Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act, 2008

Floor Speech

MILITARY CONSTRUCTION AND VETERANS AFFAIRS APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2008

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Mr. REED. Mr. President, I am pleased to resume consideration of the fiscal year 2008 Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and related agencies appropriations bill.
To recap the essentials which I discussed yesterday, the bill provides $109.2 billion in funding, including $44.5 billion in mandatory spending and $43 billion in discretionary funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs. Overall discretionary funding in the bill totals $64.7 billion. That is a $4 billion increase over the President's budget request. Most of the increased funding is targeted at expanding and improving veterans health care, which is an essential requirement for our obligation to the veterans, and also it recognizes that as generations of veterans are aging, those veterans from Korea and World War II and the Vietnam conflict, we also have a new era of veterans from Afghanistan and Iraq, and this money is essential.

This bill represents a landmark commitment to our troops and their families and our Nation's veterans by investing in urgently needed military construction projects and in expanding health care services to our veterans.

For the Department of Veterans Affairs, the bill includes $29 billion for direct medical services for veterans. This level of funding is equal to the amount requested by the veterans service organizations in the independent budget. Each year, our veterans service organizations prepare an independent budget, not based upon what the administration thinks they can afford but what veterans need. This is one of the few times we have been able to meet that objective of the veterans service organizations within their independent budget. It will allow the Department to increase its resources for both physical and mental health care for veterans, and it will give the Department the resources it needs to expand research and treatment of traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorders. At a time when scores of veterans are returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with these often invisible wounds, this increased funding in this regard is urgently needed. It has been estimated that perhaps 30 percent of those who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan have received either traumatic brain injuries or have post-traumatic stress or both, and we have to be able to respond to those concerns.

The bill also includes needed funding for military construction of facilities and housing for our troops and their families. We are a nation at war, and our military forces need the best possible facilities to work, train, and to hone their skills, and their families need the best possible housing and quality-of-life facilities, such as chapels and childcare centers, to see them through the strain and hardship of repeated and lengthy deployments.

As I have said before, this bill is supported by the Department of Veterans Affairs and the veterans service organizations. The President, in his Statement of Administration Policy released yesterday, signaled his intention to sign the bill as reported out of the committee, and I hope that intention is carried through.

There is no reason the Senate cannot complete work on this bill at a reasonable hour today. In fact, I have spoken with the majority leader, and he has indicated to me that it is his desire to move this bill today, to complete work on it today, and to be able to have a vote on final passage we hope sometime today. I urge my colleagues, if they have amendments they wish to offer, to bring them to the floor as soon as possible. It takes a long time to deal with some of these issues, to vet them, to clear the amendments, and the slower the amendments are presented to us, the longer it will take to complete action on this bill. But the majority leader is committed to finishing this bill today, and I share that commitment. The Senate cannot afford to drag its feet on this bill. Our men and women in uniform, our Nation's veterans are depending on us to provide the resources they so urgently need. I urge my colleagues to move quickly to pass this bill.

Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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