Focused Assistance and Skills Training for Veterans' Employment and Transition Success Act

Floor Speech

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

Madam Speaker, I rise to express my support for H.R. 4446, the Focused Assistance and Skills Training for Veterans' Employment and Transition Success, or FAST VETS Act. Introduced by Veterans' Affairs Committee member Representative Dexter, the VA Veterans Readiness and Employment, or VR&E program, is perhaps the greatest resource disabled veterans have to seek a new career path, but veterans are dealing with historic wait times due to program popularity and expanded eligibility under the PACT Act.

I respectfully disagree with how the chairman has framed the VR&E program and its shortcomings, but let me just proceed to the virtues of this bill.

The program is incredibly important for disabled veterans because it provides a comprehensive, individualized pathway to overcome employment barriers caused by service-connected disabilities, but with wait times weeks, or even months in some areas of the country, veterans risk missing out on the program's benefits.

Representative Dexter's bill would make it easier for veterans to find employment while in the program and to graduate faster from the program, freeing up counselors at VA to assist the next class of disabled veterans seeking a new career.

One of the primary goals of the PACT Act was to recognize the sacrifice of so many more veterans who were injured during their time serving our Nation and to make them eligible for many of the programs offered to help them find meaningful employment such as VR&E. Now the VR&E program must keep pace with this new influx of veterans and ensure that it is meeting their needs.

I thank Representative Dexter for her work on this bill, and I know she is already at work on additional solutions for the program, such as measures to maintain and support the staff at VA tasked with carrying out the program.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues in the House and Senate as well to support this bill.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Dexter), who is the author of H.R. 4446 and who serves on our Health Subcommittee and our Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs Subcommittee.

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Mr. TAKANO. Madam Speaker, I want to congratulate my good friend from the State of Oregon on what will become the passage of her first bill.

Madam Speaker, I have no further speakers. In closing, I ask my colleagues to join me in passing H.R. 4446, the FAST VETS Act, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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