Burn Pit Registry Enhancement Act

Floor Speech

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During Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom and in other parts of the world where American servicemembers were deployed, the Department of Defense exposed brave Americans to toxic fumes and dangerous chemicals by burning waste in open-air burn pits. Some of the waste burned in these open-air pits were human waste, Styrofoam, lithium batteries, tires, medical waste, and other toxic substances. Servicemembers had no way to avoid inhaling the smoke from these burn pits that were located on their bases, sometimes right next to their barracks.

When this committee held a hearing last year on burn pits, we heard from Leroy Torres, the founder of Burn Pits 360, who breathed in burn pit smoke while stationed in Balad Air Base in Iraq in 2007. When he returned home in 2008, he needed immediate hospitalization for lung disease.

Mr. Torres and other veterans suffering from medical conditions believed to be caused by exposure to burn pits are still fighting to receive healthcare and benefits because illnesses potentially caused by burn pit exposure still aren't recognized by the VA.

Research to understand the harmful effects these toxic substances may have had on military servicemembers is now underway. However, the totality of harmful health effects this dangerous practice may have had on servicemembers is yet to be fully known and understood, and it may take years for clinicians and scientists to understand the health effects or discover effective treatments for those who were exposed.

In an effort to better track the health effects these exposures had on deployed troops, Congress required the VA to create the open burn pit registry in 2012 to compile self-reported data on veterans who believed they were exposed to open-air burn pits while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This registry allows VA to easily communicate with this population of veterans, as well as track trends within the population that may indicate a need for further research into certain health concerns. However, the registry failed to provide, in it, the ability to report cause of death for veterans who are registered and then subsequently pass away.

Congressman Ruiz's bill, the Burn Pit Registry Enhancement Act, would allow an individual designated by the veteran during the registry process or an immediate family member to update the veteran's file on the registry with a cause of death.

These additional data will allow researchers and the VA to identify trends, similarities, and correlations in this population that will better inform our research efforts on the impact these open-air burn pits have on the servicemembers who served in combat zones.

With the addition of more data to the burn pits registry, we hope this will help VA conduct groundbreaking research that will lead to prevention and treatments for toxic exposures, including exposure to toxic substances inescapably connected to military service.

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Mr. TAKANO. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments from my colleague, the ranking member, about regular order. I can assure you we will discuss this subject further, and I appreciate and take to heart his comments.

At this time, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Ruiz), my good friend and the author of this bill.

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Mr. TAKANO. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to see that we have three doctors who are either now or were associated with the Veterans' Affairs Committee and that they have supported this legislation.

I have no further speakers, and I am prepared to close, so I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. Speaker, I fully associate myself with the remarks of the minority member of the committee. Again, I want to express my gratitude to the professionally trained physicians who have weighed in on this legislation and further commented about the importance of the electronic health records and the important oversight that was begun in the last Congress, which will continue in this Congress under my leadership.

I agree it is really important that we get those records to work properly and that the communication between the Department of Defense and the VA is functional.

I also think it is very important to make sure that we get those legacy records from the DOD wrapped into this whole package, because the service history, where our military servicemembers have served and what they were exposed to, will provide a very important piece of information that will help us understand how toxic exposures have affected our veterans.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join me in passing H.R. 1381, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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