Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act,

Floor Speech

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Mr. BOOZMAN. I thank the Presiding Officer.

Mr. President, I will be brief. I wanted to come down to the floor. Right now we are in the midst of discussing a very important bill, the Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations act, funding law enforcement. We all know that we are in troubled times, and we are trying to get things sorted out in that regard. So why take 45 minutes to come down and speak on the Senate floor about such an important subject as what is going on in the VA?

Last week the Secretary of the VA decided that he would no longer support the expedited removal authority that we allowed him when we passed the Choice Act. There was a case and the Attorney General decided that she felt like it might be unconstitutional. So the Secretary of the VA took it upon himself to no longer use that authority. The way that I found out, and I think the way the rest of the members of the committee found out, was to read this in the press. The Secretary didn't have the courtesy to contact us and tell us what was going on. He arbitrarily decided it was unconstitutional.

I voted for it. Most of the Members in this body voted it. Most of the Members of the House of Representatives voted for it. If I thought it was unconstitutional, I certainly would not have voted for it-- again, acknowledging the duties of being a U.S. Senator.

We passed it overwhelmingly and, as my colleague from Alaska has commented, the Secretary has set dangerous precedent by simply ignoring it.

He went on to say on Monday that the accountability procedures we have had in place are working fine. If that is true, then why has the VA chronically had an issue with lackluster and negligent employees? He was very supportive of this authority until this case came up. In light of the VA's decision last week, it is even more imperative that this body move to pass the Veterans First Act, which will significantly improve accountability at the VA. This was a bipartisan, comprehensive initiative.

The American Legion said: ``This legislation will shorten the grievance process, make it easier to dismiss VA officials that breach the trust of the veterans that they are supposed to serve.''

For those of us on the committee, my only concern is that the Secretary at some point will decide this is unconstitutional and do his own thing.

Again, this is such an important issue. It is something that the committee is working so hard on, but it is wrong. We have a situation now where we have employees who we know have abused their power.

On the other hand, the vast majority of the people of the VA--the vast, vast majority--are hard-working and do a tremendous job. I am so proud of the VAs that I have in Arkansas, our facility in Little Rock, our facility in Fayetteville. There are no finer hospitals in the country.

On the other hand, when people act up and they don't do what they are supposed to, we need to hold them accountable. We certainly need a Secretary of the VA who is more concerned about veterans than he is about labor issues.

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