Protecting Our Gold Star Families Education Act
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. BOST. Madam Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may consume.
Madam Speaker, I rise in support of S. 3373, as amended, the Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson Honoring our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act.
When we were debating the House version of the PACT Act 4 months ago, I couldn't have said that. I am glad that I can today.
The bill is not perfect, but expanding healthcare and benefits for veterans who were exposed to burn pits or other dangerous toxins while serving our country is the right thing to do.
I come from a long line of veterans. My grandfather, Marines; my father, Army; my uncle, Marines; I was in the Marines; my son, Marines; my grandson, Marines; and my granddaughter enlisted this year in the United States Navy.
I know exactly how high the stakes are when this country sends young men and young women to serve. I know exactly how high the stakes are when they come home. I know exactly how often we have failed to meet them and give them what they need. That is why I helped lead the charge to provide disability benefits to blue water Navy Vietnam veterans a few years ago.
We were decades late in giving those veterans the help they need. My vow then and now was to make sure that other generations of veterans don't have to wait for benefits they earned while they were serving or the healthcare they require.
DOD estimates that 3.5 million veterans have been exposed to dangerous toxins in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past 20 years. Some of them are already sick and suffering from the health effects of that exposure. They need help, and this bill will give it to them.
This bill will also make sure that the VA can actually give that help to them, unlike the earlier PACT Act that could not.
I am grateful for the hard work of the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs Chairman Jon Tester and Ranking Member Jerry Moran. They took a flawed House bill and made it better.
There are several aspects of their work that make today's vote on the PACT Act very different than the prior one. This is a better bill than the one the House passed in March.
It reflects bipartisan negotiations and input from VA, which is ultimately responsible for putting this into practice.
It incorporates the good work the VA is already doing to address toxic exposure--namely, the scientific framework that the VA has been using since last year to expand benefits to toxic-exposed veterans.
It removes certain provisions from the House bill that VA told us could not and would not get done. It adds other provisions that would make VA work more transparently to veterans and taxpayers, more flexible, and more scientifically sound.
All of those things were missing from the prior House version. Most importantly, the earlier version of the bill ignored the massive operational impacts this effort will have on VA's healthcare and benefit systems. In contrast, this bill addresses this head-on.
To ensure that the VA has the staff capacity it needs to better serve toxic-exposed veterans, this bill would: authorize 31 VA medical facility leases; make it easier for Congress to authorize additional VA medical facility leases going forward, something the committee has been trying to do for decades; make it easier for VA to recruit and retain the staff it needs to implement the bill; and give VA resources to process claims faster using modern technology.
These changes and additions are critical to the bill's success, and they give me confidence to vote for this bill without fearing that it would be impossible to implement or risk breaking the VA for veterans everywhere, those who are already receiving benefits.
Many of us are concerned about the CBO score for this bill and the funding mechanism it contains. The total score went from $325 billion over 10 years in the prior version to $681 billion in this version. I don't criticize my colleagues for being concerned about that. That is an increase of $356 billion.
That number gives me a lot of pause when I consider the strain that rising inflation is already putting on American families. Anyone who is trying to serve these veterans, it should give them pause, too, because not only is it the veterans that will be paying, but it is their children and grandchildren, as well.
However, only about $285 billion of the score is truly new spending. The costs of expanding care and benefits for toxic exposure actually decreased by about $40 billion from the prior version of this bill to this one. The rest of the score is a result of the cost of war toxic exposure fund.
The fund pays for expanding healthcare for veterans who experience toxic exposure. That is reasonable. However, the fund is also a budgetary ploy by the Democrats to take existing healthcare costs that have nothing to do with toxic exposure and transfer them from discretionary to mandatory spending. That is causing CBO's score to be artificially high because almost $400 billion in costs that are already funded by current law are being scored against the bill.
Even worse, this ploy would put even more government spending on autopilot and limit our ability to control and oversee it, which is our right under the Constitution. That is wrong.
Now, some of my colleagues will vote against the bill because of that, and like I said before, I don't blame them. I am not. I am voting for it because, as the Republican leader of the Veterans' Affairs Committee and as a veteran, I know that, on balance, this is a good bill that will help millions of veterans, servicemembers, survivors, and military families. That is why I will be supporting this bill today.
I have already thanked our Senate colleagues for their work on this bill, but I also thank many Members on both sides of the aisle who have introduced the various standalone bills that make up the PACT Act, including Chairman Takano for his hard work and commitment to this issue. I thank our staff because they also have worked to make sure that this bill would come about, not only that it would come about, but it would be able to be implemented.
I recognize the many veterans service organizations who have held our feet to the fire every step of the way to get it done. I know they will stay by our side every day ahead to make sure VA does it right. I look forward to doing the work with them.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. BOST. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bergman), the highest ranking officer that serves in Congress today. He has served with many of the men and women who will benefit from this bill today.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. BOST. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy), who has served from the time of being in Congress on the Veterans' Affairs Committee.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. BOST. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Iowa (Mrs. Miller-Meeks), who has actually served in health situations in our military, a veteran herself, and is very aware of the things that we are dealing with here.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. BOST. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Montana (Mr. Rosendale), the ranking member of the Technology Modernization Subcommittee of the Veterans' Affairs Committee.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. BOST. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Ellzey), a Navy veteran and F-18 pilot.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. BOST. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from the State of Michigan (Mr. Meijer).
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. BOST. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis), a gentleman who has served on this committee and has understood these issues for all of his time in Congress.
While I wholeheartedly support the intent of the PACT Act and intend to vote for it, I am opposed to the precedent that the funding mechanism in this bill sets.
Later, I will be offering a motion to commit that would prohibit creation of the cost of war toxic exposure fund. Democrats are using the fund to move almost $400 billion of existing VA healthcare spending from the discretionary to the mandatory side of the ledger for purposes completely unrelated to veterans.
We should not use this bill to create more entitlement spending. That is dangerous, and it is a very dangerous budget ploy. It will put more spending on autopilot. It will limit our ability to do our job, constitutionally, of oversight of the second-largest bureaucracy in the world that serves millions of veterans and survivors. It will hurt taxpayers who are already suffering everywhere, from the gas pump to the grocery store.
My motion to commit is simple, and I hope my colleagues will support it.
Nineteen months ago, when I took over as the lead Republican on the Veterans' Affairs Committee, I told my colleagues that helping toxic- exposed veterans was my top priority. Today, I am proud to say that we are delivering on that promise.
It was not an easy road to get here, but the PACT Act will make a difference for veterans, their families, and their survivors.
Today, I am thinking of veterans like Lauren Price, Heath Robinson, Kate Hendricks Thomas, veterans who raised their right hands like I did. They did their duty, and they did it well. But unlike me, their lives were cut short.
They were young, seemingly healthy adults who had endured a different battle on the stateside. Their lives were changed in an instant when they developed rare cancers in the blink of an eye, possibly due to their repeated exposure to burning chemicals while they served overseas.
Lauren left behind her husband, Jim, and five children. Heath left behind his wife and a young daughter. Kate left behind her husband and a young son.
The bill we will vote on today is in honor of them and the hundreds of thousands of veterans just like them. Lauren, Heath, and Kate left us too soon and would want us to do everything in our power to try to prevent what happened to them from happening to their fellow brothers and sisters in arms.
The PACT Act will grant their wish for generations. It will help over 3 million veterans get the care and benefits they are due before it is too late.
We have made this mistake in the past. We don't need to make it again. We need to move forward with this bill, and we will work in a bipartisan way to make sure that is exactly what happens once it is signed into law and implemented by the VA.
Mr. Speaker, I encourage my colleagues to support the bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. BOST. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source