Providing for Consideration of Conference Report on H.R. National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019

Floor Speech

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Mr. RUIZ. Mr. Speaker, the military burns their trash, including computers, plastic, and medical waste, in open-air burn pits, creating smoke with toxic chemicals like metals and carcinogens that pose serious health risks to our troops.

Our servicemembers and veterans are developing severely debilitating pulmonary diseases, like pulmonary fibrosis and constrictive bronchiolitis, leaving them oxygen-dependent. And other young veterans are dying from rare cancers in the brain, pancreas, blood cells, and other locations.

I am an emergency medicine physician and a public health expert. In public health and in medicine, it is practice that if there is a high enough suspicion of a harm that causes a severe enough illness, then we need to act on that suspicion, remove the harm, and treat the person.

We can't wait 10 or 20 years for the perfect research study. We must act now. We must do that by simultaneously and immediately addressing these 4 points: First, stop our troops' exposure to dangerous burn pits out in the battlefield.

Second, educate doctors, veterans, and servicemembers to help doctors understand the risks of being exposed to burn pits, and to help veterans and servicemembers understand the early signs of potential serious illness so they can get treatment early.

Third, take care of burn pit exposed veterans and servicemembers at the VA and DOD, and ensure illnesses caused by burn pit exposure are recognized in their claims for disability benefits.

Fourth, do more research that is needed to identify all the different health impacts exposure to burn pits can cause.

The conference report for Fiscal Year 2019 National Defense Authorization Act includes two of my amendments that will help address the first 2 points: Stopping the use of burn pits. And educating veterans and their caregivers about the health risks that could be connected to exposure to burn pits.

My first amendment directs the Department of Defense to conduct a feasibility study on ending the use of dangerous burn pits by using incinerators and other technology.

My second amendment requires the Department of Defense to conduct an annual education and outreach campaign to veterans exposed to burn pits and who are qualified to enroll in the burn pit registry.

The burn pit registry will improve our understanding of the different health effects of exposure to burn pits and help our ability to communicate with veterans and increase their awareness of subtle changes in their health so that they could understand the early signs of potential serious illness.

The Government must acknowledge the dangers of burn pits and the suffering of burn pit exposed veterans with severe illnesses. The Government has a responsibility to immediately provide them with the care and benefits they have earned while defending our freedoms.

I want to thank the conferees and the ranking member and chairman of the Armed Services Committee for their support of my amendment and for including these amendments in the final conference report.

Congress must continue to work together to provide solutions for our veterans and servicemembers exposed to these dangerous chemicals, toxins, carcinogens, and the smoke of burn pits.

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