Military Construction and Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2012

Floor Speech

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Mr. BISHOP of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I am pleased to join Chairman Culberson as the House takes up the fiscal year 2012 appropriations bill for Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and related agencies. The MilCon-VA bill is critically important to the strength and the well-being of our military, our veterans, and the families who sacrificed so much to defend our country.

Working with Chairman Culberson and the members of the subcommittee, we have crafted a bill that will address the funding needs for military construction and family housing for our troops and for their families, as well as other quality of life construction projects.

In addition, it will provide funding for many important VA programs as
well as agencies like the Veterans Court of Appeals and the American Battle Monuments Commission.

The bill before us today touches every soldier, every sailor, every marine, and every airman. In addition, this bill will also impact military spouses, their children, and every veteran that participates in veterans programs.

I want to commend Chairman Culberson for his hard work. He has done his best to hold hearings that he believes are important to the work of the subcommittee. Together we sat through 12 hearings, gaining valuable insight into the working of all of the agencies under the subcommittee's jurisdiction.

I would like to thank all of the subcommittee members and recognize them for their hard work on the bill.

I believe that the minority was treated fairly during this process, and I want to thank Chairman Culberson for that. We worked very well in a very collegial fashion, and I think that is the way that this institution should work.

Chairman Culberson has already provided the funding highlights in the bill, and I won't repeat them all, but I want to point out a few items that I think are extremely important.

The Department of Defense schools. The bill before us today includes $483 million for the renovation and replacement of 15 Department of Defense schools. Six schools here in the United States and nine schools at overseas installations will be refurbished with this funding. Mr. Chairman, I believe that providing the funds for DOD schools will not only help our servicemembers' children get a quality education in a safe facility, but it will also give our servicemembers some peace of mind.

Medical center replacement. Mr. Chairman, I was pleased that the bill includes $1.1 billion for the medical center replacement in Germany. As you know, a large proportion of the serious casualties from the Iraq and Afghanistan theaters are treated there in Landstuhl, and I am pleased to see we are making this very, very important investment.

Regarding veteran affairs, the bill contains $52.5 billion for advance appropriations for medical services, for medical support and compliance, and medical facilities at the VA, which is $1.8 billion above the amount that was included in the FY 2011 continuing resolution.

Mr. Chairman, I strongly believe that advance funding provides timely and predictable funding for the veterans health care system. For example, during the delay in the FY 2011 funding, veterans health care funding was already in place and the veterans health care programs were not subject to the continuing resolution process and our veterans did not have to go without their health care.

Mr. Chairman, overall the bill provides adequate funding for programs included in this bill. However, I am troubled by one item. Unfortunately, during the full committee markup, an amendment was adopted to eliminate funding to implement Executive Order 13502, which was issued in February 2009, which addresses project labor agreements, PLAs. Now, if you are opposed to that Executive Order, that's fine; but using the MilCon-VA bill to address this issue, I believe, is the wrong place.

This language is purely an ideological and political provision that really is beyond the scope of this bill.

If we want to deal with this issue, we should deal with it on a labor bill and not on the Military Construction-VA bill. The MilCon-VA bill has always enjoyed broad bipartisan support, and has avoided divisive issues like this no matter which party has held the gavel. I believe including this language only causes unnecessary complications and does nothing to help our servicemembers or our veterans.

Mr. Chairman, please know that as we continue through the process, I will work to address this issue because an item like this really has no place in a bill that has always placed our troops, their families and our veterans above ideology.

Before I close, I would like to recognize the staff for all of the work and the time that they have put into this bill. From the minority committee staff, I would like to thank Matt Washington and Danny Cromer as well as Michael Reed and Greg Browder from my personal office. From the majority committee staff, I would like to thank Tim Peterson, Sue Quantius, Sarah Young, and Tracey Russell as well as Alec Fritchie and Evan Ewachiw from the chairman's personal office.

I would also like to thank the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks), our ranking member; and the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Rogers), who set the standard for the committee and for the subcommittees with their collegial relationship in their ability to work together and in their efforts to make sure that we move these appropriations bills through regular order. I appreciate that very much.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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