Protecting Our Veterans

Floor Speech

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Mr. KELLY of Pennsylvania. Madam Speaker, Representative Keller and I indeed are very good friends and in complete agreement on what it is we are trying to do tonight.

Madam Speaker, there are 54,511 veterans in Pennsylvania's 16th Congressional District. These are men and women that have served in all types of activities in the military.

Nearly 1 in 13 of my constituents are military veterans. Roughly 520,000 pending VA claims for disability, compensation, and benefits are out there right now. And 191,000 of those that are considered to be backlogged are older than 3 months old, 4 months old, and they can't even get the information that they need.

Thirty-six percent of these cases this summer were considered backlogged. Again, over 4 months, these people are waiting for their records to be pulled.

The National Personnel Records Center is operating at 45 percent of its pre-pandemic capacity--45 percent--while almost every other business and government entity is operating at full capacity.

This delay prevents veterans from getting the benefits they deserve for months or even years. A lack of digital records prevents staff from accessing those records while working remotely during the pandemic.

Representative Keller's bill would require the National Personnel Records Center employees to return to the job at 100 percent of capacity and improve the efficiency and responsiveness of the operations at the center.

This is not just a request. This is honoring the service of those who have given all to defend this country.

They are not looking for anything special. They are not looking for anything out of the ordinary. They are not looking for anybody to go beyond what they were hired to do. All they are asking for is for their records to be processed in the right time so they can receive their benefits.

How can this Nation turn its back, and how can this group refuse to do this in a timely fashion and prevent this from happening further?

All we are asking for is people to do their jobs. What an unusual concept for somebody to go to work every day and be asked to do their job, not doing it from home, but going on the job and actually doing the job for those who put their lives on the line for this Nation.

Incredible that it would take a bill from Congress for people to actually do the job they were hired to do and fulfill their responsibility to our incredible veterans.

I thank Representative Keller for bringing this forward, and I would urge this body to take a look at what we are doing right now and somehow come to an agreement that there is not--this shouldn't be a request. This is a responsibility to those who have served us so well.

I thank Representative Keller for including me tonight and all the rest of my colleagues.

Again, this is not just a request. This is a responsibility.

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