Supporting the Pact Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. KAPTUR. Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of the PACT Act that Chairman Takano and the Committee on Veterans' Affairs brought before us today. I was very pleased to vote for it.

When those who go to serve our country abroad or even here at home come back to civilian life, they often carry with them the injuries of toxic exposure, such as burn pits, and we have a moral obligation for their care.

Madam Speaker, to shift to a different subject, as we watch the slaughter in Ukraine, I would urge the Government of the United States and the President of the United States to mobilize our National Guard Partnership for Peace programs across the various States. Ohio is linked to Serbia and Hungary, and Illinois to Poland.

There are ways for us as a country to use idle aircraft, like C-130 sitting on the ground in this country, where the American people want to donate blankets and bandages in ways of caring for those who are being killed and injured, who are hungry in the Nation of Ukraine. That is an unrealized asset we have.

We could do that overnight if we had the will to do it, the Partnership for Peace, the State Partnership for Peace, which is part of the U.S. Department of Defense under the National Guard Bureau.

Madam Speaker, I ask the President to help us help Ukraine.

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