Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2025
Floor Speech
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Mr. CLINE. 8580, and that I may include tabular material on the same.
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Mr. CLINE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Chairman, I am pleased today to speak in support of this year's Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies appropriations bill.
Under current leadership, the Veterans Health Administration has been distracted from its core mission, using official resources for political purposes such as lobbying Congress, pushing for DEI policies, and even going so far as to process medical care claims for illegal aliens.
Our veterans deserve better. Therefore, House Republicans are moving forward with a bill that refocuses the VA back to its core mission by fully funding veterans' healthcare programs and benefits while cutting out radical prerogatives that divert resources away from critical veteran care.
In addition to supporting those who have served, this bill would bolster our national security interests in the Indo-Pacific region to counter China by improving our defense posture in the region.
The funding allocated in this bill would equip our Active-Duty servicemembers by constructing the facilities they so desperately need and honor our commitment to the veterans who have so dutifully served us here at home.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Chair, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 8580, the fiscal year 2025 Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies bill.
While I unfortunately cannot support the bill on the floor today, I am grateful to Chairman Carter for the work that we have been able to accomplish together over the years on this subcommittee.
I know we both prioritize quality of life for our servicemembers and their families and caring for our veterans, but, sadly, the bill before us today is built on a framework that once again walks away from the bipartisan Fiscal Responsibility Act agreement, which is law, which was the basis for the bills that we passed just a couple of months ago.
While the FY25 MILCON-VA bill doesn't face cuts nearly as dramatic as the other bills, veterans, servicemembers, and their families rely on programs throughout the Federal Government.
These funding levels only move us further from a bipartisan agreement on all of the funding bills that those who served our Nation rely on.
On the military construction side, this bill cuts funding for servicemembers and their families by $718 million, compared to last year's bill. This cut will slow crucial progress to modernize and improve DOD's infrastructure.
In fiscal year `24, we provided DOD with $30 million in dedicated funding for resiliency, a comparatively small sum of funding now, which will pay huge dividends in the future and ensure our national security in the face of our changing climate.
By eliminating the dedicated resilience funding this year, this bill will threaten future military readiness because we are not making sure we invest in hardening facilities to make sure that they can withstand the impact of natural disasters.
Cutting military construction now slows our historically bipartisan efforts to reduce the infrastructure backlog to strengthen our national security and to improve the quality of life of our servicemembers and their families.
Perhaps the most egregious part of the bill is all the partisan riders it includes. This bill is usually first up on the floor, like we are this fiscal year, because we have a bipartisan process.
Unfortunately, partisan culture war riders have distracted from our ability to accomplish that. We have riders that include preventing the VA from implementing its interim final file on abortion care, which is now final, by the way, to provide abortion services under limited circumstances, abortion counseling, and to ensure that veterans have equal access to healthcare regardless of what State they live in, especially in a time when reproductive rights are under attack around the country.
A woman's decision whether or not to have an abortion should be made between her and her doctor and her family. It should not be made by politicians in this Chamber.
This bill includes riders that do everything from prohibiting VA from implementing diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, as well as training, to a petty, bigoted prohibition from flying the Pride flag over VA facilities during Pride Month, to add insult to injury, from protecting people who speak or act under the guise of religious freedom, essentially authorizing the arbitrary discrimination against LGBTQI+ people and to prohibiting access to gender-affirming care, just to name a few, all aimed to disenfranchise veterans from the VA.
Let me just note: The United States did not make exceptions to the promises that we made our servicemembers in exchange for their service and sacrifice. We made promises to everyone.
This bill undermines VA's ability to report a beneficiary to the National Instant Criminal Background Check system to keep guns out of the hands of people who are prohibited under Federal law from purchasing or possessing firearms. It is prohibiting VA from following the law that is intended to protect veterans and those around them.
We have a dramatic suicide problem among our veteran population, and allowing people who are prohibited by law to possess a gun makes that suicide more likely, not less, and puts other people around them in their care circle at risk. That is unacceptable, irresponsible, and unnecessary.
This bill prioritizes guns over protecting veterans. It is truly a shame that this bill includes these poison pill riders.
They create division between us when we all should have a shared goal of providing healthcare and benefits to our veterans.
These culture war riders were rejected in conference negotiations last year, and we know that they will be rejected again this year in order to reach a final agreement. This bill can't pass with all of these poison pill riders attached to it.
I urge my colleagues to oppose this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. CLINE. Mr. Chair, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Carter).
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