Motion to Instruct Conferences on H.R. 3230, Pay Our Guard and Reserve Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. PETERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I rise today in strong support of the Veterans' Access to Care through Choice, Accountability, and Transparency Act of 2014, which the Senate passed on a bipartisan 93-3 vote last month.

It is no secret that the Department of Veterans Affairs is failing to keep our Nation's promise to our veterans and their families.

Ensuring that our veterans have access to the medical care and benefits that they have earned is one of the most important jobs of Congress and a top priority of mine, given the more than 200,000 veterans who live in San Diego County.

In recent months, failures at the Phoenix VA and other facilities across the country demonstrated a culture of complacency and ineptitude that is unacceptable and must change.

At this time, Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to my colleague from Phoenix, Kyrsten Sinema.

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Mr. PETERS of California. I thank my colleague, Ms. Sinema.

While San Diego's VA centers have performed better than most, and the backlog of benefits claims has been reduced significantly in my region, we can't ignore the larger structural reforms that the entire VA system clearly needs.

In San Diego, my district office staff has been working to help veterans and their families who have experienced the bureaucratic red tape at the VA firsthand. Since coming to Congress last year, we have handled more than 400 veterans' cases and have recovered more than $750,000 in benefits to which these veterans were entitled.

I have also focused on ways to make the transition from Active Duty service back to civilian life an easier one for veterans and their families. Last year, I engaged with military commanders, nonprofits, and veterans' advocacy organizations to launch the Military Transition Support Project. This collaborative community effort will provide a central hub of information for servicemembers as they become veterans and search for housing, employment, and benefits. It is on its way to being a national model and doesn't cost the Federal Government or taxpayers a dime.

The experience of Dr. Howard and Jean Somers, constituents of mine from Coronado, has only added to my urgency in addressing reform at the VA. The Somers' son Daniel served our country in Operation Iraqi Freedom. As the Somers testified in the House Veterans Affairs Committee 2 weeks ago, their son made several attempts after returning home from combat to seek help and counseling for posttraumatic stress but was ultimately unsuccessful, and eventually he took his own life. The VA system failed Daniel Somers; it failed his parents; and that is unacceptable.

Both the Senate and the House have taken action to make real, substantive changes at the VA. I voted for many of these measures in the House, but the Senate's plan is comprehensive, bipartisan, and is the best opportunity for the quick action that our veterans deserve.

It will benefit thousands of veterans by increasing their access to care by allowing the VA to lease more facilities, hire doctors and nurses to fill their most pressing staff shortages, and by allowing veterans to see non-VA providers if they have been forced to wait for an appointment or live too far from the closest facility.

It would increase accountability on those responsibile for the recent failures by allowing the VA Secretary to fire complacent employees, and through changes to the scheduling, staffing, and administrative processes in each facility.

Part of my motion also has to do with ensuring that our veterans and their spouses are able to access a high-quality education after their time of Active Duty has ended.

Veterans are advancing themselves at colleges and universities across my
district, across San Diego, and across the country. Expanding instate tuition to our veterans, regardless of where they live, would expand their educational opportunities significantly and potentially reduce the financial burden that many of them face.

As of today, only 24 States offer instate tuition benefits for veterans who have not yet met the standard residency requirements of that State. My home State of California is one of those that does not offer it.

In the University of California system, one of the premier public university systems in the entire world, more than 1,600 veterans are currently enrolled. The instate tuition at a UC school averages $13,200 per year. For nonresidents, it is $36,000. That is a difference of $23,000 that veterans must pay out of pocket.

UC San Diego, part of which is in my district, enrolls 324 veterans, and nearby San Diego State has 1,127 veterans. In the California State University system, being a non-California resident costs nearly double the tuition, to the tune of more than $4,000 per year.

By forcing veterans who fought not just for one State or for their home State but for the entire United States, to fit into the standard residency requirements, in many instances we are forcing them to delay their education or vocational training they need for career advancement. Instead of making it more difficult to use their earned GI Bill benefits, we should be making it easier and more financially feasible.

A recent national investigation called ``Back Home: The Enduring Battle Facing Post-9/11 Veterans,'' noted the example of Marine Corps Corporal veteran Brian Oller, a student at UC San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography, who is paying out of pocket to cover part of the $22,000 tuition, which his GI benefits don't fully pay.

Fifteen thousand veterans are discharged in the San Diego region each year, and about half decide to stay in the area to restart their civilian lives. Many of them are not from California, but they should have access immediately to the instate tuition rate.

Giving veterans the instate tuition rate is a bipartisan idea that I know our chairman, Mr. Miller, supports. The House passed a bill 390-0 to provide this benefit. The comprehensive Senate bill I want us to vote on also includes that language.

Mr. Speaker, I hope we can pass the Veterans Access to Care through Choice, Accountability, and Transparency Act in its entirety and provide the necessary relief and support to our veterans and show the American people that Congress is capable of passing comprehensive reforms to what is clearly a broken system.

I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this motion to instruct. Let's actually get the needed reforms in place and expand educational opportunities and our support for our veterans.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. PETERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

In closing, first, I lament the notion that this is motivated entirely by politics; although, I understand that would not be entirely unusual in this body. It was 80 degrees in San Diego today--a beautiful day. I don't fly all the way over here to the 91-degree heat that feels like 100 not to do something, and veterans are a top priority for me.

The point of this motion is that we have something right before us that would deal with the culture of complacency that has failed our veterans, and we could pass the bill supported both by Senator Bernie Sanders and Senator John McCain, which was passed by a vote of 93-3--I don't think you could get more bipartisan than that--and it would not raise the issues that Chairman Miller has discussed because, if we wanted to add more money, as Senator Sanders may want, we could take that up later.

There are very, very many points of agreement in the Senate bill, and it would incorporate many of the things we did here in the House if we would pass it just like this. So it makes all the sense in the world to go ahead and have that bill before us so that we could pass it. It could be on the President's desk tomorrow, and at least many of the points of agreement, like the instate tuition, for example, would be on their way to helping veterans right away.

Last week, I attended part of the stand down for homeless veterans in San Diego. The Veterans Village of San Diego organized the first stand down in 1988, and there are more than 200 similar programs nationwide that help provide a hand up, not a hand out for homeless vets. No one at the event asked me whether I thought the House or the Senate or the President had the best plan for keeping our promise to America's veterans. They want action, and they want it now. They don't want to hear about how the procedural rules of this place are some way to hide behind our lack of action.

They fought for our country in the jungles of Vietnam, in the deserts of Iraq, and in the mountains of Afghanistan. The fact that this House can't put aside partisan politics to do the right thing for our veterans is even more messed up than anyone can imagine.

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