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

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. MORAN. Mr. President, I am here to speak on the FAA reauthorization and several things and stories that have arisen in the last few days which are very discouraging to me and troublesome to a cause I care a lot about.

I am an advocate for general aviation, and I was pleased the Senate was able to pass the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2016 by a vote of 95 to 3--95 to 3, this Senate approved legislation reauthorizing the FAA for the next 18 months. It is an unusual occurrence around here when anything passes 95 to 3.

I also would indicate our committee voted--I am a member of the Commerce Committee--unanimously to report that bill to the Senate in a favorable recommendation, again demonstrating overwhelmingly bipartisan support in regard to this aviation legislation.

Kansas is an aviation State. Wichita and South Central Kansas are known as the significant provider of airplanes--general aviation airplanes and parts. We have lots of subcontractors in that process. We are also a rural State. In fact, Wichita is known as the air capital of the world. In addition to the manufacturing sector, which is so important to our State's economy, so important to our ability to compete globally, we are a rural State, and airplanes and airports matter to us greatly.

So while we care a lot about the manufacturing of general aviation airplanes, we also care a lot about airports and their ability to take care of flights coming in and out of small communities across our State and certainly across the country. That general aviation airport is a connection to the rest of the world, and it allows for medical expertise to be flown into a community in lifesaving efforts, but just on a more day-to-day basis, it allows for us to have access to customers, to suppliers, to clients because we have manufacturing and other businesses in rural communities across Kansas whose connection with their customer base and suppliers is through that airport. In the absence of general aviation manufacturing, our State suffers greatly, but in the absence of general aviation airports, our State would suffer greatly as well.

What I am worried about is the House has not acted in any positive way on the passage of this bill, and the deadline of July 15 is rapidly approaching. If the House does not take up the Senate-passed version, what that would mean is the expectation--in fact, the stated circumstance is the House would pass a short-term extension of the current FAA legislation and leave the Senate bill hanging.

Many of the folks in this Senate who have served longer than I have would recognize the history of this issue, where one extension after another was required because consensus was never developed, and the leadership was not provided to resolve the differences over the years on FAA reauthorization. The point I wish to make by being on the Senate floor and expressing my views to my colleagues is, do not allow us to get into this position again where we would have a series of extensions of the FAA legislation.

We need the House to act on the Senate bill that is pending in their committee, that is pending on the House side, and differences need to be resolved. At the moment, the House has not passed an FAA reauthorization bill. Time is short. On July 15, the current law expires. My plea to my colleagues in the House, where I formerly served, is to take up the Senate bill, address the issues you want as Members of the House, representing your constituency, and send the bill back to us so we can conference this issue and have a more long-term reauthorization bill.

Certainty matters. Certainty matters to the manufacturers in Kansas. Certainty matters to the airports and the pilots who utilize those airports. Do not allow us, once more, to be in this circumstance of an extension one time after another and the uncertainty that provides.

It is my view that it would be a shame if the important reforms included in the bill the Senate approved in such an overwhelming fashion were held up by the House, in large part because of a significant controversial proposal to privatize the national air traffic control system. It sharply divides Congress. Everything I have read publicly and everything I have heard from my friends and colleagues, former colleagues in the House, is that there are not the necessary votes present to pass that provision in the House. From my own experience in the Senate, those votes don't exist in the Senate Commerce Committee and they do not exist on the Senate floor.

So let's not tie up this bill over a proposal that does not have the votes to pass, and let's not lose the opportunity to take advantage of the reforms that were included in the Senate FAA reauthorization bill. We should not consider what would be called a clean extension of the FAA, when the authorization under our bill is the same length. The House is talking about sending us an 18-month extension. The Senate bill, as passed, is an 18-month extension. What would be missing are reforms we have worked so hard to include after significant amounts of testimony, after a number of hearings and conversations within the Commerce Committee to make certain we were doing good work. Don't let that opportunity pass us by.

So my point in having this, in this case, monologue--hopefully a dialogue with my colleagues on the Senate floor--is, first of all, to make sure we stand firm. I am a Senator who would be opposed to a short-term, even 18-month extension, if it does not include the broad array of things the Senate has included in our bill.

My message to my House colleagues and friends is this: Don't bog this process down in a way that makes it impossible for us to pass the reauthorization legislation to begin with. These are important issues that we ought not let be sidetracked by a proposal that remains dubious, and with great concern is considered by Members of Congress. As I said earlier, every indication that I know and see is that this proposal would not receive support in the Senate or even in the House.

So my request once again to the House of Representatives is this: Please take up the Senate bill and work your will in that bill but send us something more than just a short-term extension that doesn't include the important and necessary reforms and improvements that the Senate- passed bill does.

Mr. President, I appreciate the opportunity to have a conversation about this topic.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. MORAN. Mr. President, a number of my colleagues--both Republican and Democratic--from the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee were on the floor just a few moments ago, and I wish to join them in expressing genuine concern about continued developments at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Many of us remember the tremendous circumstances our veterans found themselves in at hospitals across the country, with long waiting lines, with lists that were inappropriate and didn't really exist--I suppose in an effort to camouflage the delay veterans were experiencing across the country. At the same time, to demonstrate that veterans were being cared for, the VA wanted to show that things were fine, and yet we saw that was not the case.

Unfortunately, those headlines continue about the Department of Veterans Affairs. For years, we have heard reports of long wait lines, privacy issues, and failure to remove employees whose actions endanger the health and safety of our veterans. Many of us have worked to try to give the leadership of the Department of Veterans Affairs greater authority to discipline and to discharge wrongdoers who are at the Department of Veterans Affairs. Generally, my focus has been on the upper echelon leadership of the Department of Veterans Affairs, generally considered to be the top 400 executives at the VA. I am always nervous about the issue of employees and staff who are actually providing care for our veterans in the hospital. I don't want them to be a scapegoat for problems at the hospital when I think the most serious challenge the VA faces is its leadership.

Those stories are continuing, and we keep waiting for accountability to occur. It has been something the current Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs has said he cares greatly about, but even when it comes to the circumstances we found, particularly at the VA hospital in Phoenix, we still have yet to see disciplinary action take place. It is too long. It is 2 years. It seems to me 2 years is too long to see any real concrete effort to discharge those who wrongfully use their position and fail to provide the necessary care and treatment for veterans.

In a ``60 Minutes'' interview back in November of 2014, which I happened to watch, the Secretary of the Department referred to a report generated in 2014 that listed more than 1,000 VA employees who should be removed from the VA for violations: ``people who violated our values . . . its integrity, its advocacy, its respect, its excellence.'' He also described, with multiple news outlets, that he would be taking ``aggressive, expeditious, disciplinary action'' to address the wrongdoers who violated VA values.

It was made abundantly clear that Congress needed to give him the necessary tools to discipline VA employees because he was ``hamstrung'' by the current process with the Merit Systems Protection Board and the appeals process. Congress did that. While we may not remember the provisions of the Choice Act--because it was known for the efforts to provide veterans across the country who live long distances from a VA facility or who can't get the services they need within 30 days from the VA, it gave them hometown local options. That is what this Choice Act was known for, but the Choice Act also included important accountability provisions. The Secretary has those provisions now with the passage of the Choice Act that occurred in August of 2014. Those authorities seemingly are the ones the Secretary has been reluctant to use. We have complained about the reluctance at the VA to use those authorities and to discipline members of the leadership, employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs, but now we just learned, as my colleagues earlier indicated, that the leadership of the VA refuses to use the authorities at all. So it is not just a reluctance. It is now an admission that we are not going to use them.

As disappointed as I am, as a Member of Congress--as my colleagues are who spoke earlier in this VA decision, our frustration has to be nothing--nothing--compared to what our Nation's veterans experience in their dissatisfaction with a VA that declines to hold accountable those who work in leadership positions. We ought to be honoring their service. What Department would we expect to care for, to treat, to love and show compassion for more than our Department of Veterans Affairs? Whom would we expect to receive that kind of noble treatment? It would be those who serve us in our military. Americans--both veterans and nonveterans--are waiting for the VA to step up and do what is right by removing those who have no place within the VA system.

I also would say, as I talk to employees of the Department of Veterans Affairs--those who actually work in the hospitals, provide the benefits, man the computers--they are dissatisfied too. They want to see change at the VA. So many employees are looking for leadership at the VA that holds accountable those in leadership who have failed to bring about the necessary change, and to have that necessary change takes discipline of those who are wrongdoers.

I want to make certain people understand this is not an attack on those who work at the VA. They, too, want a VA system they can be proud to work for. I acknowledge and pay my respect and regard to the many, many, many employees of the Department who work every day to make certain that good things happen and that care is provided for those who served our Nation.

It seems to me, it is unfortunate the VA blames everybody but themselves for the problems at the VA. In fact, earlier this year, a couple months ago, April of 2016, the Secretary indicated that the fault--the inability to fix these problems--lies with Congress for not giving the VA enough money. He said budgetary failure led to the crisis. We have worked hard to make certain--in fact, I have indicated that if you can show a demonstrated need for more money at the Department of Veterans Affairs to take care of those who served our country, I am one who will vote for that. No one asked those who served our country about what it was going to cost to go to war. We ought not be unwilling to pay the price for those who did go to war on our behalf.

I would say the VA's problems are not budgetary. President Obama himself stated that the VA is the most funded agency across the Federal Government, with an increase of more than 80 percent in resources since 2009. I remember reading this quote. The President said that the most resourced agency in his administration, in his time in office, was the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The blame for the VA's inadequacies have nothing to do with the demand or insufficient funds but the management and lack of leadership. In fact, according to the VA's own data, veterans are waiting 50 percent longer to receive health care services than they were in 2014 when we realized the crisis existed. At the height of the crisis, we had a waiting list. That waiting list is now 50 percent longer than it was at that time. It has become clear that the VA seemingly is more concerned with protecting those who work there within their ranks and the leadership than protecting the veteran who has sacrificed so much for our Nation. The VA was created to serve veterans, not to serve the VA.

In that process of the conversation that took place earlier, they were advocating for legislation that is pending before the Senate called the Veterans First Act that was passed by our Committee on Veterans' Affairs weeks ago, and they believe that legislation will give the Secretary even additional authorities. That is true.

The Senator from Connecticut, Mr. Blumenthal, the ranking member of the committee, and I worked to include in the Veterans First Act a number of accountability provisions to try to fix the VA at the root of its problem at the top.

So while I agree with the desire to see the Veterans First Act passed into law and while I agree that it will give the Secretary and others at the Department of Veterans Affairs more authority to hold accountable bad actors at the VA, I think what we really need to make certain happens is that the Secretary and the leadership of the Department of Veterans Affairs use the authority they already had provided them by Congress in August of 2014 to hold people accountable.

If actions this week tell us anything, we must push the VA to use the authorities they already have, and we would have cause, reason to be skeptical that even giving them greater authorities would result in a better outcome.

Our Nation's veterans deserve better, and they deserve a VA in which those who do wrong pay a consequence for that bad behavior.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source