Phil Roe

Mr. ROE of Tennessee

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Taylor), the author of this bill and a Navy SEAL.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 2772) to amend title 38, United States Code, to provide for requirements relating to the reassignment of Department of Veterans Affairs senior executive employees, as amended.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I certainly support this bill, and I want to thank both General Bergman and Ms. Kuster. We made a trip to Afghanistan together a couple of years ago. She has a dogged--and I will say ``dogged''-- commitment to the veterans in her district and to this country, and I want to thank her for bringing this piece of legislation up. I believe it will make a difference, I truly do, when it is implemented. And I want to thank the ranking member, and his staff and mine, for bringing a lot of pieces of legislation to the House floor in the last couple of weeks. This week, especially, we have had some success here, and that means veterans had success. Certainly, the post-9/11 GI Bill that was passed this week is an enormous bill and will do good generations after no one ever remembers who was on this floor debating that bill. So I want to thank them and thank my colleagues and wish everyone a safe recess and a healthy recess. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 3262) to require the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to carry out a pilot program to provide educational assistance to certain former members of the Armed Forces for education and training as physician assistants of the Department of Veterans Affairs, to establish pay grades and require competitive pay for physician assistants of the Department, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 3262, as amended, the Grow Our Own Directive--or GOOD--Physician Assistant Employment and Education Act of 2017. The PA profession has a long and storied connection with veterans as the first class of PAs was primarily composed of Army medics and Navy corpsmen who served in the Vietnam war. And I might add, when I did basic training at San Antonio, Texas, at Fort Sam, one of the first PA classes was there. Today, the Department of Veterans Affairs is the single largest employer of PAs in the country. Nevertheless, PAs are consistently identified as one of the top five professions where VA is experiencing the largest staffing shortages. H.R. 3262, as amended, would help solve that by creating a pilot program to provide assistance to veterans who want to pursue education and training to become a PA and to serve their fellow veterans by working at VA medical facilities. I am grateful to Congresswoman Ann Kuster for sponsoring this legislation and shepherding it through the legislative process, and I am confident that it will go a long way in resolving existing PA recruitment and retention issues, ensuring that VA medical facilities are appropriately staffed with high-quality PAs and, in turn, increasing access to care for veteran patients. Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to join me in supporting H.R. 3262, as amended, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bergman), who is the chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations on the full Veterans' Affairs Committee.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, once again, I encourage all Members to support this legislation. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 95, as amended, the Veterans' Access to Child Care Act. This bill would make the Department of Veterans Affairs' successful pilot program to provide childcare assistance to veterans seeking mental or other intensive healthcare services through the VA healthcare system permanent. I have been a ``Doctor Dad'' myself, and I know firsthand how difficult it can be to manage childcare responsibilities on top of everything else. We know that the lack of childcare is a barrier to care for many patients and that assisting veteran parents, grandparents, and guardians in finding childcare opportunities while they are attending VA appointments will relieve a major stress point and increase access to care. I am grateful to Congresswoman Julia Brownley, the ranking member of our Subcommittee on Health, for her leadership in sponsoring the Veterans' Access to Child Care Act. I am proud to support this bill and urge my colleagues to do so as well. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 95) to amend title 38, United States Code, to direct the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to provide child care assistance to veterans receiving certain medical services provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs, as amended.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material.

Mr. ROE of TENNESSEE

Mr. ROE of TENNESSEE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material in the Record on S. 114, as amended.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. In closing, I would certainly urge everyone to support this actionable piece of legislation. During the last 6\1/2\ months, the Veterans' Affairs Committee has been a very active committee. When we realized that our Choice Program was running short of funds, the committee, in a bipartisan way, voted to extend that. We have also realized that there are 470,000 veterans whose claims are in appeals and have not been adjudicated. We realize that program is not functioning as it should. The House acted quickly, was bipartisan. That legislation has now been passed out of the Senate VA Committee and is awaiting action by the floor. We hope to have it passed and signed into law soon. We knew that the Secretary of the VA said he had problems, that he couldn't--most VA employees are terrific. Some of my best friends work at the VA. But there are some not good employees out of the 370,000 there, and the Secretary said, to do his job, to reform the VA, he needed a bill where he could terminate poor-performing employees, and this House and Senate gave him that. The President has signed that into law. The Secretary has also moved in speeding up the electronic health record transformation into a modern off-the-shelf system. We debated on this floor, today, the Post-9/11 GI Bill update, which is a tremendous benefit for veterans, and decades from now we will look back on this debate we had on the floor, I think, with some admiration as I do. It has been a true privilege and pleasure to be on this committee and to work with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to take care of these important issues this committee has produced. It will make this promise to our veterans of this country; it will continue to produce results for them. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bergman), the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee chair and a marine who served with distinction.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Dunn), a veteran and the author of the bill.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 2781, as amended, the Ensuring Veteran Enterprise Participation in Strategic Sourcing Act. H.R. 2781 is another piece of thoughtful contracting legislation sponsored by a hardworking member of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, Dr. Neal Dunn. This bill will make sure that all small businesses owned by veterans and service-disabled veterans are never excluded from a particular group of contracts run by the General Services Administration, or GSA. Despite Congress' efforts to give our veterans maximum opportunity in VA contracting, the system does not always work as it should. This bill fixes a loophole that has cropped up recently and makes sure veteran businesses are not inadvertently ignored when VA uses these GSA contracts. Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to join me in supporting H.R. 2781, as amended. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Bost), the subcommittee chair on the committee and a marine veteran.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 2781) to direct the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to certify the sufficient participation of small business concerns owned and controlled and owned by veterans and small business concerns owned by veterans with service-connected disabilities in contracts under the Federal Strategic Sourcing Initiative, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. This was a process, and it took several months working with the VSOs, with our staffs, with Mr. Walz's team and our team and others to get this bill where it is. And I think, as Mr. Walz said, that as people dig into this bill, it is truly, I believe, an outstanding piece of legislation that honors the people who serve this country and will give them a benefit when they come home. If you are 25 years old and you come home and you have a job from the military, you separate after a few years of service, and your job leaves when you are 42, you have lost that benefit now. Now, you can go back and get retrained. We know that the average person is going to have five, six, seven different occupations during a professional working career. This will allow our veterans, I think some of the absolute finest people that grace this Nation, to be able to be the ones who are the leaders in the future because of the education benefit that they have earned with their service. I thank my friend, Mr. Walz, for his work on this and leadership on this, along with his team and our team here. Madam Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to support this, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I urge all Members to support H.R. 2749, as amended, and I yield back the balance of my time.