Veterinarian Services Investment Act

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 3519, the Veterinarian Services Investment Act, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Since the fall of 2000, the Committee on Agriculture has worked on ways of resolving the serious veterinary shortage problem confronting many rural communities. With the passage of the National Veterinary Medical Service Act in December of 2003, a program was finally authorized to incentivize large animal veterinarians to practice in communities that USDA designated as veterinarian shortage areas. With this program in place, large animal veterinarians are able to apply on a competitive basis for educational loan repayment assistance in exchange for their commitment to practice in shortage areas for the length of time as established by the regulations.

While it's unfortunate that it took almost 6 years for USDA to establish a final rule implementing this first step, I'm optimistic that when the first awards are issued in the coming weeks, we'll begin a slowdown and hopefully reverse this problem.

To the extent that the loan program is successful, it's important to consider that this was just the first step. While this assistance will be very helpful in attracting veterinarians to these communities, there remain gaps in veterinarian recruitment, attracting and training technical support staff, and simply meeting the long-term costs of operating veterinarian practices in these communities.

The Veterinarian Services Investment Act is meant to address these secondary needs and is designed to complement the loan repayment program to help large animal veterinarians become established in these communities.

This bill recognizes and addresses a real problem in rural America, and I'm proud to be an original cosponsor. I support this legislation, and I encourage all of my colleagues to do the same.

Madam Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to my colleague from Nebraska (Mr. Smith), who has done an outstanding job of shepherding this bill through, understands the challenges in his State and in rural communities across America, and he's trying to do something.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source