Unanimous Consent Request--H.R. 299

Floor Speech

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Mr. LEE. I will also add that there is no doubt that all of us owe a great debt of gratitude to the brave men and women who fought and served in the Vietnam war. There is no question that they endured unspeakable hardships there and, of course, for many decades following their service.

For some, one of these hardships involved exposure to Agent Orange. This very potent chemical was widely used by the U.S. military during the Vietnam war as part of its herbicidal warfare program, and it has proven to have been something that has caused major health problems for the service men and women who were exposed to it. So Congress passed the Agent Orange Act of 1991 to provide health benefits for those servicemembers who were affected by it.

The act presumes the service connection for diseases caused by herbicides for Active military, naval, or air servicemembers when, and only when, there is scientific and medical evidence to support it.

In 2002, the VA removed the blue water Navy veterans from the presumption of exposure, as they had looked at the data repeatedly under multiple administrations and had not found evidence to grant the presumption.

The bill now under consideration would restore this presumption to the blue water Navy veterans, but prudence demands that we wait until we have more complete information and evidence to make this presumption. In fact, previous studies have lumped all the branches of the services together into their analyses or they focused solely on the Army. In other words, they failed to differentiate between those who were Active on the ground and those who were serving on ships miles offshore.

Now we have a chance to get that precise data. The VA is currently undertaking a study, slotted to be released in the early months of 2019, that examines the myriad of health factors in Vietnam veterans and specifically includes a subsample of blue water Navy veterans.

It is only right and only reasonable that Congress should examine this study before making any presumption of a service connection for all blue water Navy veterans from this war. The brave men and women who have sacrificed so much for our country should undoubtedly get the medical care they need in connection with their service.

As Members of this body, it is also our duty to ensure it is done in a prudent and proper way, with all the relevant information available to us. Our veterans deserve no less, and it is for this reason that I have concerns with it.

I have received calls from Secretary Wilkie and from four previous VA Secretaries, all of whom have said consistently that the VA has been strapped with difficulties in recent years. We have to make sure the VA has the tools it needs to offer the services it needs to offer to our veterans. Doing something that would offset that, as these VA Secretaries have concluded, would be unwise.

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