Bob Filner

Mr. FILNER

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker, I am honored to yield 3 minutes to the author of the legislation, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Boswell), who, as I said, worked with the family of Mr. Omvig, who took their tragic situation and turned it into something that could help our whole Nation. We thank you, Mr. Boswell. (Mr. BOSWELL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. FILNER. I would yield 1 minute to the gentlelady from California (Mrs. Napolitano), who has been a fighter to elevate mental health to the consciousness not only to California, but our whole Nation for her whole career. Thank you, Mrs. Napolitano.

Mr. FILNER. I would yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Iowa, the neighboring district to the Omvigs, and a new Member, Mr. Braley. Thank you for being here today. (Mr. BRALEY of Iowa asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. FILNER. I would ask for the courtesy of yielding 2 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Salazar).

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker, I just want to thank Mr. Miller, the ranking member of the House subcommittee, for your courtesy today, for your leadership on these issues, and for bringing members of your caucus to the floor. I think it is very important that all of us have an understanding of these issues. And the more that we all understand it and communicate that to the American people, we are, I think, better as a Nation. So thank you for the cooperation and the support. I think we all were moved by Mr. Boswell and Mr. Braley's presentations. In the name of Joshua Omvig, we ask for support from our colleagues.

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

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. FILNER

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 797) to amend title 38, United States Code, to improve compensation benefits for veterans in certain cases of impairment of vision involving both eyes, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on H.R. 797, as amended.

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker, I would yield myself such time as I may consume. As noted, this bill is ``as amended.'' And I want to thank the members on my committee on both sides of the aisle, particularly Mr. Boozman of Arkansas and Mr. Lamborn of Colorado, for their very constructive amendments. Mr. Boozman will talk later on what he did, but we have extended the authorization for the work/study program at his request for 5 years, so thank you for your amendments to that. And we thank Ms. Baldwin, who has brought this to our attention and is very committed to the health care of our veterans of this Nation. So we are glad all to work together to get this to the House floor today. This has been introduced in previous Congresses, but we are glad it is on the floor now. It would allow veterans who receive veterans disability compensation for impairment of vision in one eye to be eligible to receive additional disability compensation for impairment of vision in the eye that is not service connected, where that impairment in each eye is to a visual acuity of 20/200 or less, or of a peripheral field of 20 degrees or less. Suffice it to say that there was a great blind spot in the law that did not cover our veterans who would need the help. It would direct the Secretary of Veterans Affairs and the Secretary of Health and Human Services to match and compare VA needs-based pension benefits data, parents' dependency and indemnity compensation data, health care services data, and unemployability compensation data with the National Directory of New Hires, maintained by the Department of Health and Human Services, for the purpose of determining eligibility for such benefits and services. It would extend authorization of the veterans work/study program until 2012 at the suggestion of Mr. Boozman, and allows for a bronze ``V'' marker in lieu of a government-provided headstone or marker for burials in a private cemetery, at the suggestion of Mr. Lamborn. It would affect an estimated 5 percent of the 13,000 veterans who have service-connected blindness or loss of vision in one eye. As of April 2006, the Walter Reed Medical Center alone has treated 140 returning OEF/OIF servicemembers for visual injuries. I urge Members to support the bill. It is the least we can do for our veterans. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Boozman, thank you again for having the initiative to extend the work/study program. You took the creativity of Ms. Baldwin who was able to save money in this bill, not only meeting the needs of veterans, but by introducing a section to compare data which I hope you will explain, saved us money which can now be used to extend the work/ study program for 5 years. Thank you for your amendment Mr. Speaker, I am honored to yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from Wisconsin (Ms. Baldwin), the author of this bill, who not only solved a problem but found some money.

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker, again, I would like to thank Mr. Lamborn for this very important addition. It will give families added consolation, of course, on the burial of a loved one. So we thank you I have no further requests for time.

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker, we urge support for H.R. 797, as amended, and I yield back our time.

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. FILNER

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1284) to increase, effective as of December 1, 2007, the rates of compensation for veterans with service-connected disabilities and the rates of dependency and indemnity compensation for the survivors of certain disabled veterans.

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 1284.

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, we all urge passage of H.R. 1284, the so-called Veterans' Compensation, COLA, Cost-of-Living Adjustment Act. It would direct the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to increase, effective December 1 of this year, the rates of veterans' compensation to keep pace with the rising cost of living in our Nation. The rate adjustment is equal to that provided on an annual basis to Social Security recipients and is based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Consumer Price Index. Regardless, Mr. Speaker, of where any of us are on the current war in Iraq, we all believe that our returning young men and women who have served this Nation so courageously get all the attention, care, respect and love that we can give as a Nation. Nothing bothers any of us more than to see returning troops, whether it be at Walter Reed or any of our VA hospitals, have to face the bureaucracy that seems indifferent, and does not provide the services they need. The cost of serving these veterans, which includes this annual COLA, is a continuing cost of war. We will have from Iraq and Afghanistan an increase in injuries and disabilities that will yield an increase in claims for compensation. Over 1.5 million servicemembers have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan without any end, it looks like, in sight, and the President calls for more troops. Therefore, the Veterans Administration, as well as the military hospitals, can expect a significant increase in the number of new claims for compensation and new demands on the health care system. I think that recent events have shown that neither system is adequately prepared for that onslaught, and, in fact, the systems are stretched to the breaking point. We as a Congress, we as a Nation, have got to give our veterans all the care that they need, all the resources they need, and we as Congress have to provide accountability for the spending of those resources. Let me say that certainly we on the Democratic side, and I am sure supported on the Republican side, have made major increases in the resources to our veterans care that is now demanded from our Nation. I am told that the budget resolution will have an additional $6.6 billion over what we appropriated last year for the Veterans Administration. You know that we appropriated an additional $3.6 billion for fiscal year 2007, the year that we are in now, in the so-called continuing resolution, the biggest increase of any department in that continuing resolution. The supplemental that we will be considering at the end of this week has $3.5 billion for military and veterans health care: we say if you are going to deal with the cost of war, deal with the costs of the warrior. So just in 60 days, Mr. Speaker, the new majority in the Congress has provided an additional $13.5 billion for the care of our Nation's veterans, and that is a bigger increase than was totaled in the last 5 years combined. So I think we are responding to the Walter Reed scandal. We are responding to the tragic suicides that came from indifference from the bureaucracy. We are responding to the needs of traumatic brain injury that have so increased in this war. We are responding to the needs of those who have post-traumatic stress disorder. We are responding to the needs of a Veterans Administration that is backlogged 600,000 disability claims. So we are going to respond with the dollars. We also need to make sure we have accountability, and we will have more to say on that in the future. Congress regularly enacts an annual cost-of-living adjustment for veterans compensation to make sure that inflation does not erode the purchasing power of veterans and their families who depend upon this income to meet their daily needs. This bill before us, in fact, will benefit all veterans from the World War I era through the current conflicts. So I hope that we will have support for this. I would like to add my thanks for the increases that I talked about just a second ago in this budget for 2008 and the continuing resolution for 2007 and the supplemental that we will be considering to our Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, who insisted that we care for our Nation's veterans; also, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, Mr. Obey of Wisconsin; to his chairman of the subcommittee that looks at veterans affairs, Mr. Edwards from Texas; and the chairman of our Budget Committee, Mr. Spratt, all of whom said we are not going to fail this test that America is faced with today, the test of whether we are going to make sure that our veterans get the care they need Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. FILNER. You are asking that of me? The lowest level of person in the House? No, I hope we will take up that supplemental at the end of the week.

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield as much time as he may consume to the new chairman of the Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs Subcommittee of the Veterans Affairs Committee, Mr. Hall of New York.

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield as much time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from Nevada (Ms. Berkley).

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers, but I would like to thank Mr. Miller for his commitment to our Nation's veterans, for leading his side with civility, cooperation and friendship.

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

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. FILNER

Mr. FILNER. The verdict is in, my colleagues. Both the Defense Department's health services for returning troops and the Veterans Administration are strained to the limit; they are almost to the breaking point. For as much money that we give them, we have not prepared for the influx of the troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. The evidence is clear. What was happening at Walter Reed that was outlined in the Washington Post has, in fact, educated the whole Nation. We have had cover stories in the news magazines on how veterans are falling through the cracks. There was an incredible documentary on ABC News by Bob Woodruff and how his brain injury was treated and how fellow vets had their brain injuries treated. And yesterday on CNN we had a story on how Iraqi troops returning were homeless already. We simply have got to meet this test as a Nation. The Democrats are trying to do that. We put an additional $3.6 billion into the continuing resolution to fund this year to help our troops. And in the supplemental we have $3.5 billion for our Nation's troops. It is time to support our troops when they come home