Debbie Wasserman Schultz

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time. Amendment No. 45 Offered by Mr. Steube

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Chair, I believe the gentleman from Florida misspoke, so let me make clear that this amendment prohibits incentive bonus payments to anyone in the senior executive service in the entire VA, not just the central office. Let's be clear what this amendment does. It goes much further than the gentleman described. The VA has acknowledged that they made a mistake in issuing bonus payments to certain employees in the VA central office and they have taken steps to address this error and recoup these funds. In fact, 92 percent of these funds have already been recouped and the remaining will likely be recovered soon. This issue is on its way to being resolved. It is an administrative mistake, and this amendment is completely unnecessary and takes a sledgehammer where a chisel would be more appropriate. This amendment would go further by disincentivizing dedicated public servants from serving the VA by preventing any merit-based bonuses, not just from the central office as the gentleman from Florida described. We should be investing in ways to attract talent to the VA and this amendment takes us backward. Humans make mistakes. That is the reality, and I think all of us would acknowledge that we have made some mistakes in our lives. Sometimes big ones, but we shouldn't be cutting off our nose to spite our faces by taking away merit-based bonuses for the entire senior executive service at the VA going forward. We already have a recruitment and retention problem, and we have trouble attracting top-quality talent to devote their lives to public service and their careers to public service. Do we think that taking away any opportunity for a merit-based bonus is going to improve that situation? This is outrageous overkill when the VA has already addressed this. This is an irresponsible amendment that I urge Members to oppose because we would be hurting our own ability to retain and recruit top- quality talent at the VA. People make mistakes. This is administratively being taken care of, and we need to just make sure that we can move on and not seek out a solution in search of a problem. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Chair, I think if you take a look at the expenditures made by many Members of Congress in our offices, you would see that we responsibly use some of our funding to provide bonuses for the service of our own employees. That happens all across the Federal Government, just like it does across the private sector. It happens a lot less significantly understandably because public service is a noble profession, one that people choose to engage in; however, we want to make sure that we attract top talent to public service. Eliminating the ability for the entire VA to provide that kind of merit-based bonus is irresponsible, and it will make it less likely that we have the top-quality talent willing to make the sacrifice to come and serve our veterans at the VA. Why would we do that? That makes no sense. This was an error. It is being corrected. It is almost completely corrected. Unfortunately, the gentleman from Florida and the sponsor of this amendment are going way too far and hurting our ability to make sure that we can take care of our veterans with the top talent that they deserve. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Chair, the VA provides a purely administrative function for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to process medical claims. Moreover, ICE pays for these services, not the VA. There are no funds in this bill to prohibit being spent. ICE pays VA to process their medical claims. This is an amendment that doesn't even apply to funding in our bill. This amendment is misplaced, and it conflates the services that the VA actually provides with the larger issue of immigration because our friends on the other side of the aisle never miss an opportunity to bash immigrants who are simply trying to come to this country and make a better way of life for themselves and their families. It is, once again, injecting unnecessary policy debates into a historically bipartisan bill. It is another poison pill, culture war rider. Whatever your position is on immigration, this amendment does not belong in the MILCON-VA bill and does nothing to move us forward toward better healthcare and services for our veterans. The reality is, if the gentleman's amendment passes, then ICE would have to stand up an entirely separate process that would have to be set up to process these claims because the claims have to get processed if VA didn't manage it for them. That would be incredibly expensive, fiscally irresponsible, and makes no sense, but, again, we shouldn't miss an opportunity to bash immigrants. Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment, particularly because this amendment purports to prohibit funds from being spent that you can't spend because they are not in this bill. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Chair, perhaps the gentleman has selective hearing because there are no funds being spent by the VA to process these claims because ICE pays the VA from their budget to process the claims. There are no resources that are expended by the VA because the funding comes from ICE's budget. This amendment is inapplicable to our bill and is just a culture war opportunity to bash immigrants. It is irresponsible. It is also fiscally irresponsible because the claims from ICE have to get processed, and they would have to stand up an entirely separate claims processing system in order to get those claims processed. This saves money and does not take any funding away from processing claims for our veterans. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition to the gentlewoman's amendment.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment, although I am not opposed to it.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Chairman, this amendment is noncontroversial, and I am not opposed to it. It encourages the Navy and Marine Corps to effectively use its demolition funding. I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Chair, I rise as the designee of the gentlewoman from Connecticut, and I move to strike the last word.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Chair, I rise to oppose the various harmful policy riders included in this bill. Specifically, there are two sets of riders that I believe are the most poisonous. First, section 255 would prohibit the VA from implementing a rule on abortions, essentially making it the law that a woman veteran has to be dying in order to have access to an abortion. Never mind if an abortion is in the best medical interest of the veteran, this rider ignores that harsh but brutal reality that some veterans will face. It further limits women's access to reproductive care by prohibiting the VA from offering abortion counseling and making it more difficult for women veterans to access abortion services. Many of our Republican colleagues are obsessed with adopting a national abortion ban, and their fanatic compulsion to control women's bodies will apparently spare no one, even if it means stealing away reproductive freedoms of the brave veterans who served to protect every last one of our freedoms. This radical agenda is so out of sync with Americans' political mainstream, most self-described Republicans across the country don't support it. It certainly should not be poisoning this historically bipartisan bill that our veterans and servicemembers desperately count on. Further, sections 256, 257, and 416 are discriminatory riders against our LGBTQI+ community. The riders block gender-affirming care, limit the ability to fly the Pride flag at VA facilities, and create a license to discriminate against the LGBTQI+ community under the guise of religious freedom. I was proud to sponsor amendments, joined by some of my Democratic colleagues, that would have stricken these provisions, but the majority blocked those amendments from receiving a vote. Like the assaults on women's bodies, these extremist attacks undermine the basic tenets of equality and inclusivity at the very heart of our democratic values. The VA should be welcoming and inclusive for everyone who volunteers to sacrifice and serve our Nation, not just some of them. I single out these two particularly odious sets of riders, because unlike many of the genuine policy differences that we will have today, these are both especially cruel, discriminatory, and destined to shrivel under the unforgiving light of time and history. We should all be uniting to ensure that veterans can find jobs, feed their families, keep roofs over their heads, and get the care they deserve, not dividing and politicizing their personal and medical decisions. For these reasons, at the appropriate time, I will offer a motion to recommit this bill back to committee. If the House rules permitted, I would have offered the motion with an important amendment to this bill. My amendment would strike the harmful provisions I just described for you. Mr. Chair, I include in the Record the text of my amendment. Ms. Wasserman Schultz moves to recommit the bill H.R. 8580 to the Committee on Appropriations with the following amendment: Strike sections 255, 256, 257, and 416.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Chair, I hope my colleagues will join me in voting for the motion to recommit, and I yield back the balance of my time. Amendment No. 28 Offered by Mr. Mast

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chair, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 8580, the fiscal year 2025 Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies bill. While I unfortunately cannot support the bill on the floor today, I am grateful to Chairman Carter for the work that we have been able to accomplish together over the years on this subcommittee. I know we both prioritize quality of life for our servicemembers and their families and caring for our veterans, but, sadly, the bill before us today is built on a framework that once again walks away from the bipartisan Fiscal Responsibility Act agreement, which is law, which was the basis for the bills that we passed just a couple of months ago. While the FY25 MILCON-VA bill doesn't face cuts nearly as dramatic as the other bills, veterans, servicemembers, and their families rely on programs throughout the Federal Government. These funding levels only move us further from a bipartisan agreement on all of the funding bills that those who served our Nation rely on. On the military construction side, this bill cuts funding for servicemembers and their families by $718 million, compared to last year's bill. This cut will slow crucial progress to modernize and improve DOD's infrastructure. In fiscal year `24, we provided DOD with $30 million in dedicated funding for resiliency, a comparatively small sum of funding now, which will pay huge dividends in the future and ensure our national security in the face of our changing climate. By eliminating the dedicated resilience funding this year, this bill will threaten future military readiness because we are not making sure we invest in hardening facilities to make sure that they can withstand the impact of natural disasters. Cutting military construction now slows our historically bipartisan efforts to reduce the infrastructure backlog to strengthen our national security and to improve the quality of life of our servicemembers and their families. Perhaps the most egregious part of the bill is all the partisan riders it includes. This bill is usually first up on the floor, like we are this fiscal year, because we have a bipartisan process. Unfortunately, partisan culture war riders have distracted from our ability to accomplish that. We have riders that include preventing the VA from implementing its interim final file on abortion care, which is now final, by the way, to provide abortion services under limited circumstances, abortion counseling, and to ensure that veterans have equal access to healthcare regardless of what State they live in, especially in a time when reproductive rights are under attack around the country. A woman's decision whether or not to have an abortion should be made between her and her doctor and her family. It should not be made by politicians in this Chamber. This bill includes riders that do everything from prohibiting VA from implementing diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, as well as training, to a petty, bigoted prohibition from flying the Pride flag over VA facilities during Pride Month, to add insult to injury, from protecting people who speak or act under the guise of religious freedom, essentially authorizing the arbitrary discrimination against LGBTQI+ people and to prohibiting access to gender-affirming care, just to name a few, all aimed to disenfranchise veterans from the VA. Let me just note: The United States did not make exceptions to the promises that we made our servicemembers in exchange for their service and sacrifice. We made promises to everyone. This bill undermines VA's ability to report a beneficiary to the National Instant Criminal Background Check system to keep guns out of the hands of people who are prohibited under Federal law from purchasing or possessing firearms. It is prohibiting VA from following the law that is intended to protect veterans and those around them. We have a dramatic suicide problem among our veteran population, and allowing people who are prohibited by law to possess a gun makes that suicide more likely, not less, and puts other people around them in their care circle at risk. That is unacceptable, irresponsible, and unnecessary. This bill prioritizes guns over protecting veterans. It is truly a shame that this bill includes these poison pill riders. They create division between us when we all should have a shared goal of providing healthcare and benefits to our veterans. These culture war riders were rejected in conference negotiations last year, and we know that they will be rejected again this year in order to reach a final agreement. This bill can't pass with all of these poison pill riders attached to it. I urge my colleagues to oppose this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Chair, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro), the distinguished ranking member of the Appropriations Committee.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Chair, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Bishop), the current distinguished ranking member of the Agriculture-Rural Development Subcommittee and the former ranking member of the MILCON-VA Subcommittee.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Madam Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Deluzio), a veteran of our Armed Forces.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Stansbury).

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Madam Chair, I am prepared to close, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Takano), who is the distinguished ranking member of the Veterans' Affairs Committee who goes to bat for our Nation's veterans every single day on the authorizing committee.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Chair, I have no further speakers, and I am prepared to close.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Chairman, it is with a heavy heart that we--unnecessarily--oppose this legislation on our side of the aisle because this bill was drafted in a way that it never should have been and doesn't have to be. The stark reality, by any definition, is that this bill cuts military construction by $718 million from last fiscal year to this one, and it cuts funding for our veterans by $6 billion from last year to this one. There is no way around that. That is actually what we are doing. That is the math. It is also pretty unprecedented. We generally increase funding in this bill. That is why it is so bipartisan. It is why our committee goes first, because we have a bill that, as Judge Carter said, we are really able to work very closely together on the nuts and bolts of taking care of our veterans and our servicemembers. Unfortunately, because the Republicans refused to adhere to the law-- that is, the Fiscal Responsibility Act--and refused to make sure that we, in that agreement, adhere to the agreement where we increased nondefense discretionary and defense discretionary by 1 percent, as a result, the allocations given to our committee were paltry. Republicans decided to make cuts to individuals who have signed up to defend our country, whom our committee is responsible for going to bat for improving our veterans' and servicemembers' quality of life, who are promised that protection no matter who they are, no matter whom they love, and no matter what gender they are. It is wrong to cut funding for veterans and servicemembers, and it is also wrong to load this bill up with partisan political culture war riders that deny women access to reproductive healthcare. Let's be clear. What the Republicans have done here is they are eliminating the ability of the Department of Veterans Affairs to ensure that no matter where a woman veteran lives in this country, she is able to access an abortion in conjunction with the recommendation of her medical provider in the cases of rape or incest and in the cases of the life and health of the mother. What the Republicans do in this bill is that a woman veteran has to be dying in order to be able to get access to abortion care. That is wrong because no one who has signed up and who has served our country, committed to laying their life on the line in defense of our country, should have politicians, judges, or the government making the most deeply difficult personal healthcare decisions for them. That is what Republicans do in this bill. In addition to eliminating our ability to ensure that we can have seamless communication and support for our veterans, they are eliminating the DEI programming. We have a very large agency. It is an agency in which we need to make sure that it can run seamlessly, but they are discriminating against LGBTQ+ people, and they are loading up this bill with unrelated, controversial, and unnecessary amendments that are going to prevent us from being able to make sure this bill can become law. In fact, all those poison pill culture war riders are not going to survive conference, just like they didn't last year. We are wasting time here when we should be devoted to making sure we care for our servicemembers and our veterans, which is what this committee has always committed to. I am sad I cannot support this bill. It doesn't have to be this way. I have tremendous respect for my friend, Judge Carter. He is right. We do work very well together. Mr. Chair, I also thank our incredible staff for the work that they have done. Both of our staffs have changed over a little bit, so we have some newbies managing this. We appreciate all the effort that they have put in. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Chairman, I rise to support this amendment. It contains a number of noncontroversial amendments from both sides of the aisle. I encourage its adoption, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.