Steve Buyer

Mr. BUYER

Mr. BUYER. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BUYER. I yield myself such time as I may consume. I don't know since when the GI bill all of a sudden became the greatest hallmark of Democrats. It's of both parties, Mr. Chairman. I rise to express my concerns about the way, once again, we are legislating outside of regular order, leaving undone significant fixes needed to correct known substantive and technical problems with the bill. And this all goes back to the way the GI bill came to us. It came to us as a political instrument, not properly even vetted through the House. It came as a political instrument in a highly Presidential election time. The House committee was doing its work on modernizing the Montgomery GI bill. Stephanie Herseth and John Boozman were doing yeoman's work, under the guidance of Chairman Filner, and they were doing everything that they were supposed to do to that bill. Sure enough, they took a bill that was drafted by one staffer who had not been properly vetted in the Senate and sent that bill over to the House without even being vetted here by the House. And then Speaker Pelosi wanted to do that, and it was all about, at that time, jamming John McCain. Now I voted for that when it came here to the House floor. The reason I did that is I wanted a seat at the table. I wanted to be able to correct problems with the bill. We cited 10 or 11 of the problems that we had with the bill, all of which were ignored. So what happened? All these inequities, all these poor drafting errors, the challenge that the administration even had with regard to the implementation of the legislation. Oh, once again we'll just do something quickly, with expediency, bypass the House process, ignore regular order, dump it on the administration, and then force them to fix it. And then, if they don't do things according to the timeline for which we foresee, then we'll just beat 'em up. This is like the worst way to legislate. If you want to do proper governing, you don't worry about winning and losing and who's getting credit, whether a Democrat is getting credit or a Republican is getting credit. You don't think about winning and losing. Good government is about the collective ideas of all people of this House. So, once again, what are we doing? Here comes a bill, once again, coming from the Senate to us on issues that we haven't even had a chance to pore through. Oh, let's come to the floor. Let's cheerlead. Let's embrace. And you're doing it, once again, in a lame duck session. Then-Speaker Dennis Hastert, in 2006, when Democrats took over the House, what did Dennis Hastert do? He held a conference and he told Republicans: Respect the will of the American people. We will not legislate our agenda in a lame duck. What are you doing? You're ignoring the will of the American people and trying to jam everything imaginable that you can before you, quote, lose power. So let's do gays in the military and let's jam everything imaginable you can. Let's do this. You're creating even more inequities in this bill than you think that you're correcting. In order to understand my concerns: Originally the bill cost nearly $80 billion and was not paid for. We could be headed for a similar situation by passing this bill today without going through regular order. I received a long list of technical changes from the VA that would have facilitated successful implementation. Unfortunately, the majority continues to block my efforts for these changes. In the end, the House once again will have no say in a major piece of legislation expanding veterans' benefits. So be careful getting out there and pounding your chest thinking that you've done a lot of great things or that you've had all the input. We have not. I am concerned about the policy change in this bill that ends living stipend payments to veterans during periods of time between semesters. You had better think about what you are about to vote on. This cut in veterans' benefits will hit veterans and their families hard, especially during the holiday season, since many schools dismiss for the winter break veterans who would receive their living stipend check during that period. I can't think of a worse idea than to cut a veteran benefit during the Christmas and holiday season. All Americans know that the month of December is already a strain on their pocketbook, and to have your paycheck cut during a devastating time period is pretty tough. My second policy concern deals with the national cap on tuition and fees. Current law allows the VA to pay up to the maximum in-state tuition and fees for each veteran enrolled in an institution of higher learning. This means that each State has a different maximum amount of tuition and fees that the VA is required to pay. While the revised benefit of up to $17,500 a year will be a windfall for most veterans, there are veterans in several States, including Texas, New York, and New Hampshire that will see their tuition and fees payments reduced. Veterans in these States will be forced to pay for this reduction from other sources or from their own pocket. For example, a veteran who is a junior studying at Baylor University in Texas currently receives roughly $26,000 in tuition and fee payments per year. Under this bill, that veteran would receive only $17,500 in tuition and fee payments for a difference of $8,500 per year; or, $34,000 over a 4-year time period will be cut from their benefit. This bill should have included a provision to grandfather the current students in these high-cost States so they are not required to make up the difference in tuition, but the Members of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs did not get that change, or any other change, for that matter. By removing these interval payments and excluding a grandfather clause, the drafters of this bill were able to pay for their other enhancements of the bill. However, these enhancements are being done at the expense of some veterans to the benefit of other veterans. It is one of those things which we are always cautious about, cutting one veteran's benefit to the benefit of some other veteran. If you went out and surveyed the average student veteran, I believe they would oppose improving their own benefit at the expense of one of their comrades. What is even more disturbing to me is that by rushing this bill through without regular order, the majority and the veterans service organizations who support this move don't seem to have a problem with either of these issues that will hurt some of America's veterans in the name of expediency and of the apparent need to score some kind of point here in the lame duck. I am surprised that the veterans service organizations have jumped on board in support of this bill despite the fact of its cuts of veterans benefits. I am quite certain they are very uncomfortable with me standing here on the House floor talking about the veterans service organizations' support of the cut in veterans benefits. In a press release on Tuesday, the commander of the American Legion, Jimmie Foster, stated: ``This is great news. This bill rectifies the inequities and shortcomings of the well-intentioned but incomplete Post-9/11 GI Bill and makes it whole.'' It does not. We create even more inequities and make the matter even worse. In testimony in July before the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America stated: ``The discussion draft of Senate 3447 will improve the new GI Bill and ensure that all student veterans have access to the most generous investment in veterans education since World War II.'' At the same hearing, the Veterans of Foreign Wars stated: ``Senator Akaka, your legislation addresses every area of concern the VFW has with improving the Post-9/11 GI Bill. We cannot say enough about the noble intent driving this legislation.'' Madam Speaker, I guess we have a few questions for the veterans who are members of these veterans service organizations. Number one, are your Representatives in Washington really standing up for you when they endorse a bill that cuts your living stipend during the holidays? Please understand what this does. When an individual finishes their fall semester and before they start their spring semester, their benefits are cut. At some schools they might be out 5 weeks, or 3 weeks, or 4 weeks. We are going to cut their stipend during that break between semesters. The other question is, are they really representing the view of a veteran when they endorse legislation that cuts tuition payments for some veterans by thousands of dollars while trying to benefit a veteran in some other place? While I am retiring here at the end of this Congress, I am sure that Members of the new majority will want to hold hearings on the shortcomings in the Post-9/11 GI Bill and look for ways to improve the bill early in the next Congress. That way we can further consider the VA's and the committee's concerns, avoid unintended consequences, and do so in a bipartisan manner, and, most importantly, using regular order and making sure everyone participates in the process. That is the best way for us to govern a country. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BUYER

Mr. BUYER. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BUYER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. What I would like to comment on now, Mr. Speaker, really deals with a problem in the House rules that I think needs to be corrected as we go into the next session of Congress. So with regard to jurisdiction, lines of jurisdiction with regard to committees and how bills are assigned through the Parliamentarian, at the direction of the Speaker, I sent a letter to the Speaker dated December 9, 2010. This Senate bill that came to us, it appears that it invokes the jurisdiction also of the House Armed Services Committee. The Army personnel manage and operate Arlington National Cemetery, and the cemetery is under the jurisdiction of the United States Army. So Chairman Skelton properly moved out and held his hearings in the House Armed Services Committee relative to Arlington. So I can begin to understand why the chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee then allowed the House Armed Services Committee to proceed. Then when the Senate conducts their hearings, and they did so, the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee passed their bill, and immediately they sent it to us in a lame duck session. Now, you say, why wouldn't this bill also have either a joint referral or to the Armed Services Committee, or why did it only go to the House Veterans' Affairs Committee? Well, you go to the House rules. So even though I sent the letter to Madam Speaker Pelosi saying, please invoke jurisdiction of the House Armed Services Committee, the response obviously was ``no'' because here we now are on the House floor doing this bill by a committee who had never done hearings on the bill. The problem is in the House rules itself. When you turn to the House rules, I think this has got to be an error in the drafting of these rules. Rule X, 2 cites that cemeteries under the United States in which veterans of any war or conflict are or may be buried, whether in the United States, abroad, except cemeteries administered by the Secretary of the VA, it goes to the Veterans' Affairs Committee. This has to be corrected. So, hopefully, when you go into the next Congress, this rule gets corrected so that the cemeteries that are under the jurisdiction of the United States Army, such as the two, Old Soldiers Home and Arlington National Cemetery, that that legislation regarding that jurisdiction rests with the Armed Services Committee. The VA Committee, we have oversight; but with regard to this, it's a jurisdictional question, and it needs to be corrected. And that's why you have two individuals here managing a bill on the floor that really the House Armed Services Committee, Mr. Speaker, should also be here. But I want all the Members to know that's why this is happening. I suppose, yes, we can all be very upset with regard to the management and the markings of some of these graves; but those of us who have had the opportunity to go to Arlington and see the job in which the Old Guard perform, it is pretty extraordinary. I was last there on Monday of Thanksgiving week. I joined Lieutenant General John Kelly, his family and hundreds of his friends at the chapel at Fort Myer. We all left the chapel. We proceeded down the windy road, down the hill, led by the Army Band, a platoon of soldiers, horse-drawn caisson that carried the body of John's youngest son, Lieutenant Robert Kelly, killed in Afghanistan. The wind was crisp. The sky was blue. The oak and maple trees were clutching onto their red, yellow, gold and light-green leaves. Others were slowly drifting to the ground. The sun shined brightly upon them all. Each grave marker properly and perfectly aligned in columns, in rows and angles, each was offset by rich green grass signifying the etchings in our national book of remembrance. That's my firsthand account of having attended the funeral of Lieutenant Robert Kelly at his burial on Thanksgiving week. That has been replicated since that Monday of Thanksgiving week, and it has been no different than how the Old Guard pays their honor and respect to so many, and it goes back so far in time. That rich heritage is what causes each one of us to rise when we get so concerned with regard to mismanagement of such a sacred ground. With that, I'm going to ask all Members to support the legislation. Committee on Veterans' Affairs, House of Representatives, Washington, DC, December 9, 2010. Hon. Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, House of Representatives, H232, The Capitol, Washington, DC. Dear Madam Speaker, in reviewing S. 3860, as amended, a bill to require reports on the management of Arlington National Cemetery, it appears that the bill invokes authority under the jurisdiction of the House Committee on Armed Services. Army personnel manage and operate Arlington National Cemetery and the cemetery is under the jurisdiction of the United States Army. Accordingly, as the Ranking Member of the Committee of jurisdiction, I request that an additional referral be made to House Committee on Armed Services to provide for its full consideration of this bill. It is important that the Committee on Armed Services be permitted to weigh in on this legislation prior to further consideration, as that Committee has legislative and oversight jurisdiction over the Department of the Army, and held a hearing on management issues at Arlington National Cemetery on June 30, 2010. Thank you for your consideration of this matter. Sincerely, Steve Buyer, Ranking Republican Member.

Mr. BUYER. I yield myself such time as I may consume. I thank the gentleman, Mr. Bob Goodlatte of Virginia, a classmate of mine, and I respect all he has been able to do on the Ag Committee. I will yield now 3 minutes to another Virginian, Congressman Robert J. Wittman.

Mr. BUYER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise in reluctant support of Senate bill 3860, as amended, which would require reports on the management of Arlington National Cemetery. The reason I say reluctant support is the Veterans' Affairs Committee itself, really we didn't take up the issues on Arlington, and we allowed the Senate and the House Armed Services Committee to do their work, but the House Veterans' Affairs Committee, we did not do ours. And so this is very unfortunate that we're proceeding with this bill in a lame duck session when we have not even held hearings ourselves on this issue. So I cannot speak from firsthand, other than my conversations with the Secretary of the Army myself, but the committee did not hold hearings on this piece of legislation at all. Since the founding of Arlington in June of 1864, the cemetery has been revered as the ``crown jewel'' of the national cemetery system. It is the final resting place of several American Presidents, Supreme Court justices, and over 300,000 veterans and their families. Like most Americans, I was deeply disturbed and appalled by revelations by the Department of Army Inspector General's report regarding the mismanagement and possible criminal behavior at Arlington. I do want to praise Secretary of the Army John McHugh for his swift action in response to this report, also for his following up on the recommendations of Secretary Geren's request for the investigation. So, once again, I extend my compliments to my good friend, the Secretary of the Army, John McHugh. Secretary McHugh has installed a new management team that is reaching out to the National Cemetery Administration at the VA for their help in implementing the needed changes to defend Arlington's reputation and ensure that the cemetery operations are conducted in a way that honors our warriors who have given so much in the defense of our Nation. No family should ever have to wonder if their loved one is accounted for or buried in a proper location. They should assume that all has been done correctly. Our heroes and their families deserve the highest possible standards with regard to burial honors, and this bill seeks to prove this assurance. This bill, as amended, requires several reports on the new management team's progress to improve Arlington's IT systems, the contracting practices, organizational structure, and report on the feasibility of transferring the operation of Arlington from the Department of the Army to the VA's National Cemetery Administration. While additional reports will be beneficial, I believe it is important to first allow the Army to complete its ongoing investigations of these same issues. Different studies on overlapping issues can provide unique insights; however, providing these simultaneous investigations, performed by different agencies, might also create unnecessary hindrances to the ongoing studies. Also, with regard to the final provisions on the feasibility of transferring the operation of Arlington National Cemetery to the VA National Cemetery Administration, I want to offer my recommendation that Arlington National Cemetery remain under the jurisdiction of the United States Army. It is hasty to assume that we should immediately just transfer the jurisdiction. It is very important for us to define what, in fact, are the challenges and what are the problems. It is so much like an American: We hear a problem, and we want to run out and create a solution before we totally understand the scope of our challenge. So before we get the cart before the horse, let's not run out there and talk about, Let's immediately transfer. Now I can assure you that when the Department of Interior was not doing their job, what I believe, correctly, I made a suggestion that we should transfer those cemeteries from the Department of Interior to the VA. I don't have a problem. You can make that a holder out there. You get people to do what they believe are the right things to do, and maybe that is what Senator McCaskill was attempting to do here. So I have to respect her in setting a benchmark to do that, and maybe that is, in fact, what her goal here is, to make sure that everybody does what they are supposed to do. The VA does an excellent job of administering the National Cemetery Administration. However, ANC imposes a comprehensive array of issues and logistical arrangements that are completely unique and separate from those at the VA that they, in fact, handle. For example, in addition to coordinating approximately 25 military funerals per day, the Army's duties at Arlington, including the responsibility for the horse teams, for the caissons, and guarding the Tomb of the Unknowns, is truly unique. Certainly Arlington National Cemetery can benefit by emulating VA practices that are applicable, and such information sharing is, in fact, underway. But ultimately, Arlington National Cemetery, under the jurisdiction of the United States Army is where it should remain until we can achieve some answers. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BUYER. Mr. Speaker, yielding myself such time as I may consume, I do associate myself with the gentleman's comments regarding Chairman Skelton Ike not only being a very dear friend, but I really appreciate him stepping forward with these hearings. With that, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia, Representative Bob Goodlatte.

Mr. BUYER

Mr. BUYER. I thank the gentleman. Let me also thank Ike Skelton, who came to this compromise and led that back in 1993, when I was a freshman right out of Desert Storm, came here to the Congress and began to learn about compromise. Something that's being thrown around here today that those of us who have service in the military understand, combat effectiveness is measured by small unit cohesion. It is measured by your buddy to your left and to your right. That's the reality. This Congress is about to dump a policy onto the services which the service chiefs have already told us can have a detrimental impact upon our warriors in harm's way. Why are we doing this? This is discrimination. The Supreme Court allows Congress to discriminate on how our services are put together--if you're too tall, if you're too heavy, if you don't run fast enough, if you can't do the pushups, if you're color blind. There's a whole array. Why do we do that? Because we want the very best able and fit to do what? To go fight and defend America.

Mr. BUYER. I end with this: Tolerance does not require a moral equivalency. Think about it. This is a bad thing to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

Mr. BUYER

Mr. BUYER. So the discretion of the Speaker here is not to recognize a ranking Republican member on a bill that is about to be heard that was never gone through the process of the committee. I ask to be recognized.

Mr. BUYER. And if the chairman is not here to present the bill, shouldn't we go to the next bill, and we would therefore withdraw this bill?

Mr. BUYER. I ask to be recognized. I ask unanimous consent to address the House for 1 minute.

Mr. BUYER. Wow. Was treating another Member with dignity so hard, Madam Speaker? I don't believe it was. You see, you are right. It is within your sole discretion to recognize a Member. But you chose to exercise the power of the gavel, Madam Speaker. Therein lies the problem. I am here. The chairman is not here. He wants a bill brought under suspension that was not gone through regular order of the committee over the objections of the ranking Republican. That is an abuse of the process. As a matter of fact, he wants to bring a bill under suspension and then do this sort of political treachery of doing a manager's amendment, and I object to it all. And he is not even here to do it. So what I am asking is, Madam Speaker, for regular order. If he is not here to pull off this political stunt, then we should just proceed and this bill should be withdrawn. It is the right thing to do by the American people to stop these tactics. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BUYER. Madam Speaker, since this bill has not gone through the committee, I think we ought to just go through regular order and go to the next bill. As a matter of fact, we'll shut the book on this, Madam Speaker. What do you think?

Mr. BUYER. Suspend? I ask to be recognized.

Mr. BUYER. I ask to be recognized. I ask unanimous consent to address the House for 1 minute.

Mr. BUYER. I ask unanimous consent to address the House for 5 minutes. Hearing no objection----

Mr. BUYER. I ask unanimous consent to address the House for 1 minute. Hearing no objection----

Mr. BUYER. Oh. So as a sitting Member of the House, the Speaker chooses not to recognize another sitting Member. Is that correct?

Mr. BUYER

Mr. BUYER. I thank the gentleman from Illinois, and I also thank you for your friendship and your personal counsel over the years. Likewise, I am so pleased that your wife continues to do well. And to my friend, Mike Michaud, Mike--if I may have the latitude to address him by his first name, Mr. Speaker. I don't mean to be nostalgic here for the moment, but I think when Members look back, they really don't remember all the difficult and challenging moments, they remember the things that really bring joy to their life. And one of the joys that I have in life is getting the opportunity to meet some real genuine people. And that's what Mike Michaud of Maine is. You are a genuine human being and it is your nature, it is your character, it is your moral compass, the reason I use the word ``genuine.'' You are truly one of the individuals that I will miss when I look back at Congress. I really will, Mike. I only wish your conference had made you chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, I really do, because you and I could have done a lot of great things together. In reality, the unwritten history will be the success of the committee occurred not by your current chairman, but because of the work-around solutions that we were able to do, by you and I working together, with Stephanie Herseth and the Sergeant Major and Vic Snyder. So history may not credit you, Mr. Michaud, for all the things you've done, but I'm going to stand on the floor and let everybody know all the great things that you have done for veterans in this country, and I am very proud of you. So as I stand here and I think of not only myself, but I think about my colleagues, I want to make sure that you deserve the full measure. When I think about over 20 years ago, frankly, Saddam Hussein was pretty stupid. He decided to take seven of his Iraqi divisions and he invaded Kuwait. He committed incredible atrocities upon the people of Kuwait, and raped and pillaged the city of Kuwait City. And when the President then immediately sent the 101st and the 82nd Airborne divisions as a blocking force to then protect Saudi Arabia, they had to build up the logistics of Saudi Arabia itself and activate reservists. Not since World War II had there been such a deployment, not only of the air, but of the sea and the activation of the Guard and reserve and bringing Seventh Corps out of Europe. You see, Saddam Hussein decided to pick a fight, and he also then took on the United States at a time when the United States was its strongest. We had completed the Reagan build-up. Reagan built up our forces. A lot of good judgments were made back in the latter part of the 1970s and 1980s. Les Aspin, then the chairman of the committee, even though he made some policy changes with regard to how soldiers were going to be paid, and those pay issues got resolved later, in the latter part of the 1990s, Les Aspin, and then the Democrat control of the Armed Services Committee, though, worked then with Ronald Reagan and built up our force. And that was about standing down the Soviet Union. So as we then stood down the Soviet Union, we had a military that was extraordinarily powerful. And Saddam Hussein took on America at a time when we were the most powerful. Now, with regard to our combat experience, the combat experience for the Gulf War was truly also of value, in that our senior level leadership, the senior NCOs, the First Sergeants, the Sergeants Major, the Colonels, the General Officer Corps, the Admirals, they were Vietnam veterans. So as we went into Operations Desert Shield/Desert Storm, the leadership in that war, they said, well, we know what happened during Vietnam, and they always prided themselves that if they ever got themselves in another fight they were going to do things differently. So there was going to be no such thing as rotation. That's what happened in Vietnam. So when we arrived in theater in the first Gulf War, duration was the theme, not rotation, meaning we will be here so long as it's necessary to throw Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. As it turns out it was 100 days. That was a 100-day ground war. What isn't counted, though, is everything that it took to pull off a 100-day ground war. Bringing out so many of the guardsmen and reservists was extraordinary. What was amazing about all this is that that type of a call-up of all the guardsmen and reservists to then support the active elements actually was bringing America to the war. When you pull out a teacher, you pull out someone who leads the church choir, you pull out someone who is the butcher and the baker and you then send them to war, you're bringing America to war. And America really at the time was a little shocked. I mean, some of us, for myself the call-up was in 3 days. I got a notice and I was gone in 3 days. And it was a pretty extraordinary moment, not only in my life but in a lot of people's lives. When I think back at all of this, I really compliment the extraordinary leadership, not only of then Dick Cheney, but also of Colin Powell and Norman Schwarzkopf. But I also look back with great pride of the men and women in theater. I believe that the active duty, of whom had always sort of looked down and chastised the reserve components, had new respect for the reserve components. And I look back at the Persian Gulf War, it was a defining moment, I think, at the time for our country. With regard to the veterans, Mr. Michaud, you are absolutely correct. With a number in excess of 170,000, when you think of the number of those of us that actually went--I don't know the exact number, probably around 700,000 of us that went--that is a very large percentage that have some form of an illness. I was pretty startled by all this. I do recall what it took to sort of expose that some bad things had happened; the fact that we had blown up one of the Army depots that contained some mustard and sarin gas, and that plume was so large that it went over tens of thousands of not only our own troops, including myself, but also about 10,000 of the U.K. And to think that the DOD was not forthcoming with that information to our veterans for a long time is very disturbing. I do recall, when I got home I did not have the physical strength to even run down to the end of the lane. That is only about 1,000 feet. And here I am, 30 years old, physically fit, come back from war and I don't have the physical capacity. Something had happened to me, and I didn't know what it was. I do recall that my wife wanted me to go down to the VA or to go to the doctor, and I refused to do it. I refused to do it because, I said, Joni, if I go, they're just going to say it's in my head. I made it up. It's not real. Yet something had happened to my body. When I then came to Congress, I can assure you when I look back at it, and all of us know when you run for Congress it takes about a year and it takes a lot out of you physically, and I was very sick during that 1 year when I first ran for Congress. When I got here, I decided that I had to accept and get out of the denial mode and step forward and provide voice to a lot of my comrades, and that is what I chose to do. It is very difficult, especially all of us as public figures, to be willing to step forward and put a face, especially your own, on something like that. But I chose to do that. I remember working not only with the gentleman from Illinois but also Joe Kennedy at the time. That is one of the first things I learned about politics, too. When you take someone like Joe Kennedy and you marry him up with Steve Buyer, when we brought something to the floor, nobody voted against it. So the things we were able to do by opening the VA to make sure that these veterans got their access to health care, then creating the compensation for undiagnosed illnesses, that was pretty radical. But we knew that something wrong had happened, and we wanted to make sure that our compassion was real, so let's make sure we take care of the families. And that is exactly what we sought to do. I want to congratulate the gentleman for bringing this resolution. We have moved on to the second Gulf War, and now we are beginning to complete Iraq and we are still in Afghanistan. It is almost as though we have forgotten what happened to the veterans in the first Gulf War, and so many of them continue to suffer from these physical ailments. So when you take a moment like this, you are really saying unto the American people, ``Hey, we've still got some concerns. We still have some very real challenges out there.'' And as I leave, I know that my comrades are in good hands. So I want to thank all of you for supporting the VA and for supporting my comrades. They were there for us and you remember, and for that I am forever grateful. Thank you and Godspeed.

Mr. BUYER

Mr. BUYER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I would like to take the opportunity to thank the highly capable staff of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, not only the full committee, but also the subcommittees. It seems that each session of Congress both bodies pass so many different individual pieces of legislation that we have picked up as a now regular course of doing business creating an omnibus bill. So we do a puts and takes, back and forth between the House and the Senate, and we actually then create a much larger bill that we then bring to the floor that can best serve the interests of America's veterans. And that's in fact what we have here. This is really a very good bill. I couldn't begin to tell you, Mr. Speaker, how many hours have gone into the development of this bill. It is a bipartisan bill. I really appreciate the work of not only my colleagues in the Senate, but also their staff. At this time I would specifically like to mention the leadership of Colonel Malcom Shorter. I would like to thank you for your leadership, sir, on the committee. I recognize it and it is appreciated. And to your counterpart, your pilot, an Air Force colonel himself, Kingston Smith, the Republican House staff director. The two staff directors I think worked very well together, both having worn the uniform. You don't get caught down in the fights between political parties. You think about serving the men and women in uniform. And for that I want to congratulate both of you for keeping everyone focused. I also want to thank David Tucker. David is someone that I have known for a lot of years on the committee. I find him to be a man of distinct honor and integrity. You have always been a very straight shooter, David. Also, he is one whereby if in fact you raise an issue of law or I have raised an issue of law, we diligently dive into it and we get our interpretations and we also get Kingston Smith for his read. But I have had a distinct pleasure, David, of working with you over the years, and I want to recognize your valuable contribution not only in this bill, but what you have done over the years. I consider your talent valuable, but I consider your friendship even more. To Juan Lara, the Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity, the staff director, thank you very much for your work with Mike Brinck on the Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity. Not only do you two work together, but you also take the leads of Stephanie Herseth Sandlin and Dr. Boozman. And, as I said many times, this subcommittee sets the pace not only for the House Veterans' Affairs Committee itself, but I think you set the pace for the entire Congress. This little subcommittee, how you work together interoperably, you can't even tell who is a Republican and who is a Democrat. For that, I congratulate you. I think America would rejoice and may even be surprised that somebody in this town thinks about being an American first. So I want to thank you for your leadership and being a pacesetter. Kimberly Ross, the Subcommittee on Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs staff director, along with Brian Lawrence, the Subcommittee on Disability Assistance Republican Staff Director, both are also pacesetters and don't always get all the attention that they should. Brian, along with Mike Brinck, these are two individuals that are also incredibly talented. Mike, I really appreciate all the years that I have had the opportunity to work with you. And, Jon, I would say for you, you're an individual for whom much is expected. I truly believe that. I guess I am at that point in my career, Mr. Speaker, that I am being a little nostalgic because I recognize individuals, that their diligence, hard work, it's invaluable to the committee; it's invaluable to Congress. There's a reason that we call them professional staff, because that's exactly what they are. They are very professional in their work. Both committees can actually go to a professional staffer and they're going to tell them exactly the read or give them the recommendation for the best interest in how to serve the Nation. And so these individuals whom I have read truly live up to the status of being a professional staffer here in Congress. I also recognize that this is probably the last markup I will have with the House Veterans' Affairs Committee. I want to share this. It has truly been a distinct honor to serve the Nation's veterans, Mr. Speaker. I serve the men and women who wear the military uniform. I help take care of their families, the spouses, the children, the widows, the orphans, the consequences of war, the consequences of their service; and it has been a distinct honor to work with a lot of very talented people to do that. I get upset at times in the committee, and I can have disagreements even with my friends in the veterans service organizations when individuals play their politics or they don't follow the rules or they don't follow the process. And we're meant to be a bipartisan committee. When that doesn't happen, I can get really upset pretty quick. So I'll end with saying that, Mr. Speaker, it has been a distinct honor. I have also enjoyed serving with you, Jesse. With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BUYER. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 3219, as amended, the Veterans' Benefits Act of 2010. This is an omnibus benefit and health bill that contains many provisions to help veterans and their families. I am glad that we were finally able to work this out with the Senate and, really, pass many of the provisions that the House had passed previously in the summer of 2009. This bill contains many provisions authored also by my Republican colleagues, including: The Pat Tillman Scholarship Initiative that would require the VA to publish a list of college scholarship opportunities for veterans on their Web site. This initiative grew from a meeting that my staff had with the family of the U.S. Army Ranger and former NFL star, Pat Tillman. After Tillman's death in Afghanistan, his family and friends founded the Pat Tillman Foundation. Foundation staff informed my staff that they were having problems educating and reaching potential veterans for college scholarships they were awarding. This provision will assist groups like the Pat Tillman Foundation by informing veterans of scholarship opportunities for veterans by placing them on their Web site. We also have the reauthorization of the Homeless Veteran Reintegration Program. This program is run by the Department of Labor's Veterans Employment and Training Service and provides grants to local homeless veteran providers for job-skill training and counseling. This program has been lauded as one of the most successful programs in the Federal Government in combating homelessness. I am also pleased that we were able to include an expansion of this program to local homeless providers that offer job skill training for homeless women veterans and homeless veterans with children. This is an initiative that I have worked on, and I appreciate the cooperation of the majority to make this, in fact, a reality. I took up a cause with regard to addressing this in the 1990s, when the Clinton administration went into a lot of the inner cities and wanted to help recruit women with children, as we were doing the welfare reform initiatives, and bring them into the military. So they joined the military and then they also brought their children. When they left the military, some actually returned to welfare and some became homeless. The fact that we have women with children in America who are homeless, I could not stand that thought. So I want to thank the majority for working with us in making these provisions a reality. This expansion was originally drafted as H.R. 293 and was part of the Nobel Warrior Initiatives that I introduced in January of 2009. Unfortunately, this program is needed, as I said, because recent reports also by the VA indicate 9 percent of the homeless veteran population is women, many of whom have children. These individuals obviously require a safe and supportive environment in a private setting in which they can regain their footing and acquire skills which will lead them to meaningful employment. Once that occurs, they become self-enriched, and they also become better mentors to their children. I hope that this expansion, more homeless veteran providers, will expand beyond their normal male-dominated services to assist women as well as homeless veterans with children. Another one of my provisions in H.R. 3219, as amended, would allow veterans to purchase additional amounts of Veterans Group Life Insurance coverage. Currently the amount of VGLI coverage that a veteran can have cannot be changed. Because the level of coverage must be made within the first year of a servicemember's discharge, and because most of the separating servicemembers are young and single, many select levels that become insufficient as they age and have families. The provision would allow veterans to purchase up to $400,000 of VGLI coverage in $25,000 increments every 5 years until age 60. The cost of such increases would be offset by premiums, so there would be no direct cost to taxpayers. This provision would also allow veterans to tailor their life insurance coverage to fit their current needs and provide greater security for their families, and I am glad it was included in the bill. The final provision I would like to highlight was introduced by the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity, John Boozman. This provision would establish a program to make grants of up to $200,000 to encourage the development of new assistive technologies for specifically adaptive housing. The goal of this provision is to encourage the development of technology to provide the maximum level of independence to severely disabled veterans in their daily living. This includes emerging technologies such as voice command operations, integrated computer- managed functions, and fall prevention devices, and I am pleased this measure will also authorize much of the needed funding for this goal. I am also pleased this bill includes many other improvements for veterans and their families, such as creating a new veterans energy- related employment program; increasing training for veteran employment specialists; increasing protections for deployed servicemembers under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act in regard to cell phone contracts; providing numerous VA life insurance program improvements; increasing the plot and burial allowance for deceased veterans; authorizing aid and attendance benefits for veterans with traumatic brain injury; increasing the number of veterans who can begin receiving independent living services; expanding eligibility for adaptive auto grants to disabled veterans and servicemembers with severe burn injuries; and requiring a National Academies study of best treatments for chronic multisymptom illness in Persian Gulf veterans. It authorizes the funding for construction of medical facilities and/ or community outpatient clinics in Long Beach, California; Billings, Montana; Boston, Massachusetts; San Francisco, California; and San Juan, Puerto Rico. We also have an increase in here with regard to the hospital in New Orleans. Under section 902 of title IX under ``construction,'' the modification of authorization for the amount of medical facility construction projects previously authorized for the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in New Orleans, Louisiana, increases from $625 million to $995 million. The reason I stopped to highlight that is I am going to exercise some disappointment, because we were never able to achieve a joint facility and agreement to actually save money by having some jointness here between Tulane and LSU and another one of the hospitals. This is a lost opportunity. It is really unfortunate. So we are going to be building another one of these big state-of-the-art VA hospitals, and it costs now about $1 billion. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BUYER. I reserve my time.

Mr. BUYER

Mr. BUYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I want to compliment the authors of the legislation in your work on this. But I would like to point out something before we get too excited about whether we are doing a good thing today. Number one, we are--but what are we leaving on the table? If we are trying to address the issue with regard to prescription drugs and making sure that that drug gets in the hands of the right person and that the drug is safe, there is a bigger issue out there. It is called the drug safety issue and whether America's closed system is truly closed. And what we are leaving on the table is an issue which this Congress has not addressed, and it's John Dingell's drug safety bill. And not only is it that, its electronic pedigree, red paper pedigree with regard to drug safety, but the biggest one of all, I would say to the Colombian drug cartel, is that you're in the wrong drug business. We have got all the laws imaginable to whack you pretty hard for your cocaine and your marijuana. But the great threat that is occurring right now to America are drugs coming into the country that we know are not safe. Now, let's do a quick little math because I am leaving Congress, and this is an issue that those of you who are still here, we, as a Nation, you, as legislators, must address this. We have 11 international mail facilities, 11 of them. Our ports of entry. You add UPS at Louisville and FedEx at Memphis, 13. Every day we have on average of 35,000 pharmaceutical packages coming into the international mail facilities. They are coming in because people are getting them on the Internet, and they are going to some drugsave.com out of Canada or whomever. They think it is safe, and they think that that drug is just like what I can get down at my local drugstore, and they order it. And it's coming through illicit, bad operators who are preying on America's sick and elderly. Every time FDA goes out there and checks, we are finding that, on average, 80 percent of those drugs are either adulterated, knock-off, or they are counterfeit. Now let's do the math: 13 international mail facilities times 35,000 average per day, that gives you 455,000 of these pharmaceutical packages per day, times 365. Now we are in excess of 160 million pharmaceutical packages. We are talking boxes of drugs, not just little ones. We are talking boxes of drugs. And if 80 percent of that number are counterfeit, knock-off, adulterated drugs, we are in excess of 132 million. Now, of a smaller percentage that the FDA actually finds and discovers, we have a return-to-sender policy. That's why I wanted to address this. Can you believe that? FDA has a return-to-sender policy. So here we are--I compliment you. We are going to say, Okay, if these drugs aren't good, we want to make sure they don't get into the hands of the people that the doctor doesn't want them to. So we are going to say, Let's destroy them. But as a Nation, our FDA has a return-to- sender policy. So when they discover in an international mail facility that the package is adulterated, knock-off, or counterfeit drugs, they don't destroy them. They do not destroy them. They then take that package and send it back to the bad actor. The bad actor must think, America, what a great place. What a great place. I will steal people's money; I will prey on the sick and the elderly; and the American Government will actually send my counterfeit drugs back to me so I can do it again. So I just want to make this point. Your legislation is absolutely wonderful. But I want to point out, there is a really large problem out there. So before we get too excited that we are doing something really good--and we are but on a much smaller level. Because if we are going to allow millions of people to gain access to these types of drugs, we know that these drugs do not metastasize in the body in the way in which the doctors are intending them to do. And people actually think that the drugs they are taking are exactly what they can get down at CVS or Walgreens or whatever, and it's not happening. So my only point I appeal to all of you is, number one, congratulations; number two, we have a really large issue that we need to address in the next Congress. We really do. And let's get our arms around this. I want to congratulate John Dingell on his drug safety bill. And it's a shame that we actually weren't able to get this done in the committee. Again, my compliments to you. But this is a big issue as a Nation we must address and protect America.

Mr. BUYER

Mr. BUYER. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the gentleman from Florida on his legislation. He's worked hard on it. As you can tell, he has put a lot of time and effort into this. The only thing I would add is that it's not just veterans--those whom have been recently discharged from the military. We also have guardsmen and reservists who are returning. We just had a brigade return from Tennessee. Of this brigade that has just returned from a theater of war, 40 percent do not have jobs waiting on them. Think about that. Forty percent of those just now coming back from a theater of war don't have a job waiting on them. So it is not just the veterans who may have served the Nation many years ago. It is those who are returning who are still active guardsmen and reservists, yet now they don't have that job to come back to. We had better be leaning forward on this one. Mr. Stearns, I want to thank you for your legislation. I want to thank the chairman for supporting the legislation. I urge all Members to support H.R. 3685. I yield back the balance of my time.