut their stipend during that break between semesters.

The other question is, are they really representing the view of a veteran when they endorse legislation that cuts tuition payments for some veterans by thousands of dollars while trying to benefit a veteran in some other place?

While I am retiring here at the end of this Congress, I am sure that Members of the new majority will want to hold hearings on the shortcomings in the Post-9/11 GI Bill and look for ways to improve the bill early in the next Congress. That way we can further consider the VA's and the committee's concerns, avoid unintended consequences, and do so in a bipartisan manner, and, most importantly, using regular order and making sure everyone participates in the process. That is

the best way for us to govern a country.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

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