Military Sexual Assault Victims Empowerment Act

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of high-quality, accessible treatment options for survivors of military sexual trauma. I want to thank the gentleman. His concern is exactly in the right place. It is focusing our attention on this issue.

There are some things in the bill, though, that I would like to point out, and these concerns have been shared by some of the veterans service organizations. I do this in the spirit of the gentleman is exactly right on what needs to be done.

This is about a process of trying to improve upon a piece of language. The VA was unable to submit views on this bill because of timing on how it was brought up. For this reason, I would like to read just a few quotes from a statement the VA submitted on this bill to reflect the concerns shared by our staff and the VSO community.

These are VA quotes:

``Aspects of the bill could jeopardize patient safety and well-being and create the ethically problematic situation of VA condoning and supporting a substandard level of care for program participants.''

``It is possible some veterans would even choose to leave VA care entirely to avoid the study.''

While I certainly appreciate the effort, I am of the belief that this study could misallocate VA's limited resources to define a problem to which the RAND Corporation and the National Academy of Sciences have already offered potential solutions.

I am supporting today's amendment in the nature of a substitute but warning against future efforts to erode the high quality of care that VA is providing.

In order to better reflect VA's position on improving access to military sexual trauma, I am excited to work with our VSO partners on legislation that would implement some of the recommendations made in previous assessments and increase access to high-quality care.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues across the aisle to join us in drafting legislation that continues to heal military sexual trauma victims.

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Mr. WALZ. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman's commitment to this issue. I appreciate the work that has been spent to continue to evolve to get this right, because I do think there is, obviously, no disagreement in the scourge and the horrific crimes committed against servicemembers that we must deal with and the treatment of those victims afterwards. With that, I encourage my colleagues to support this piece of legislation.

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