Providing Benefits Information in Spanish and Tagalog for Veterans and Families Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. BILIRAKIS. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I commend the chairman for bringing these bills forward in committee. I also commend the Speaker of the House for putting these bills on the agenda today, as well as the majority leader and the minority leader. These are very important bills.

I rise today to support H.R. 2943, as amended.

This bill, which is sponsored by Representative Gil Cisneros of California, would require the Department of Veterans Affairs to make all fact sheets available in English, Spanish, and Tagalog.

During the markup of this bill, the committee adopted an amendment that Ranking Member Roe offered to further require the VA to post all fact sheets on a clearly identifiable, easily accessible location on the VA's website and require the VA to report to Congress on the Department's language-access plan to assist veterans with limited English proficiency.

This would ensure that the entirety of our veteran population, as well as their families and caregivers, are able to access and comprehend important information about VA benefits easily. It would also ensure that any barriers to care that might exist for veterans with limited English skills, Madam Speaker, are identified and broken down.

I am grateful to Representative Cisneros for introducing this bill, and I am proud to support it today.

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Mr. BILIRAKIS. Madam Speaker, I am prepared to close, and I yield myself the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, this is a very important bill. We were just overseas and met with the troops, and we had quite a few servicemembers from Puerto Rico. I would like to say that most of them spoke perfect English, but they may not. They should have access to all the information in their first language.

Madam Speaker, I urge the passage of this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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