Jeff Miller

Mr. MILLER of Florida

Mr. MILLER of Florida. Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I do support this amendment. It does require a report on DOD physicians who are part-time VA employees, and it is important to have an accurate accounting of how DOD clinicians are practicing at the VA on a part-time basis and how they are recruited. So I want to thank Representative Lujan for bringing this valuable piece of legislation to the floor. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. MILLER of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to claim the time in opposition, even though I do not oppose it.

Mr. MILLER of Florida. Mr. Chair, I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Takano) for bringing this piece of legislation to the floor. It is something that we already have passed, but putting it in a couple of different places probably doesn't hurt, so I would urge my colleagues to support this amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. MILLER of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to claim the time in opposition, even though I am not opposed to the amendment.

Mr. MILLER of Florida. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank Mr. O'Rourke, a valued member of our committee, and Ms. Stefanik for bringing this timely piece of legislation to the floor in amendment form. I think it is very important. As the VA tries to recruit new physicians to fill the 40,000-plus openings that they may have at any one time, it is important to be able to get the younger folks that are coming in so that they can be a part of the VA system and helping our veterans. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. MILLER of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to claim the time in opposition, even though I do not oppose the amendment.

Mr. MILLER of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Again, Mr. O'Rourke has brought an outstanding addition to this important piece of legislation. It is critical for continuity and the provision of safe, quality health care to our veterans to allow them to be able to communicate back and forth without any impediments, so I appreciate Mr. O'Rourke's hard work and, again, bringing this amendment to the floor. I urge my colleagues to support it. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. MILLER of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Again, Mr. O'Rourke has brought another good piece of legislation to the floor. In fact, this has previously passed the House in the 113th Congress. I think that veterans' voices must be heard, and we also must be careful how the questions are asked. We know how any survey or poll can be manipulated. It is very important that this is a trusted survey. I would urge my colleagues to support this amendment. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. MILLER of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to claim the time in opposition to the amendment, even though I do not oppose it.

Mr. MILLER of Florida. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, this is an important piece of legislation to many. It would give the ability for those who have served in the National Guard or Reserve for 20 years selflessly to be able to call themselves a veteran. It has already passed the House, as my colleague has already brought to our attention, back in February. Representative Walz is steadfast in his support of the National Guard and Reserve and all those who have worn the uniform of this Nation. I think it is very fitting that it be a part of this legislation today. I urge its passage. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. MILLER of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to claim the time in opposition, even though I am not opposed to the amendment.

Mr. MILLER of Florida

Mr. MILLER of Florida. Mr. Speaker, once again, I encourage all Members to support H.R. 5985, as amended. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. MILLER of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 5985) to amend title 38, United States Code, to extend certain expiring provisions of law administered by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. MILLER of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that Members have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and add extraneous material on H.R. 5985, as amended.

Mr. MILLER of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 5985, as amended, would extend a number of expiring authorities and critical programs at both the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Labor. These include extensions for veterans' health care and homeless programs, benefits for disabled veterans and their caregivers, vocational rehabilitative programs for servicemembers and veterans, home loan programs, and a variety of advisory committees and pilot programs. Absent passage of this legislation today, these important and noncontroversial authorizations and programs are set to expire at the end of this fiscal or this calendar year. These are not new programs, and the costs associated with them have either been fully offset or have been assumed in the baseline budget for fiscal year 2017. Furthermore, both the majority and minority of the House and Senate Committees on Veterans' Affairs have worked on this language and agree on the need to extend all of these programs. H.R. 5985, as amended, includes an extension of authority which would allow VA to continue to approve schools for GI Bill benefits for up to 18 months, even if the school's accreditor loses formal recognition by the Department of Education. Mr. Speaker, this change is necessary to provide student veterans with the same protections that students using title IV funds would have, and it would ensure that our Nation's veterans don't immediately have their GI Bill benefits, including their housing allowances, halted by a DOE decision to no longer recognize an accrediting body. This provision is a must-pass, as there is possibly an imminent decision by the Department of Education to do just that and to withdraw the approval of the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools. While I am not going to comment today on the Secretary of Education's decision, we have been told it could come as early as this month, and it is this body's duty to protect an estimated 18,000 veterans from losing their benefits instantaneously through absolutely no fault of their own. The language in this bill would mirror language that is already included in the law governing nonveteran student aid and is supported by numerous veterans service organizations and other stakeholders, including the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States, Student Veterans of America, and the National Association of State Approving Agencies. Mr. Speaker, I encourage all Members to support H.R. 5985, as amended. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MILLER of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from the Fifth District of Colorado (Mr. Lamborn), a very active member of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs.

Mr. MILLER of Florida

Mr. MILLER of Florida. Mr. Chair, while I understand what the gentlewoman is trying to accomplish, I do have to rise in opposition.

Mr. MILLER of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material into the Record on H.R. 5620.

Mr. MILLER of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, my bill, the VA Accountability First and Appeals Modernization Act of 2016, would do two very important things for our Nation's veterans. First, it would provide the Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs with more tools needed to enforce accountability at VA. Second, it would help modernize VA's current appeals process, which is not just broken but is preventing VA from providing veterans with the benefits they deserve in a timely manner. I want to first take a moment to discuss the important and forward- thinking accountability measures that are included in the bill before us today. H.R. 5620 would allow the VA Secretary to remove or demote any employee for poor performance or misconduct; would allow the recoupment of a bonus given inappropriately to an employee; reduce a senior executive's pension if they are found guilty of a felony that influenced their job performance; make modifications to the Secretary's authority to remove senior executives that was granted in the Choice Act; and recoup any location and moving expenses if the Secretary determines that the employee committed any acts of waste, fraud, or malfeasance. Furthermore, despite comments made by some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, my bill also contains language that increases protections. Let me say that again. It increases protections of whistleblowers. These new whistleblower protections would stipulate that any employee cannot be removed under this new authority if they have an open claim at the Office of Special Counsel. To add even more protections for those who blow the whistle at VA, my bill would also set up a new process to be used in addition to any other process that is currently allowed by law. This will protect whistleblowers from retaliation and removal while they bring issues to light up through their chain of command. These protections are unprecedented and strengthen existing whistleblower protections. In fact, 16 whistleblower groups signed a letter of support for the whistleblower provisions of this particular bill and stated that section 8 of my bill is `` . . . a major breakthrough in the struggle for VA whistleblowers to gain credible rights when defending the integrity of the agency mission and disclosing quality of care concerns. Further, section 8 of the bill would provide a system to hold employees accountable for their actions when they retaliate against those exposing waste, fraud, or abuse.'' Mr. Chair, as I have always said, I agree with all of my colleagues that the vast majority of the employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs are hardworking public servants who are dedicated to providing quality health care and the benefits that our veterans have earned. But it is beyond comprehension that, with as much outright malfeasance as our committee has uncovered at the Department of Veterans Affairs and increased scrutiny that we have placed on the Department over the past 5 years and their need to hold employees accountable, we still see far too many instances of VA employees not living up to the standards that America expects. It is even more incomprehensible that anyone would oppose this bill. For example, we have shown an employee showing up drunk to work to scrub in for a surgery on a veteran; an employee taking a recovering addict to a crack house and buying him drugs and the services of a prostitute; a VA employee participating in an armed robbery; and senior managers retaliating against whistleblowers, at which point VA then has to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to the whistleblower in restitution. Not only are all of these acts egregious and not only are all of these instances factual, they really are just the tip of the iceberg. But what causes me to stand before you today is that in none of these instances did the VA hold these employees accountable in any reasonable timeframe, if they did at all. I blame many factors for this, but mainly I blame an antiquated system that has left VA managers unwilling to jump through the many hoops to do what is right. Mr. Chair, it is well past time that we not allow the current system to continue. It is certainly our duty to finally take action and enact meaningful change at VA that puts their veterans and their families first and foremost. Everything else should come second. That includes the power of the public sector unions. As I have said before, VA is not sacred. Our veterans are. Unfortunately, since the VA Committee began placing a greater focus on changing the civil service as it pertains to the VA, the unions have pushed back at every single turn, even telling committee staff that anything other than the status quo would never garner their support. Well, if the list of employees I mentioned before of who were not held accountable is not a clear example of how broken the status quo is, then I don't know what is. Mr. Chair, it is time that we put politics and the misguided rhetoric of opponents of change aside and, instead, align ourselves with our Nation's veterans and the organizations that represent them. Eighteen veterans service organizations support the bill that is before us today: The American Legion, The Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States, Disabled American Veterans, Paralyzed Veterans of America, Student Veterans of America, AMVETS, Association of the United States Navy, the Military Order of Purple Heart, National Association for Uniformed Services, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, Concerned Veterans for America, the Fleet Reserve Association, Military Officers Association of America, Reserve Officers Association, The Enlisted Association of the National Guard of the United States, VetsFirst, Vietnam Veterans of America, and The United States Army Warrant Officers Association. That is 18 groups, Mr. Chairman. These groups represent millions of veterans and their families, not public employee unions who support the status quo that has led to the litany of problems at the Department of Veterans Affairs. The choice is clear. Each of us is now faced with either siding with the veterans of this country or corrupt union bosses. Everyone in government knows that the civil service laws that were once meant to promote the efficiency of government are now obsolete and make it almost impossible to remove a poor-performing employee. Even last year, VA Deputy Secretary Sloan Gibson sat before our committee and admitted it was too difficult to fire a substandard employee. Another former senior VA employee, then Acting Under Secretary for Benefits, stated at a committee hearing last year that ``. . . With our GS employees, it's the rules, the regulations, the protections are such that it's almost impossible to do anything.'' The Government Accountability Office studied the government's ability to hold low-performing employees accountable. They found that it took 6 months to a year, on average, and sometimes significantly longer, to fire poor-performing government employees. When the Choice Act was signed into law in 2014, even President Obama said at the bill signing: ``If you engage in an unethical practice, if you cover up a serious problem, you should be fired. Period. It shouldn't be that difficult.'' While I know the administration has changed its tone since the Choice Act was signed into law, since this legislation would now affect all VA employees, even unionized ones, I strongly believe we should maintain the same expectations for rank and file employees at VA as we do senior officials, regardless of your title or rank within the agency. It is a privilege to work at VA and to serve the veterans of this country. It is not a right. Last summer, the House passed the removal section for all VA employees in H.R. 1994. At the time, I received a lot of pushback from my colleagues on the minority side about the accountability language. I was told I was trying to make all VA employees at-will and completely destroy the civil service system. As I said then and I say now, that was not and is not my intention. But I believe that the current system is hampering VA from moving forward into an organization that is deserving of the veterans that it serves. In short, I want a civil service system at VA that serves and protects veterans, not bad employees. I continue to hear concerns that this bill will hurt the Department's ability to recruit and retain good employees and will hurt morale. I also know that, last night, the administration released a statement about its concerns with the accountability measures in this bill and that this language would impede rather than support VA's ability to carry out its duties. I think these arguments are nothing more than scare tactics. Mr. Chairman, what is impeding VA from carrying out its duties is decades of tolerating poor performance and even criminal or unethical behavior. The antiquated civil service laws are binding the Department's hands and permitting the toxic behavior of a few to overcome the good work of a majority. If we do not at least try to give the Secretary the tools needed to hold VA employees accountable, then we are just as culpable for any future VA failures as the antiquated civil service laws that foster these failures now. That is why this legislation is not punitive, but it is necessary if we truly want to make the ability for the changes in this Congress. The American people and, most importantly, our veterans expect this to occur. The best way to improve morale is to make it easier to get rid of the roots of dysfunction that we currently see throughout the Department of Veterans Affairs. I have been told that VA can't fire its way to excellence, but neither can you tolerate malfeasance and expect excellence to become routine. Most Americans would be appalled with the complexity that is now baked into our civil service system. In the real world, if you don't do your job effectively or if you engage in unethical conduct, you get removed from the payroll. It is that simple. We only need to look at the news that broke last week regarding 5,300 employees at the Wells Fargo Bank that were fired for creating hundreds of thousands of fake deposit accounts and cheating customers by charging them bogus fees. That is how disciplinary actions are handled in the private sector. They were fired. And I believe it is something the public sector needs to learn from. Compare that to the fewer than 10 VA employees held accountable for the wait time manipulation at the center of the largest scandal in VA history, and it is no wonder why Americans are losing faith in their government. There is not a doubt in my mind that all of my colleagues here, all of them, care about our Nation's veterans, and we can show that by passing this bill before us today. I also want to touch on a provision in my bill that would improve the appeals process of disability claims at the VA. VA should process veterans' claims for disability benefits accurately, consistently, and in a timely fashion. However, if a veteran disagrees with the decision and decides to file an appeal, VA's appeals process should be thorough, it should be swift, and it should be fair. The truth is that VA's current appeals process is broken. It is a lengthy, complicated, and confusing process for our veterans and their families. The appeals reform section was drafted by the Department in collaboration with VSOs and other veterans advocates. The intent of the bill is to modernize their existing cumbersome appeals process and to ensure that veterans receive appeals decisions in a timely fashion. My bill, based entirely off committee member Dina Titus' bill, would allow the veteran to remove a traditional appeal with a hearing and opportunity to new evidence in support of their claim. Additionally, the bill would give veterans the option of choosing a faster process in which the veteran would not submit new evidence or have a hearing but would receive an expedited decision. Although there are many questions about how VA is going to implement this proposal, we don't have the luxury of time in these closing days, and the backlog of pending appeals is exploding. As of the first of January of this year, there were 375,000 appeals pending in VA, including at the Board of Veterans' Appeals. On the first of June of this year, there were almost 457,000 appeals pending, an increase of 82,000 pending appeals in less than 18 months. Moreover, the Board of Veterans' Appeals estimates that the number of appeals certified to the Board will rise from 88,000 to almost 360,000 in fiscal year 2017, a 400 percent increase in 1 year. It is obvious that Congress needs to act now. This bill offers the best chance to improve VA's appeals process and provide veterans with the best possible decision on their claim. Mr. Chairman, today we have a meaningful package that makes changes to VA's civil service system, while maintaining due process rights, as well as making progressive steps in changing the antiquated system that veterans are currently stuck in when appealing their disability claims. And finally, it is vital for our colleagues to keep in mind that H.R. 5620 is truly a bipartisan bill. It combines two of the biggest legislative priorities proposed by both the Republicans and the Democrats. And as we near the end of this Congress, we have the opportunity to put politics aside to make real and lasting change to a broken system. Today, we can decide to stand with our veterans, or we can stand with the status quo and the unions that perpetuate the status quo which, I believe, has failed them and the American public for far, far too long. I hope you will join me and the 18 veterans service organizations who support this legislation. Do what is right for our veterans. Pass H.R. 5620. Let's put accountability first so that transformative reforms can succeed. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time. House of Representatives, Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Washington DC, September 8, 2016. Hon. Jeff Miller, Chairman, Committee on Veterans' Affairs, Washington, DC. Dear Mr. Chairman: I write concerning H.R. 5620, the VA Accountability First and Appeals Modernization Act of 2016. As you know, the Committee on Veterans' Affairs received an original referral and the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform a secondary referral when the bill was introduced on July 5, 2016. I recognize and appreciate your desire to bring this legislation before the House of Representatives in an expeditious manner, and accordingly, the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will forego action on the bill, as amended. The Committee takes this action with our mutual understanding that by foregoing consideration of H.R. 5620 at this time, we do not waive any jurisdiction over the subject matter contained in this or similar legislation. Further, I request your support for the appointment of conferees from the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform during any House-Senate conference convened on this or related legislation. Finally, I would ask that a copy of our exchange of letters on this matter be included in the Congressional Record during floor consideration, to memorialize our understanding. Sincerely, Jason Chaffetz, Chairman.

Mr. MILLER of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I would remind my good friend that the very same group that she says supported her appeals reform is the very same one that supports my accountability legislation. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis) from the State of Florida's District 12.

Mr. MILLER of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I would remind my good friend, the ranking member over on the minority side, that this bill has been sitting out there for 6 weeks, in time for 80 amendments to have been filed, so it definitely was not rushed. I remember back in high school the three branches of government, and the executive branch is supposed to enforce the laws that this body, Congress, writes. I don't believe it is the Attorney General's responsibility. She may wish she was a judge, but she is not. She is the Attorney General. She cannot deem something unconstitutional. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Lamborn).

Mr. MILLER of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I would remind my good friend that the Attorney General did comment on one particular live case. As a matter of fact, Sharon Helman, the person at the very center of the wait time debacle in Phoenix, believe it or not, is suing to get her job back, and the Attorney General has taken exception with one minor part of the law that was passed in 2014, the Veterans Choice Act. We have actually fixed her questions as relate to the Appointments Clause in the piece of legislation, so that problem should have been resolved at this point. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from the State of Tennessee (Mr. Roe). Dr. Roe is from the First Congressional District of Tennessee.

Mr. MILLER of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. MILLER of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I urge all Members to support H.R. 5620, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. MILLER of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I quote from a letter to Mrs. Kirkpatrick from the Office of Special Counsel: ``We appreciate the bipartisan support for stronger whistleblower protections for VA employees, as reflected in H.R. 5620.'' Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Huelskamp), from the First District.