---

The Speaker pro tempore: Pursuant to the order of the House of today and rule XVIII, the Chair declares the House in the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union for the consideration of the bill, H.R. 2642.

In the Committee of the Whole

Accordingly, the House resolved itself into the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union for the consideration of the bill (H.R. 2642) making appropriations for military construction, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2008, and for other purposes, with Mr. Lynch in the chair.

The Clerk read the title of the bill.

The Chairman: Pursuant to the order of the House of today, the bill is considered read the first time.

The gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards) and the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Wicker) each will control 30 minutes.

The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. Edwards: Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, we now have before us the fiscal year 2008 Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations bill which will ensure the largest increase in VA health care spending in the 77-year history of the Veterans Affairs. There is $6 billion over the 2007 level of funding, and $3.8 billion over the President's request for 2008.

Mr. Chairman, this bill sends a clear message to America's servicemen and -women, their families and our veterans that a grateful Nation deeply respects their service and sacrifice.

The national commander of the Disabled American Veterans, Bradley Barton, went to the heart of what this bill is all about when he described it as "keeping faith with America's veterans."

The bill means our servicemen and -women will have more effective training facilities which will save lives and help them carry out their military missions. It means our military families, who sacrifice so much for our Nation, will have better housing, health care and day-care facilities.

This bill means we will honor our veterans in a meaningful way by providing them the health care and benefits we promised them when they put on our Nation's uniform.

It means we will have more qualified doctors and nurses to improve medical services to our veterans and to reduce waiting times for doctors' appointments. For veterans with traumatic brain injury, PTSD, mental health care issues and lost limbs, it means renewed hope to rebuild their lives.

For homeless veterans, it means the dignity of not having to live on the streets, and it means hope for the future. For veterans in rural areas and those who serve in the Guard and Reserves, this bill means needed care will be closer to home. For the 400,000 veterans, including combat wounded vets, who are having to wait far too long to have their benefits cases reviewed, it means over 11,000 new VA case workers to reduce the unacceptable delays in receiving earned benefits.

Mr. Chairman, before I mention some of the details of this bill, I want to express some much-deserved thanks. I want to begin with Chairman Dave Obey, the gentleman from Wisconsin, for his unwavering commitment and strong leadership in seeing that America's veterans will receive a much-deserved historic increase in VA health care funding.

Our subcommittee's work simply would not have been possible had it not been for Chairman Obey's personal and strong leadership.

Second, Speaker Pelosi made it clear from day one this year that keeping our promises to veterans would be the highest of priorities in this Congress. By working with Chairman Obey, along with Budget Committee chairman John Spratt and VA chairman, Mr. Filner, the Speaker made good on her word and millions of veterans will be the beneficiaries.

I want to extend a very personal, special salute and expression of thanks and gratitude to our subcommittee's ranking member, Mr. Wicker of Mississippi. He, a veteran, has had valuable input into this bill and has been a vital part of making this historic day for our veterans a reality. His leadership has been instrumental in crafting this legislation.

His ideas and strong support for our veterans our troops and their families have made this a much better bill, and at every step he and I have worked hard to continue a long, bipartisan tradition of working in behalf of our troops and our veterans, a tradition for which we have great respect.

Last, but certainly not least, is the professional, dedicated staff I want to thank, a staff that has worked together on a bipartisan basis to do what is right for our veterans and troops. I believe they deserve our thanks by name: Carol Murphy, Tim Peterson, Walter Hearne, Donna Shabaz, Mary Arnold, Liz Dawson, Dena Baron, Jamie Swafford, as well as John Conger from my staff and Susan Sweat from Mr. Wicker's office. They're a first-class team, and it's a privilege to work with them.

Let me mention a few specifics about the bill. Overall, the bill totals $64.7 billion in discretionary spending. As I said, but it bears reemphasizing, it provides the largest increase in VA health care funding in the 77-year history of the Veterans Administration, $6 billion more than fiscal year 2007.

For the first time in the 21-year history of the veterans independent budget, which is developed by AMVETS, the Disabled American Veterans, the Paralyzed Veterans of America and the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and supported by 52 other veterans and military organizations, this bill meets and actually even exceeds that independent budget request.

The Veterans Health Administration, which includes medical services, medical administration, medical facilities and medical research is funded at $37.1 billion, $2.5 billion more than the President's request and $294 million above the veterans independent budget.

Compared to the administration's request, this bill provides a number of increases: $604 million more for new initiatives in the area of mental health, including PTSD and for traumatic brain injury; $71 million more for veterans substance abuse programs; $23 million more to provide shelter for an additional 2,300 homeless veterans; $12.5 million more to expand outpatient rehabilitation services for the blind; $508 million more for medical facilities maintenance. That might not sound important to some. Its goal is to see that we never have a Walter Reed Annex 18 tragedy, like occurred in the Department of Defense health care system, happen in the VA health care system.

We also provide a minimum of $15 million for joint programs with DOD to improve access to care, to ensure a more seamless transition for veterans going from the Department of Defense into the Veterans Administration system.

Mr. Chairman, the subcommittee heard from many sources about the need for more VA medical research, particularly in the areas of greatest impact for our Afghan and Iraq War veterans, research such as traumatic brain injury and mental health. That is why we significantly increased the VA research budget for the first time in the last 10 years.

The subcommittee also heard from many who talked about the need to increase funding for extended care facilities for elderly and severely disabled veterans. So we took action on a bipartisan basis, more than doubled the programs to allow four new facilities to be built, as well as to address all currently identified life/safety needs at those facilities.

Let me be clear, Mr. Chairman, along with this historic level of increased funding, we intend to increase the subcommittee's bipartisan oversight of these taxpayer funded programs. Oversight is absolutely essential to ensure that the VA spends the money wisely and for the highest priority needs of our vets.

That's why this bill includes funding for the Office of Inspector General to hire 50 additional people. And it includes $5 million to establish a toll-free telephone number and Web-page-based link that makes it easier for veterans to provide feedback on the quality of their health care. We want veterans receiving health care to be part of the system of checks and balances to improve the already first-class medical care veterans across America are receiving.

On the military construction side of this bill, the bill also strongly supports our active duty, Guard and Reserve servicemen and women and their families. The bill provides $21.4 billion in military construction, family housing, and the Base Realignment and Closing program funding. This is $207 million above the President's request and $5.1 billion above fiscal year 2007.

This total funding level is unprecedented, largely due to three factors: BRAC, the proposal to increase the size of the Army and the Marine Corps, and the rebasing of troops from Germany and South Korea back to the United States.

We fully fund the President's request for BRAC at $8.2 billion. We've also increased the subcommittee's oversight of the MILCON funding with new reprogramming and notification requirements, especially in the area of BRAC funding. We want to work together on a bipartisan basis to see that our military construction dollars go to the highest priority needs.

The bottom line in this bill is it honors the promises made to our troops, our veterans and their families with the health care and benefits they earned when they put on our Nation's uniform.

Military Construction And Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act Tables (graphics files)

• Itemized List
  1. Congressional Records: Page H62521 (63kb png)
  2. Congressional Records: Page H62522 (68kb png)
  3. Congressional Records: Page H62523 (58kb png)
• Congressional Budget Recap
  1. Congressional Records: Page H62524 (28kb png)
  2. Congressional Records: Page H62525 (32kb png)

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

Mr. Wicker: Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to begin the debate by thanking Chairman Edwards for all the hard work he's put into preparing this legislation. I congratulate him on his first bill as chairman of Military Construction-VA, and I appreciate his kind words made just a few moments ago. Mr. Edwards has continued the excellent bipartisan relationship that this subcommittee has enjoyed for years. The chairman held many, many hearings this spring, perhaps more hearings on the VA accounts than any previous subcommittee with jurisdiction over this issue.

Mr. Edwards has previously thanked our staff for their diligent work to prepare this bill and has mentioned them by name. I will thank them once again by name. They include Liz Dawson, Dena Baron, Jamie Swafford and Susan Sweat on the minority staff, and Carol Murphy, Walter Hearne, Tim Peterson, Donna Shabaz, Mary Arnold and John Conger on the majority staff. They have worked very hard on this measure, but their work is just beginning.

As most of us know by now, there's much left to do in conference on this bill. For the first time in the history of the subcommittee, for the first time since 1958, the military construction portion contains no specific recommendation for projects. While I remain disappointed that no projects were included in this appropriation, I am pleased that last night we reached an agreement that will restore the transparency and openness begun by the Republican majority in the last Congress with regard to earmarks in the remaining appropriations bills.

I want to make sure my colleagues understand that there is very little to the military construction portion of this bill. Unlike some appropriations bills, such as the Homeland bill we passed earlier today which include funding for specific agencies, offices and programs in addition to projects, the MILCON appropriation consists almost entirely of projects.

Pursuant to yesterday's agreement, specific detailed funding amounts for the following programs will have to wait until conference: Base Realignment and Closure needs; initiatives to restation 70,000 troops and their families from Europe and Korea to the United States; projects necessary for increasing the active duty Army by 65,000 and the Marine Corps by 27,000; relocating Marines from Okinawa to Japan; consolidating U.S. forces south of Seoul, South Korea; establishing enduring bases in Afghanistan and Djibouti; new runways, control towers, National Guard readiness centers, and projects in the Middle East or Afghanistan where we have soldiers in harm's way. All of these specific details will have to wait until conference, Mr. Chairman.

In addition, we know that quality-of-life issues are a priority for our military; yet, no specific initiatives such as modernization of unaccompanied housing, construction of new medical facilities or much- needed child development centers, which we continuously heard in our hearings was the primary quality-of-life issue for our soldiers and their families, none of these are included in this bill.

Specific projects and earmarks will no doubt be included in the Senate version of this bill, and I hope Chairman Edwards and Chairman Obey will work with Mr. Lewis and me to make sure that House Members' initiatives will receive equal consideration at the conference level and are not disadvantaged by our airdropping of these projects into the conference. I would point out that the bill is different from other appropriations bills in that military construction projects have an added layer of examination, having already undergone scrutiny by the Department of Defense.

It is my hope that our colleagues will not offer amendments today that may decrease the military construction accounts. Though this bill today does not detail how these accounts will be used, the accounts will provide for many important military projects that our troops need.

Now, with regard to the VA portions of the bill, the VA is receiving the largest increase in the Department's history, an increase of $6.7 billion over the last fiscal year level. All of us in this body are deeply grateful for the sacrifices and service our veterans have provided this Nation, and this generous increase is appreciated by Members on both sides of the aisle. We do have concerns about the VA's ability to absorb so large a funding increase in one fiscal year. We are determined to work with VA officials in this effort as part of our oversight responsibilities.

The bulk of the increase is going to boost medical services, medical facilities and construction for the VA. The bill increases the VA's discretionary funding by more than 18 percent over the fiscal year 2007 level. It is important to remember that the increase in this bill is in addition to the $1.8 billion this Congress just provided to the VA in the supplemental. When considered together, the supplemental funding and the funding in this bill amount to a 23 percent increase for the Department of Veterans Affairs' discretionary accounts.

Chairman Edwards has indicated that we will be conducting oversight hearings later in the year, and I'm glad to know that. Hearings will be needed to ensure that the funding we have provided actually gets to the veterans and does not languish in an administrative account. Mr. Chairman, we all want to make sure our veterans receive the care they deserve, but we will have to be diligent in our oversight in order to get this funding where it is intended, to our veterans.

The President has indicated he will sign this bill even though it exceeds his budget request by some $4 billion. However, he has stated that offsets for these increases should be found in other appropriations bills. I agree with him, and I call upon my colleagues across the aisle to work with us and find these savings elsewhere.

I think it is important to point out that, though we have some concerns on our side of the aisle about the feasibility for this large 1-year increase, it has been in large part Republicans that have a track record of meeting veterans' needs. During the period of Republican majority from 1995 to 2007, VA funding increased by 96 percent from $38.2 billion to $74.5 billion. I would point out that in the final decade of the last Democratic majority, veterans funding increased by less than half as much, about 42 percent, Mr. Chairman.

Similarly, Republicans led the way to increase spending per veteran by over $1,800 when we held the majority, while the Democrats managed to increase per-veteran spending by $411 during a similar period of their majority. It was also a Republican Congress that passed the Veterans Health Care Eligibility Reform Act of 1996, which expanded eligibility for millions more veterans to access VA health care.

I point out these things to make sure my colleagues understand the historical record on veterans' issues. And in truth, Mr. Chairman, funding for our veterans has always been a bipartisan issue.

I support the bill on the floor today. It continues in the bipartisan tradition. It's not a perfect bill in my opinion, but our subcommittee has a good work product, and I'm proud of the combined efforts of Republicans and Democrats to continue the longstanding tradition of support and commitment for the men and women who have served our great country.

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

Mr. Edwards: Mr. Chairman, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, absolutely the vital leader to see that we have this historic increase for veterans health care in this budget today.

Mr. Obey: I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Chairman, as we all know, we have been mired in a god-awful war in Iraq for almost 5 years. What bothers me most about it, except for the deaths that occur on a daily basis, what bothers me most about it is that there is virtually no sense of shared sacrifice in this country in dealing with that war.

The only people who are being asked to sacrifice are military families, and they are being asked to sacrifice again and again and again. They are being sent back to Iraq and to Afghanistan again, again, and again. Not much sacrifice is being asked of anybody else.

We hear politicians prattle about the need to stand behind the troops. You betcha, we certainly should.

But we need to stand behind the troops not just when the bands are playing. We need to stand by those troops when they come home, and they are injured, and they are sick, or they may have lost their job, or they may have lost their spouse; and that's what this bill tries to do.

I think we need to put in context how we got here. It has been a struggle to see to it that we have adequate funding in veterans medical care programs.

Two years ago, on this side of the aisle, we were given information from people within the Veterans Administration that their veterans health care budget was going to fall $2 billion short. We tried to put that money in the budget. We were then in the minority. We were blocked by the majority then, except for one fellow. The Republican chairman of the Veterans' Committee sided with us, he agreed with us that we needed that $2 billion in additional money.

What happened to him? Not only did the then-majority party leadership fire him as chairman, they took him completely off the committee because he told the truth. We finally got that money, but we had to get a double hernia to finally pry that money out of the administration.

Then we had, as you know, the budget process collapse last year, and no domestic appropriation bills were passed by the then-majority party. In fact, this very bill, the Military Construction bill, was held up in the Senate by two Members of the Republican Party who put a hold on it because they didn't like certain earmarks that were on the bill.

So the bill never passed. When we took the majority, the very first thing we did was to make veterans health care a number one priority, and we added over $4 billion to that account, made it the number one priority. Then we added additional funding of over $3 billion in the Iraqi supplemental, and now we have added this money today to make this the largest increase for veterans health care in the history of the country.

When we did that, the White House announced it was going to veto the bill. Now, finally, they have had a St. Paul conversion on the road to Damascus. I welcome the White House on board the bandwagon.

But as Golda Meir said to Anwar Sadat when he finally came to Jerusalem a long time ago: "What took you so long?" I am glad the President has finally changed his view.

But the President continues to say, "Well, now, I may not veto the bill, but you have got to have offsets. You have to find compensating savings."

Why do we single veterans out for that requirement? There were no offsets that the President required when he decided that this year we were going to spend $57 billion to provide tax cuts to people who make over $1 million a year and pay for it all with borrowed money. No offsets around then. Do you see them? I don't see any offsets in sight for that.

So what do we get? Finally, we get grudging acceptance from the White House that after they stuck us in this miserable war, and after they sit there with no clue about how to get out, at least they are now grudgingly going to recognize that we need the funds in this bill to deal with veterans medical care.

This bill ought to pass unanimously. It is far past the time that we put our votes where our mouths are in terms of long-term funding for veterans health care. I am proud of the fact that I provided the allocation to the subcommittee so that they could do that.

We are taking funding from $49.7 billion last year to $64 billion this year. Now, green eyeshade people may say, "Oh, that's too much." You know what? In my view, nothing is too much for people who have risked everything on behalf of this country. Finally, over the last 2 years, we have been able to get funding up to begin to meet our obligations in this area.

I want to congratulate the gentleman from Texas for helping to lead the way, and I want to express my appreciation to people on both sides of the aisle who stood up for veterans when it was tough, including Mr. Smith of New Jersey, the former Republican chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, who paid a high price for his dedication to the needs of veterans, who paid a high price for putting truth ahead of the partisan wishes of the Bush administration.

Mr. Wicker: Mr. Chairman, I yield to my friend from Indiana, the former chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, Mr. Buyer, for as much time as he may consume.

Mr. Buyer: Mr. Chairman, I was sitting here, and I enjoyed the comments of the Chair of the subcommittee, Mr. Edwards, and the comments of Mr. Wicker, and then I was disturbed by the comments of Mr. Obey.

Mr. Chairman, what I would say is he didn't go back far enough. I came here in 1992, and I heard the horror stories of what was occurring in the Appropriations Committee of how individuals would cut veterans programs to fund WIC and other programs. I was deeply disturbed by that.

Then I would watch as the Clinton years would flatten VA spending. I guess the gentleman forgot about that too.

I want to associate myself with Mr. Edwards' comments and Mr. Wicker's comments because this is a bipartisan issue, and I am deeply disturbed about Mr. Obey's comments to try to rewrite history here. Some of the language, inflammatory language, that he used is deeply disturbing to me.

Now, if the gentleman wants to talk about his issues and how he feels about the war, that's one thing; but don't allow those emotions to bleed into how we care for America's veterans. That bothers me.

We talk about how we got here. I recall the movie "Born on the 4th of July." What did they depict in the movie "Born on the 4th of July"? They depicted a VA system which bothered many people here in Congress. It was then Ken Keyser who worked for the Clinton administration who then thought that the best way we could improve our VA system is to move more people into the system. They set forth the priorities, but then they opened the system to the nondisabled systems.

When we opened that, we didn't really prepare the system for the number of veterans that came into the system. When I looked back here over the last 6 years, my gosh, we have almost doubled the veterans budget.

We also, as we are coping with dealing with the influx of veterans based on eligibility reform, I almost feel like, on the Veterans' Affairs Committee on a bipartisan basis, we are mechanics looking at different subsets of systems within the VA that need a tremendous amount of work.

It's easy for us to always talk about the health side, but there is such a strong disability backlog too. If it were just money, if we could just throw money on it, and that's what would solve it, Mr. Edwards, if that's what you could put in the budget, it would be solved. The reality is that's not what's going to solve it. What's going to solve it will be management practices and accountability. If we don't have that, it's not going to be solved.

The chairman of the committee is now on the floor. When he held a roundtable discussion, he learned that they were giving exams to those who are the case workers out there. When you get only 23 and 27 percent pass rate by the individuals who are actually working on these disability claims, I would say we've got a problem and we have to work cooperatively on those problems.

I want to thank the new majority. I want thank the new majority because you are different from the old majority.

The old majority, when I came here a freshman, and I was in the minority, because that old majority did things a little differently, and those weren't good budgets on behalf of veterans. But when you came now in the new majority, Mr. Edwards, I congratulate you, because you have done what you said you were going to do. I want to personally thank you for that.

But I just want you to know this, Mr. Edwards, there is much work for all of us, because it's not going to be just money alone.

When Mr. Obey brought up the issue about the funding shortfall, what I did is I went in and I began to examine the finance modeling and found the errors in the inputs in the stale data in the model, and that's how we made the corrections. So even though we put in the $1.5 billion, we only spent a third of that, and the other went for carryover.

So there's going to be a lot of management issues, and there's going to be a lot of oversight that we going to have to continue to do. But as a baseline, let me congratulate you, Mr. Edwards and Mr. Wicker, on a very good bill.