[Senate Hearing 117-544]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                                                        S. Hrg. 117-544

                HEARING TO CONSIDER PENDING LEGISLATION

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                     COMMITTEE ON VETERANS' AFFAIRS
                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                           NOVEMBER 17, 2021

                               __________

       Printed for the use of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs

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        Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
        
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                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
50-288 PDF                 WASHINGTON : 2023                    
          
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                     COMMITTEE ON VETERANS' AFFAIRS

                     Jon Tester, Montana, Chairman
Patty Murray, Washington             Jerry Moran, Kansas, Ranking 
Bernard Sanders, Vermont                 Member
Sherrod Brown, Ohio                  John Boozman, Arkansas
Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut      Bill Cassidy, Louisiana
Mazie K. Hirono, Hawaii              Mike Rounds, South Dakota
Joe Manchin III, West Virginia       Thom Tillis, North Carolina
Kyrsten Sinema, Arizona              Dan Sullivan, Alaska
Margaret Wood Hassan, New Hampshire  Marsha Blackburn, Tennessee
                                     Kevin Cramer, North Dakota
                                     Tommy Tuberville, Alabama
                      Tony McClain, Staff Director
                 Jon Towers, Republican Staff Director
                            
                            
                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              

                           NOVEMBER 17, 2021

                                SENATORS

                                                                   Page
Tester, Hon. Jon, Chairman, U.S. Senator from Montana............     1
Moran, Hon. Jerry, Ranking Member, U.S. Senator from Kansas......     2
Hirono, Hon. Mazie K., U.S. Senator from Hawaii..................     8
Tuberville, Hon. Tommy, U.S. Senator from Alabama................     9
Manchin, Hon. Joe, U.S. Senator from West Virginia...............    10
Rounds, Hon. Mike, U.S. Senator from South Dakota................    12
Brown, Hon. Sherrod, U.S. Senator from Ohio......................    14
Boozman, Hon. John, U.S. Senator from Arkansas...................    16
Hassan, Hon. Margaret Wood, U.S. Senator from New Hampshire......    18
Cramer, Hon. Kevin, U.S. Senator from North Dakota...............    19
Murray, Hon. Patty, U.S. Senator from Washington.................    20
Blumenthal, Hon. Richard, U.S. Senator from Connecticut..........    22
Blackburn, Hon. Marsha, U.S. Senator from Tennessee..............    25

                               WITNESSES
                                Panel I

Brianne Ogilvie, Assistant Deputy Undersecretary for Policy and 
  Oversight, Veterans Benefits Administration, Department of 
  Veterans Affairs;
  accompanied by Jill DeBord, Executive Director, Care Management 
  and Social Work, Veterans Health Administration; and Marjorie 
  Bowman, MD, MPA, Chief Academic Affiliations Officer, Office of 
  Academic Affiliations, Veterans Health Administration..........     3
Chris Wilber, Counselor to the Inspector General, Office of the 
  Inspector General, Department of Veterans Affairs..............     5

                                Panel II

Jeremy Villanueva, Assistant National Legislative Director, 
  Disabled American Veterans.....................................    28
Patrick Murray, Legislative Director, Veterans of Foreign Wars...    30

                                APPENDIX
                             Hearing Agenda

List of Pending Bills............................................    41

                          Prepared Statements

Brianne Ogilvie, Assistant Deputy Undersecretary for Policy and 
  Oversight, Veterans Benefits Administration, Department of 
  Veterans Affairs...............................................    45
Chris Wilber, Counselor to the Inspector General, Office of the 
  Inspector General, Department of Veterans Affairs..............    76
Jeremy Villanueva, Assistant National Legislative Director, 
  Disabled American Veterans.....................................    83
Patrick Murray, Legislative Director, Veterans of Foreign Wars...    97

                        Questions for the Record

Department of Veterans Affairs response to questions asked during 
  the hearing by:
  Hon. Mazie Hirono..............................................   109
  Hon. Marsha Blackburn..........................................   114
  Hon. Kevin Cramer..............................................   117

Department of Veterans Affairs response to questions submitted 
  by:
  Hon. Kyrsten Sinema............................................   112
  Hon. Marsha Blackburn..........................................   115
  Hon. Kevin Cramer..............................................   118

                       Statements for the Record

Senator Rob Portman..............................................   121
Tom Wike, U.S. Marine Corps Veteran..............................   122
Alex Lintner, Group President, Consumer Information Services, 
  Experian.......................................................   124
Brad Thaler, Vice President of Legislative Affairs, National 
  Association of Federally-Insured Credit Unions (NAFCU).........   125
Chauncey L. Parker, Executive Director, Rocky Boy Veterans Center   126
Jim Nussle, President & CEO, Credit Union National Association...   127
Matthew Chase, Executive Director, National Association of 
  Counties.......................................................   128
Nichole R. Coleman, President; and Michael L. McLaughlin, 
  Legislative Chair; National Association of County Veterans 
  Service Officers...............................................   130
Paralyzed Veterans of America....................................   133
Student Veterans of America......................................   139
VantageScore.....................................................   147
Veterans Education Success.......................................   148
Wounded Warrior Project..........................................   149

 
                      HEARING TO CONSIDER PENDING
                              LEGISLATION

                              ----------                              


                      WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2021

                                       U.S. Senate,
                            Committee on Veterans' Affairs,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 3:04 p.m., via 
Webex and in Room SR-418, Russell Senate Office Building, Hon. 
Jon Tester, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
    Present: Senators Tester, Murray, Brown, Blumenthal, 
Hirono, Manchin, Sinema, Hassan, Moran, Boozman, Cassidy, 
Rounds, Blackburn, Cramer, and Tuberville.

              OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN TESTER

    Chairman Tester. I am going to call this meeting of the 
Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee to order.
    Good afternoon. Today we will share the views from the 
Department of Veterans Affairs and veterans service 
organizations on 21, that is right, 21 bills pending before the 
Committee.
    Before we get into my complete statement, I would hope that 
the VA can actually comment on the 21 bills and not just say we 
can do this without you. Okay. Good. Thank you very much.
    As Chairman, one of my concerns is the backlog of 
disability compensation claims and appeals not being processed 
quickly enough. My Veterans Benefits Improvement Act of 2021 
will help fix that. For example, without this bill, VA will 
continue to play phone tag with veterans to schedule simple 
disability exams, which is one of the first steps to process a 
claim.
    The bill will help the Board of Veterans' Appeals recruit 
and retain talent. Veterans do not always get the right 
decision first, and an appeal can add months of waiting. We 
need the best and brightest to work our veterans' appeals.
    Today we will also discuss the RURAL Exams Act of 2021, 
which I have also introduced with my good Ranking Member, 
Senator Moran. This bill will offer rural and housebound 
veterans better access to medical disability examinations, and 
it will improve transparency in the disability examination 
process by requiring VA to push exam quality and timeliness 
metrics in a format all veterans can understand.
    Also on our agenda today is the Strengthening Oversight for 
Veterans Act of 2021, which I have introduced with Senators 
Boozman and Manchin. This bill will provide the VA Inspector 
General authority to require former VA employees, contractors, 
and others to answer questions and provide information to the 
IG as part of its investigations. The IG plays a critical role 
in Congress's oversight of the VA, and they have requested this 
tool to help them do their important work.
    And finally, the GRAD VA Educational Assistance Parity Act 
of 2021, which I have introduced with Senator Moran again, will 
allow federally activated members of the National Guard and 
Reserve to receive the education benefits that they have 
earned. The brave men and women in our National Guard and 
Reserve continue to answer the call of duty, but their benefits 
are not keeping pace. This bill rights that wrong.
    I look forward to hearing from the VA and the VSOs about 
these bills and other important legislation on our agenda 
today.
    Now I will turn it over to Ranking Member Moran for his 
opening statement.

    [The pending bills referred to by Chairman Tester appear on 
page 41 of the Appendix.]

               OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR MORAN

    Senator Moran [presiding]. Chairman, good afternoon. Good 
afternoon to you and to our witnesses from the VA and the VA 
OIG and the VSOs. We are pleased that you are with us today, 
and I look forward to hearing what you all have to say 
regarding the legislation that is pending before this 
Committee.
    We are considering 21 bills, most of which deal with 
benefits and services provided by the Veterans Benefits 
Administration. Considering 21 bills on one agenda is a 
challenging task. So thank you to our witnesses for your 
written statements and input, which will also be of great value 
as our Committee tries to move forward on this legislative 
process following today's hearing.
    As this hearing is happening a week after Veterans Day, I 
think it is important to highlight how this Committee continues 
to be an awfully good example of how politics can be set aside 
so that we can put the needs of those who served our Nation 
first. Our veterans and those who are still serving and their 
families who serve have been a tremendous set of heroes for our 
Nation, and we paid tribute to them on Veterans Day, and we 
should do so each and every day thereafter. We can do that by 
doing our work well.
    There are many important bills on today's agenda, including 
legislation that I introduced with the Chairman to provide a GI 
Bill parity for our National Guard and Reservists. He mentioned 
this in his opening statement. I was pleased to see that. I 
think that is one of the pieces of legislation that I am 
anxious to see be enacted into law.
    I also want to thank my colleague, Senator Manchin, for 
joining me in introducing our bill to make certain homeless and 
at-risk-for-homelessness veterans living in every State--in 
every State and territory have access to specialized employment 
and training services.
    And I look forward, as I said earlier, to today's 
testimony. I look forward to working with all of you in a 
continuing partnership, with all my colleagues on this 
Committee, as we work today and every day hereafter to improve 
the lives of our Nation's veterans.
    And, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    I would like to welcome our first panel of witnesses. 
Brianne Ogilvie, Assistant Deputy Under Secretary for Policy 
and Oversight of VBA, will provide the statement on behalf of 
the VA. She is accompanied by Jill DeBord, Executive Director, 
Care Management and Social Work at VHA, and Dr. Marjorie 
Bowman, Chief Academic Affiliations Officer, Office of Academic 
Affiliations for the VHA.
    And Chris Wilber, Counselor to the Inspector General, will 
testify on behalf of the VA's Office of Inspector General.
    Ms. Ogilvie, you may begin.

                            PANEL I

                              ----------                              


          STATEMENT OF BRIANNE OGILVIE ACCOMPANIED BY

                JILL DEBORD AND MARJORIE BOWMAN

    Ms. Ogilvie. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member 
Moran, and members of the Committee. We appreciate the 
opportunity to appear before you today to discuss pending 
legislation. Accompanying me from the Veterans Health 
Administration are Jill DeBord, Executive Director of Care 
Management and Social Work, and Dr. Marjorie Bowman, Chief 
Academic Affiliations Officer.
    Before we discuss this important legislation, I want to 
touch on an evolving crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed 
global and U.S. supply chain weaknesses, and we expect the 
manufacturing and distribution disruptions to continue for some 
time. As the virus spread, overall consumer demand decreased, 
and industrial activity, in turn, decreased due to the lower 
consumer demand and effects of COVID-19. With the increasing 
level of vaccination globally and the end of lockdowns in many 
nations, consumer demand increased dramatically while supply 
chains continue to face big challenges, including worker 
shortages and limitations and access to raw materials and key 
components.
    VA is actively addressing these challenges, implementing 
near-term methods to ensure internal VA supply chain 
resiliency, including increased demand signal monitoring, 
identification of alternatives for preferred products, and 
treating medical products as enterprise assets.
    Effective national response requires a resilient public 
health supply chain anchored in domestic manufacturing 
capabilities so that care and preventative measures can reach 
patients. Sustaining the resilience of the supply chain is 
critical for ensuring the health and wellness of the Nation as 
well as for national security, and VA is working with the White 
House and executive branch agencies to develop and implement 
the actions identified in the National Strategy for a Resilient 
Public Health Supply Chain.
    VA offers support for much of the proposed legislation 
before us today. VA is focused on providing exemplary benefits 
and services for veterans, servicemembers, and their families, 
and is committed to modernization. While VA's views on all 
bills are detailed in my written testimony, to include areas of 
concern and support, I would like to highlight a few areas 
related to our proposed legislation which would have profound 
effects on modernizing our delivery of service.
    First, I would like to address certain sections of the 
Veterans Benefits Improvement Act of 2021 that support our 
common goal to modernize benefits delivery. VA supports Section 
302 of this bill, which would provide the general authority for 
electronic notification as this would enhance the efficiency 
and timeliness of the claims adjudication process. We recognize 
that the way veterans and beneficiaries prefer to engage with 
VA is changing, and VA has already initiated an effort that 
will enable us to provide electronic notifications along with 
this necessary legislative support.
    VA also supports Section 303 and understands the intent of 
Section 303(a) is to allow VA contractors and vendors access to 
Federal tax information for the purpose of administering 
certain types of benefits. This would improve the efficiency of 
VA claims adjudication. However, VA is concerned that the bill, 
as written, could be interpreted to limit its contractors' or 
vendors' ability to perform some key functions such as 
processing mail and maintaining information technology systems. 
We would appreciate the opportunity to work with the Committee 
on technical changes to ensure we are not impacting service 
delivery to our veterans.
    I would like to address another bill related to 
modernization of benefits delivery, S. 2794, Supporting 
Families of the Fallen Act. VA supports this bill that will 
increase servicemembers' group life insurance and veterans' 
group life insurance, which aligns with modern cost of living 
increases that have occurred.
    Lastly, I would like to address S. 1296, Daniel J. Harvey 
Jr. and Adam Lambert Improving Servicemember Transition to 
Reduce Veteran Suicide Act. This bill is focused on the 
vulnerable time of transition between military and veteran 
status, ensures servicemembers are educated about the impact of 
transition on psychological health and have early connections 
to VA clinicians who provide a safeguard against loss of direct 
access to care coordination which is personalized to the 
servicemember's unique needs. Suicide prevention is VA's top 
clinical priority, and we welcome the opportunity to work 
through technical amendments to this legislation together.
    VA is committed to working together toward our common goal 
of improvement and modernization. We are grateful for the 
resources provided to us and thank you for the opportunity to 
appear before you today to discuss this important legislation.
    Mr. Chairman, this concludes my testimony. My colleagues 
and I are prepared to respond to any questions that you or 
other members of the Committee may have.

    [The prepared statement of Ms. Ogilvie appears on page 45 
of the Appendix.]

    Senator Moran. Thank you very much. First of all, I want to 
thank the Department for their technical assistance while we 
crafted--oh, I am so sorry. Chairman Tester would not have made 
this error.
    Inspector General.

                   STATEMENT OF CHRIS WILBER

    Mr. Wilber. Ranking Member Moran and members of the 
Committee, thank you for giving the Department of Veterans' 
Affairs Office of Inspector General the opportunity to discuss 
our support for two bills that would strengthen our ability to 
conduct fair and comprehensive oversight.
    S. 2687, the Strengthening Oversight for Veterans Act of 
2021, would provide the Inspector General the ability to 
require the testimony of individuals who are not currently 
employed by VA or its contractors. The OIG supports this bill 
as drafted. We thank Chairman Tester, Senator Boozman, and 
Senator Manchin for introducing this much needed bill.
    We also support, as drafted, S. 2431, the Department of 
Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General Training Act of 
2021. This legislation would require VA employees to be trained 
on how and when to report wrongdoing to, and cooperatively 
engage with, OIG staff. We appreciate Senators Hassan and 
Boozman for sponsoring this bill.
    S. 2687 is important because the VA OIG currently cannot 
compel non-Federal individuals and entities with potentially 
relevant information to provide testimony in support of our 
oversight of VA operations. Presently, we can obtain documents 
and other materials from VA and non-Federal individuals and 
entities, and VA employees and contractors must speak with OIG 
staff subject to the constitutional protection against 
compelled self incrimination. S. 2687 would enable us to obtain 
sworn statements from others, including former Federal 
employees, former employees of current Federal contractors, and 
others who do not have an employment or contractual 
relationship with VA.
    We are committed to using this authority responsibly and 
support the procedures Congress has included to ensure that we 
do, which include providing the witness with notice of our 
intent to issue a subpoena and an opportunity to testify 
voluntarily, authorizing the Attorney General to object if the 
testimony may interfere with an ongoing investigation, 
endeavoring to arrange an interview conveniently for the 
witness, and requiring a Federal district court order to 
enforce the subpoena if challenged.
    Additionally, our semi-annual report to Congress will 
contain information on our use of the authority. This authority 
is comparable to that of other OIGs that conduct oversight of 
extremely large contracting and healthcare organizations, 
specifically, the Department of Defense, the Department of 
Health and Human Services, and the newly created Pandemic 
Response Accountability Committee.
    Our written statement discusses several healthcare 
inspections where we were unable to interview healthcare 
providers who left Federal service before or during our 
reviews. For example, a dentist and the Chief of Dental 
Services left Federal service during our review of improper 
dental infection control practices at the Tomah VA Medical 
Center. As a result, we were unable to learn more about the 
lack of supervision that potentially exposed 592 veterans to 
bloodborne pathogens.
    In our healthcare inspection conducted subsequent to the 
criminal investigation into veterans' murdered by Reta Mays at 
the Clarksburg VA Medical Center, an individual with knowledge 
of the hiring of Ms. Mays was not questioned due to their 
having left VA employment.
    Our effective oversight also depends on VA employees 
promptly reporting suspected wrongdoing to the OIG and 
cooperating with OIG staff. Early and effective reporting can 
save lives, recover or save millions of dollars per year, and 
help ensure veterans are receiving the benefits and services 
they deserve.
    S. 2431 would require VA employees to receive training on 
their responsibilities to report wrongdoing to, and cooperate 
with, the OIG. While the VA Secretary recently directed staff 
to take this training, codifying the training into law would 
ensure this needed training is maintained regardless of who is 
leading the Department. The legislation would also give the 
Inspector General access to VA's e-mail system, which could be 
used for fraud alerts and other direct communications with VA 
staff.
    Unfortunately, we have found that employees have not 
reported suspected wrongdoing either due to lack of knowledge 
of OIG's authorities or fear of retaliation or the mistaken 
belief that they need supervisor approval. These failures can 
have direct consequences for veterans. Dr. Robert Levy, a 
former pathologist at the VA medical center in Fayetteville, 
Arkansas, misdiagnosed about 3,000 veterans, with errors 
resulting in death or serious harm to many of them, and is 
currently imprisoned. Staff concerns about his impairment were 
not heard by management and festered for years before the OIG 
was alerted.
    The OIG appreciates the strong steps Congress takes to 
support the OIG's mission by providing appropriate authority to 
conduct our oversight.
    Chairman Tester, Ranking Member Moran, this concludes my 
statement. I would be happy to answer any questions you may 
have.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Wilber appears on page 76 of 
the Appendix.]

    Senator Moran. See why I tried to go earlier in asking my 
questions. The Chairman has returned.
    Chairman Tester [presiding]. You know what, Senator Moran? 
I will go totally out of order. I will ignore my Democratic 
colleagues and let you go first. Please, go ahead.
    Senator Moran. Please, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Tester. No. I insist.
    Senator Tuberville. [Inaudible.]
    Chairman Tester. No. Then it will be Senator Hirono and 
then you.
    Senator Moran. Well, Mr. Wilber, let me start with you 
then. In your testimony, in talking about the IG Training Act, 
you indicate that the training required in the bill will test 
staff knowledge of when to report misconduct to OIG and when to 
report to other entities like VA's Office of Accountability and 
Whistleblower Protection or the Office of Special Counsel.
    My staff have heard from VA employees that there has been 
confusion among the workforce on where to report wrongdoing, 
including misconduct and poor performance. Would you clearly 
explain to the Committee in what instance wrongdoing should be 
reported to the OIG and when it should be reported elsewhere?
    Mr. Wilber. Yes. Wrongdoing in the sense of fraud, waste, 
abuse or other potentially criminal acts should always be 
reported to the OIG. The OIG has the broadest authority to 
address those issues of any of the organizations you 
identified. I think where we want to explain to VA staff about 
reporting in terms of our training is that the OIG, as I said, 
is available to deal with these issues of fraud, waste, abuse, 
and other things.
    One of the things principally that we do not have--that we 
do not take on is whistleblower retaliation claims that staff 
may have, in part because we do not have the statutory 
authority to provide them any relief. So if they make the claim 
to us, we might be able to investigate it, but we would not be 
able to provide them any relief whereas OAWP and OSC have that 
authority.
    With respect to whether employees should report to OAWP, 
one of the things that OAWP has authority to do is, one, deal 
with whistleblower retaliation, but also deal with issues of 
poor performance as opposed to improper conduct or fraud, 
waste, and abuse. And so if an employee has concerns that their 
manager really is not performing their job in an acceptable 
way, that would be an appropriate disclosure to make to OAWP.
    Senator Moran. Thank you. I will check with my staff and 
see if they have other questions, and I may come back to you 
and see if there is anything else that needs to be filled in.
    Ms. Ogilvie, I want to thank the Department for their 
technical assistance while we were crafting the National Guard 
GI Bill Parity Act earlier this year.
    I do have a question regarding the VA's assertion that it 
would take 18 to 24 months to update your system and adjust the 
information sharing with DOD to incorporate those newly covered 
under this statute. Congress has expanded the eligibility to 
additional duties status in the past, and we have also 
appropriated money for VBA in the past to update your IT 
systems so that you can properly adjudicate these GI Bill 
claims under the new eligibility requirements.
    So in my mind, this would just be an additional expansion 
of what the VA has already undergone in the past when it comes 
to the GI Bill. Why then would it take nearly two years to make 
these updates before the National Guard and Reservists can 
receive these earned benefits? What VBA IT enhancements are not 
being prioritized within the Department?
    Ms. Ogilvie. Thank you for that question. So the actual 
concern comes down to some of the DOD records. So a lot of--we 
already have an information data exchange with DOD through the 
VADIR system, but some of the National Guard and Reserve 
records are kept more locally and they are not as centralized. 
So we would need to ensure that DOD could get those records 
incorporated into VADIR to be able to share that with VBA.
    One other thing we would need to do is make sure that the 
records are programmed into the Digital GI Bill and the Post 9/
11 GI Bill long-term solution to be able to calculate the 
certificates of eligibility as quickly as possible. Right now, 
with the Digital GI Bill, we are able to provide a certificate 
of eligibility very quickly for veterans, and we would want to 
be able to provide that for veterans who served in the National 
Guard and Reserve as well.
    Senator Moran. So is the challenge relying upon the DOD to 
provide additional information? That is where the delay would 
come from?
    Ms. Ogilvie. Yes. That is what we believe. We would need to 
work closely with DOD to make sure that we had quick access to 
the Reserve and Guard records which, as I mentioned, are 
sometimes kept in a local--more locally. Especially if we are 
looking at any sort of retroactivity with this bill, which I 
think was being considered, that is something that we would 
want to make sure that we get the full scope of the records 
that we would need to ensure that we can get that certificate 
of eligibility.
    Senator Moran. I serve on the appropriations committee that 
funds the Department of Defense, but I know someone who is the 
Chairman of that subcommittee, and maybe we should have 
conversations quickly with those who might be able to speed up 
this process at the Department.
    Chairman Tester. We can do that.
    Senator Hirono.

                      SENATOR MAZIE HIRONO

    Senator Hirono. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    I would like to first say a few words in support of S. 
2761, the Every Veteran Counts Act, which would fundamentally 
change the way VA handles veterans' demographic data and 
provide new opportunities for this Committee to better serve 
veterans. We regularly discuss the way particular 
subpopulations of veterans are in need of more services--I 
mean, the biggest group would be the growing number of women 
who are veterans, for example--so that we can better tailor the 
care and specialized attention from Congress for these 
subgroups of veterans.
    And over the last decade, as our veterans' population has 
continued to diversify rapidly, it has become increasingly 
important that we are considering the different kinds of 
impacts our policy decisions can have on different groups of 
veterans. In some cases, in particular when trying to reduce 
veteran suicide and address mental and behavioral health 
concerns, being able to understand which community is impacted 
is critically important and potentially life-saving 
information. Hawaii is one of the most diverse States in the 
country, and like many of my colleagues' States, our veteran 
population reflects that diversity.
    It is time that this Committee, our House counterparts, and 
the outside organizations that advocate for veterans have the 
tools we need to ensure the health and success of all veterans. 
I would like to ask for my colleagues' support in continuing to 
advance the goal of more accessible, comprehensive veterans' 
demographic data.
    And while I appreciate VA's willingness to discuss this 
bill, the process has been subject to repeated delays and drawn 
out unnecessarily in my opinion. Moving forward, I expect VA to 
prioritize this and other items that advance equity and support 
for underserved and minority communities of veterans because 
attention to these issues is long overdue.
    I do want to thank the DAV and VFW for their advocacy and 
support on this issue and for this bill, and I certainly look 
forward to continuing to work with them.
    I have a question for you, Ms. Ogilvie. So I note in the 
testimony that you provided on this bill, 2761--and I am 
looking at the bottom part of your page of testimony, and you 
testified that VA is engaged in ongoing discussions on this 
bill with the House Veterans' Affairs Committee and also with 
my staff. And you say that this dialogue is necessary to ensure 
that these efforts are integrated and consistent with existing 
laws and executive orders. And then there is an entire number 
of laws that you cite as having to, I do not know, converge so 
that we can get the kind of information that is requested for 
in this bill.
    So I realize that is all in the implementation side of 
things, seems to me. So can you explain why the concerns you 
mentioned in your written testimony, some of which I just 
referred to, about the Every Veteran Counts Act, cannot be 
addressed in implementation of this law rather than ahead of 
the passage by the Senate?
    Ms. Ogilvie. Thank you for that question. I actually am 
going to have to take this for the record and defer to our 
Office of Enterprise Integration, who is responsible for the 
views on this bill. I know that we can get back to you with an 
answer on that.

    [For VA response to Senator Hirono, see Questions 1 and 2 
on page 109 of the Appendix.]

    Senator Hirono. Mr. Chairman, what started off as whatI 
thought was a pretty simple bill that requests important 
demographic and other kinds of data, especially when it was 
brought to my attention that Asian American-Pacific Islander 
veterans have a higher suicide rate than other veterans--and it 
occurred to me that we ought to have this kind of information 
so that the programmatic support and resources we provide can 
really be effective. And you said that preventing veteran 
suicide, just as one example, is a top clinical priority for 
the VA. So I should think that we would want this kind of data 
so that we can really provide--and I am, at this point, 
repeating myself--the kind of effective support for our growing 
veteran population as we can.
    So what I do not get is why it is taking so long. So you 
should see all of the--it is like the foundation for evidence 
based what? Policy? We have like four or five different laws 
that have to be, I do not know, come together or something. 
There are privacy issues and things like that which I would ask 
that the VA address once we pass this into law.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Tester. Thank you, Senator Hirono. I think your 
request is reasonable, and we ought to figure out if there is 
some holdup on our end. If there is, we will try to rectify it.
    Senator Tuberville.

                    SENATOR TOMMY TUBERVILLE

    Senator Tuberville. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for 
being here today.
    I do not really have a question. I just want to say a few 
words about my bill, Supporting Families of the Fallen Act, 
which would increase the maximum coverage allowed under 
servicemember and veteran group life insurance plans. The 
current cap of $400,000 has not been modified since 2005, and 
after 15 years I think it is time that the cap be adjusted to 
align with the rate of inflation and provide families the 
financial security and peace of mind that they have chosen the 
best rate of coverage for them in the event if a servicemember 
dies.
    I thank my committee colleagues, Senator Rounds and Senator 
Cramer, for co-sponsoring this legislation, and I do appreciate 
all the help and support.
    Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Chairman Tester. Thank you, Senator Tuberville.
    Senator Manchin.

                      SENATOR JOE MANCHIN

    Senator Manchin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank all of 
you for being here today.
    And I want to say, in the past two years, I have spent a 
good amount of time in front of this Committee discussing the 
horrific murders of the veterans that took place at the 
Clarksburg VA. I think you all know about that. I am proud of 
the work colleagues and all of you, Mr. Chairman, and all of 
you have done in helping us fix the specific problems in the 
Clarksburg VA that led to those murders and help prevent them 
anywhere else in the country.
    I have worked to pass legislation to install security 
cameras, fix shortcomings in staff training and accountability 
standards, and give the VA Office of Inspector General the 
authority it needs to conduct the investigations. These are all 
important steps, but I think there is so much more that we need 
to do.
    And I have got two pieces of legislation which I think 
would help you all be able to do the job that you need to do, 
and I think we spoke to that again. So I want to thank the 
Chairman and Ranking Member and the Committee for helping 
improve the quality of service that our veterans receive.
    The one, Mr. Wilber, that you know we are talking about, it 
is a sobering look at the issues that the VA and your office 
investigates on a daily basis. The issues you spoke of with 
hiring practices and quality of care in North Carolina and 
Mississippi sound eerily similar to those we experienced in 
West Virginia. Unfortunately, that confirms my fear that the 
failures that led to the veterans being murdered in West 
Virginia are indicative of systematic VA failures everywhere.
    So I would ask, Chairman Tester, I will be working on 
scheduling a VA patient safety oversight hearing in the very 
near future. I would ask if you would help us set that up, if 
we could, because there are some things I think that can be 
brought to light that would help us very much as far as getting 
to the crux of what our problems would be.
    We have a piece of legislation that allows you all to 
subpoena, which I believe that you all have asked for or felt 
it would be very helpful in getting to the crux. I will tell 
you what happened in Clarksburg. When it came time to really 
get into it, we could not get the person who had basically 
taken either retirement or ran for the hills. Literally, in 
West Virginia, you can run for the hills, and we cannot find 
you. But anyway, he was gone. Had no way of bringing him back. 
So if you would comment on that, Mr. Wilber, and how that might 
be of help to you.
    Mr. Wilber. Yes, sir. I would like to express my 
condolences once again for the families in Clarksburg, to the 
veterans and their loved ones.
    Yes, as you described, that is what occurred when we were 
conducting our healthcare inspection following our criminal 
investigation in Clarksburg. A key individual who was 
responsible for both the review of the credentials----
    Senator Manchin. It was a risk manager, I believe. Does 
every hospital have a risk manager?
    Mr. Wilber. I would not want to answer that question, sir. 
I think it is an important role for each hospital, but I would 
not want to say that each hospital in fact does have one.
    Senator Manchin. Okay. That was a risk manager we were 
trying to get to testify, and I believe the person was gone.
    Mr. Wilber. That person left during the course of the 
investigation. And so, yes, testimonial subpoena authority 
would be important to our ability to reach out to someone like 
that, serve them with a subpoena, and require them to talk to 
us.
    And again, this is to advance our oversight of VA. So, this 
is not about a criminal investigation of that person. This is 
not about putting that person in jail. This is about getting 
critical information from that person so that we understand 
what happened, we understand the root causes of the problem 
that occurred in Clarksburg, and that can allow us to make 
recommendations to the Department on how to fix it.
    Senator Manchin. Senator Tester, you and Senator Boozman 
are both on that bill, and I want to thank you for that.
    And also, I have one more, Ms. Ogilvie, if you will. I 
introduced Senate Bill 2687, Strengthening Oversight for 
Veterans Act of 2021, again with Chairman Tester and Boozman, 
to give the authority to subpoena. And on that there, so my 
question would be: What more can we do to hold these employees 
responsible for failures that happen at the VA so the veterans 
can build the trust back to the VA that we need? Is there more 
than can be done?
    We are trying to get the information. But, is there 
something more that we can do to give you all the ability and 
the power that you need and to prevent this from ever 
happening?
    Let me ask you--I will follow up with another question on 
that. So I can give you two for one. We are continuing to pay 
our retirement benefits to employees like those in Clarksburg. 
I cannot believe that. They are getting full benefits, and 
these are people we know committed horrific, horrific crimes. 
But they could not be proven, I guess, but we know that. But is 
there anything we can do that would prevent that from 
happening?
    Ms. Ogilvie. So I would honestly defer to OIG for his 
comments, but I do agree that the subpoena power and the 
ability to hold people accountable and be able to get the 
witnesses that we need to follow through on, you know, the 
investigation that we are doing is something that is of 
critical importance. So you know, that is all I would say from 
my perspective, but I am not sure if Mr. Wilber wants to----
    Senator Manchin. I know my time is running out, Mr. Wilber, 
but if you have comments to that, I appreciate it.
    Mr. Wilber. Well, with respect to the benefits for 
individuals who have left VA, if those individuals have been 
convicted of a crime, then the ability for the VA to reduce 
their benefits, I do understand, exists. But for those 
individuals, if you mean somebody like the risk manager who 
left VA employ, that person has gone without any disciplinary 
action against them, and now that they are out of Federal 
service----
    Senator Manchin. Let me ask you this, hypothetically. If we 
had been able to subpoena that person and bring him back and 
found out derelict of duty they did not--they were not 
overseeing. They were not monitoring or watching, and they 
could have maybe prevented that. If we could have proven that 
and shown that in the subpoena power that you would have now, 
would that be able to reverse their retirement and pensions?
    Mr. Wilber. No, sir, I do not believe it would.
    Senator Manchin. Oh, boy.
    Chairman Tester. Senator Rounds.

                      SENATOR MIKE ROUNDS

    Senator Rounds. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Ms. Ogilvie, the GI Bill is an important benefit for our 
veterans, but too often they are targeted for abuse of this 
program. As you know, I am one of the lead sponsors of S. 1607, 
along with Senator Schatz. This is the Student Veterans 
Transparency and Protection Act of 2021. The goal of the 
legislation is to improve veterans' access to information about 
higher education and allow the Department of Veterans Affairs 
to restore benefits that veterans use at schools that become 
subject to civil enforcement.
    I understand based on written testimony submitted to the 
Committee that there are some changes that you would like to 
see in the bill, and I look forward to working with you on that 
so that we can maximize the benefits to our veterans.
    What steps is the Department currently taking to protect 
veterans from institutions that are really working in a 
predatory manner, seeking to take advantage of these veterans, 
and is there anything you need from Congress to reinforce your 
efforts today?
    Ms. Ogilvie. Thank you for that question. VA takes 
seriously predatory practices that are occurring not only in 
the education space but in other spaces as well. So in the 
education space, VA conducts regular and targeted compliance 
actions with--each year at locations that use the GI Bill. And 
we are also in regular contact with the Department of 
Education, and we do a lot of information sharing which helps 
inform veterans.
    Also, maintaining the GI Bill Comparison Tool is a great--
and as this bill does, it codifies that. It is a great tool for 
veterans to use to be able to ensure that schools, when they 
say what their placement rate is, what they say, you know, 
their employment rates are, that they can hold them accountable 
and make sure that those are actually the statistics that are 
lining up with what the schools are saying.
    Senator Rounds. Is this through civil enforcement?
    Ms. Ogilvie. Yes, I believe so.
    Senator Rounds. So there could be penalties, or there could 
be a punitive action with regard to taking them out of the 
program or restricting the ability of others to participate at 
those institutions. Would that be a fair way of measuring the 
types of penalties that you would impose?
    Ms. Ogilvie. Yes. So under the Isakson and Roe Act, there 
are some penalties for removing schools from the GI Bill 
program if they are using predatory practices or not being 
honest with their information and advertising.
    Senator Rounds. Thank you.
    Mr. Wilber, I was rather surprised that you did not have 
the ability to protect a whistleblower, and I would like to 
talk about that a little bit. Seems to me that if someone were 
going to come to the OIG with a serious complaint their job is 
probably at risk, and yet, it seems to be the logical location 
to come. In your opinion, would it be appropriate for the OIG's 
office to be able to offer protection and assistance to a 
whistleblower coming forth with information from the Department 
of Veterans Affairs?
    Mr. Wilber. Currently, there are several organizations 
already existing that do provide that protection. Our Office is 
focused on taking that information from the whistleblower and 
using that to conduct an investigation into that underlying 
issue the whistleblower has identified.
    We then--when a whistleblower comes to us, and they raise a 
concern that they have been retaliated against, we then advise 
the whistleblower that their best remedy for that is to go to 
the Office of Special Counsel or to OAWP because those 
organizations have statutory authority to protect the 
whistleblower. You know, OSC can go to the MSPB to provide a 
stay of any action against that person, for example, if they 
are going to be terminated or let go. OAWP has similar 
authorities to protect that person's job.
    The OIG is outside of the Department in a sense. It does 
not have the ability to affect management's decisions directly. 
We can make recommendations. And so, for that reason, we are 
not the protector of the whistleblower, but we are the 
organization that will investigate that individual's 
disclosures and try to root out any misconduct at the 
Department that that person has identified.
    Senator Rounds. Would you say that the fact that you are 
not in a position to offer that type of protection would be a 
detriment to someone coming forward to provide information to 
you in an investigation?
    Mr. Wilber. I do not know that I would say it is a 
detriment because those other organizations do have that 
authority and do provide strong protections. For example, OSC, 
the Office of Special Counsel, is very active in protecting 
whistleblowers, and we have worked with them on those cases in 
terms of coordination. Again, the Office of Accountability and 
Whistleblower Protection also has authorities to protect 
whistleblowers.
    We do not, and I do not think--to my knowledge, I could not 
say that whistleblowers have been injured by not having the OIG 
as their protector because they do have these other 
organizations that can protect them. Our focus is really on 
what is the underlying issue this person has identified and 
what can we do to try to identify whether there is a problem 
there.
    Senator Rounds. Thank you.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Tester. Senator Brown.

                     SENATOR SHERROD BROWN

    Senator Brown. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    One of the reasons that Senator Tester does this job well 
as Chair but as a Senator from Montana is that he listens to 
people at home and hears about problems that vets face, 
especially the gaps in programs at DOD and VA, and I want to 
explore that. My question is for you, Ms. Ogilvie, but I want 
to make some fairly lengthy comments first.
    A few years ago, Tom Wike, an Ohio veteran, came to my 
office with an idea to improve the transition process for 
veterans so they would know what to expect, especially in terms 
of mental health, as they left their time in service and 
returned to their local communities.
    And, Mr. Chair, you see a request to enter into the record 
his letter?
    Chairman Tester. Without objection.

    [The letter from Mr. Wike appears on page 122 of the 
Appendix.]

    Senator Brown. Thank you. And I would like to just take a--
do a small little read from Tom's statement. He said: ``I had a 
difficult transition from military to civilian life. I used 
those experiences in conversations with other veterans to begin 
work on this legislation in 2018 while pursuing a bachelor's 
degree in social work. It takes three months to train for a 
civilian to become a Marine, but the servicemember is expected 
to return a normal civilian life after a minimum of five days 
of training.'' Think about that.
    I want to work with VA to address some of those concerns 
with the bill text, but there really is no excuse. And a number 
of us in this Committee--I know Senator Rounds cares about it. 
I know that Senator Hassan cares about it. A number of us have 
continued to point out the problem of transition from DOD, from 
active service, from military duty to VA and especially the 
lack of preparation and screening for our servicemembers and 
veterans.
    November 9th, DOD OIG released a report. An evaluation of 
the Department of Defense's implementation of suicide 
prevention found, quote, ``that DOD did not screen for suicide 
risk or provide uninterrupted mental health care to 
transitioning servicemembers.'' I am incredulous that is still 
the case, that after all this time, when we know that suicide 
is a problem for way too many groups in this country, but 
suicide--veteran suicide especially, and it is something we 
know we could do something about.
    DOD findings highlighted the Separation History and 
Physical Exam does not include a mental health assessment or 
suicide risk screening component. It is the only exam required. 
The SHPE, the Separation History and Physical Exam, is the only 
exam required for transitioning servicemembers. So we must make 
sure that it covers all aspects.
    The report illustrates why we need the bill that Tom and I 
have worked on to prevent veteran suicide, improve mental 
health access. Two of his friends that we are naming the bill 
after, two of his friends who committed suicide, Daniel J. 
Harvey and Adam Lambert, two Marines were living through the 
worst pandemic in a generation. So the problem is almost 
certainly worse today than two years ago. On top of an 
affordable housing crisis, the pandemic, both undoubtedly 
impact the mental health, frankly, of all of us, civilian and 
military alike.
    Ms. Ogilvie, my question to you: I have spoken to Ohio 
veterans who do not know what mental health resources VA could 
offer them or what benefits might help them as they navigate 
mental health concerns.
    So my questions are two. Is it important to you for 
servicemembers to learn how the transition process could impact 
their mental health? That is question number one.
    Number two, do you see value in veterans just receiving a 
call from a mental health professional at their local VA 
facility within the first 90 days of separation?
    Ms. Ogilvie. So I am going to quickly take this one, and 
then I will defer it to Ms. DeBord who has a lot more to say 
about that, about that answer. But what I would like to first 
say is, yes, it is important. And currently, the TAP curriculum 
does cover some social and emotional health resources, some 
integration resources, how to integrate into the community and 
how to use vet centers to get mental health resources.
    Right now we are also doing the Solid Start program, where 
our national call center will contact veterans three times in 
that first critical year, first within the first 90 days. And 
out of the veterans, the 157,000 recently separated veterans 
that we contacted last fiscal year, 26,000 were deemed priority 
veterans who had a mental health appointment within the last 
year of active duty. So we do track those veterans to make sure 
that we are especially reaching out to them.
    So that is just quickly what we are doing on the benefits 
side, and I will defer to Ms. DeBord to talk about the health 
side.
    Ms. DeBord. Thank you, Ms. Ogilvie.
    So thank you, Senator, for your support of this bill. I 
think it gives us an opportunity to really do things 
differently. And so VA would like to propose that we use a well 
established program, the VA Liaisons for Healthcare. They have 
been in effect since 2003. There are 48 of them across the 
country, 43 of them stationed at military treatment facilities; 
five of them are virtual. So all military treatment facilities 
should be able to utilize VA Liaisons.
    But what they do is they are--there is a handoff from case 
managers in DOD to the VA Liaisons for those seriously ill, 
seriously injured, those going through the IDES process as 
well.
    But then there is that whole section of veterans that are 
transitioning who maybe they have just--they have had 
unreported MST, military sexual trauma, they have undiagnosed 
PTSD. They maybe have housing insecurity, food insecurity, all 
kinds of things that they are going to be dealing with as they 
transition out. So they are not really on a radar as far as 
like they might really need the extra help.
    And so this would be an opportunity. We are proposing for 
this pilot. We would have 10 transition assistance centers that 
would have VA Liaisons attached to them during this 5-year 
pilot.
    And we would then--here is--I think the really heartening 
news to this is that rather than 180 days after they transition 
that they would have an appointment the VA Liaisons make 
contact with them before they are transitioning, before they 
discharge. They get them registered in the VA. They get them 
appointments based upon what their needs are. It is a very 
individualized, you know, serviceperson-specific plan.
    And then they hand them off to the military-to-VA case 
manager that is at all VA medical centers, so there is a warm 
handoff. So they are going to be seen by a VA Liaison (RN or 
SW), you know, individually before they are ever transitioned 
out, and then they are--they will have a warm handoff to VA 
case managers and appointments scheduled at the receiving VAMC 
immediately following their military separation date.
    So we really feel like this enhancement might get to some 
of those veterans that just are not on anybody's radar as 
maybe, you know, having higher risk of suicide.
    Senator Brown. Thank you. I guess I do not know why you 
cannot do all this without the Lambert-Harvey bill. One time in 
Banking Housing Committee, which Jon and I sit on, the Chair of 
the Richmond Federal Reserve once said, watch me and make sure 
you know you are watching me. And I know you are good public 
servants. I know you do your best. But this has got to be 
better.
    Ms. DeBord. Yes, sir. And we do not disagree, and we want 
to make it better. And I think suicide prevention is on all of 
our radars. We all want to make this better, and it is going to 
take all of us working together.
    Senator Brown. Thank you.
    Chairman Tester. Senator Boozman.

                      SENATOR JOHN BOOZMAN

    Senator Boozman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you all 
for being here very much.
    VA employees do an incredible job and work so, so very hard 
for our veterans and deserve the recognition that they get and 
even more so. Sadly, we have instances periodically that crop 
up that seem to overshadow that. It is important that VA 
personnel are aware of the channels that are available to them 
to report unwanted actions within the VA and ensure the 
violators are held accountable, even if they no longer are 
employed at the VA. And we have been talking about this.
    The VA OIG General Training Act, which I was able to work 
with Senator Hassan, that we introduced, mandates that VA 
employees complete training to ensure they know how to 
recognize and properly report wrongdoing.
    Mr. Wilber, we appreciate your testimony in support of that 
concept and support of the legislation. As you mentioned, 
Secretary McDonough signed a directive mandating this training 
shortly after the introduction of this legislation. Can you 
again highlight the importance that this training be codified 
and not subject to the discretion of whatever sitting VA 
Secretary that we have at the time? And this is really a 
common-sense--you know.
    Mr. Wilber. Yes, sir. Thank you. Yes. I mean, I think in 
terms of having the codification of this requirement, that 
ensures that it will be training that VA employees receive 
going forward----
    Senator Boozman. Right.
    Mr. Wilber [continuing]. And that it is not just something 
that is subject to the discretion or whims of whomever may be 
the VA Secretary at the time, but that it institutionalizes 
this notion and really gets VA employees consistently 
throughout, you know, new employees who join as well as those 
who have been there for some time, to understand the unique 
authorities and reasons why they may need to report to the 
Office of Inspector General.
    Senator Boozman. Right.
    Mr. Wilber. And so we do appreciate your introducing this 
legislation. We do think it is important, particularly that it 
extend the training requirement.
    In addition to the educational aspects of this, there is 
also the access that the Inspector General has then to the e-
mail system, which allows the Inspector General direct 
communications to all 400,000-some employees of the 
Department----
    Senator Boozman. Right.
    Mr. Wilber [continuing]. Which we currently do not have. 
And so that will give us an opportunity to, you know, alert 
employees to fraud issues or just to educate them, you know, to 
provide some additional information about our office.
    Senator Boozman. No, it is so important. And again, I am 
glad you brought up that aspect of it. But the idea that, you 
know, you could be working there and simply not know, you know, 
what you do in these types of situations that would, you know, 
help avoid some of these situations that we have had in the 
past.
    Your testimony highlights several successes of VA employees 
recognizing and reporting illicit instances like the example of 
the VA Police Department uncovering a potential sale of VA 
equipment on eBay, valued at over $100,000. So as you put the 
directive in place, is there any correlation between staff at 
VA facilities that have completed the training and instances of 
reported misconduct at VA facilities?
    Mr. Wilber. We have not been able to do a direct 
correlation at this point. In part, the directive has been in 
place for about eight weeks, but it gives employees up to a 
year to complete the training. And we do not have updated data 
yet on just how many employees have done that. We will be 
working with VA to get that.
    What I can say is just anecdotally, Inspector General 
Missal happened to be speaking with a senior VA official 
several months ago, and during that conversation, Mr. Missal 
explained to that senior official what it is the OIG does, what 
our authorities are, and that sort of thing. And that official 
had not understood what those were and said to Mr. Missal at 
that time, ``Oh, you may be able to help us. We have this 
suspicious potential sale of PPE.''
    This was during the pandemic. And you know, we looked into 
it. Our criminal investigators got involved, and it turned into 
an $800 million dollar criminal conviction against an 
individual who was trying to sell fake PPE to the Department. 
And, had that conversation not taken place, we may not have 
gotten that referral which, you know, fortunately we did, but 
it just highlights the need for even senior people at the 
Department to understand what the OIG does.
    Senator Boozman. Right. Very quickly because my time is 
running out, but the--I have enjoyed working with Senator 
Tester on the Strengthening Oversight for Veterans Act, which 
gives the VA authority to subpoena individuals that previously 
worked for the Department or other potentially relevant--during 
OIG reviews and investigations.
    I had the opportunity to serve on the House VA Committee, 
and I have been dealing with this a long time. I mean, the idea 
that you can retire or whatever and then be not subject to the 
IG's reach makes absolutely no sense to me at all. You know. 
And I know it has got to--you could probably spend hours 
talking about how that has impeded investigations in the past.
    So I do not really have a question. I just think that this 
would be a tremendous tool in your toolbox as we go forward 
and, you know, hold people accountable that in some cases have 
done just really some terrible acts.
    So thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Tester. Senator Hassan.

                  SENATOR MARGARET WOOD HASSAN

    Senator Hassan. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    And I want to thank Senator Boozman because we are both 
sponsoring the OIG Training Act together, and I wanted to just 
follow up on his line of questioning with regard to that. I 
just want to make sure there is not anything else you would 
like to add about both the importance of making sure that this 
is mandatory training regardless of who is in charge at the VA 
and the importance of being able to contact employees directly 
from the IG's office as opposed to having to go through the 
Secretary's office. So is there anything else you would like to 
add? I think Senator Boozman covered a lot of it.
    Mr. Wilber. Just to add again, the importance of making 
this mandatory is to ensure that every VA employee really does 
understand what the OIG does, why we are here and, most 
importantly probably, our independence which is different than, 
for example, OAWP or other organizations to which they may have 
the opportunity to report. The OIG is different. We are 
independent, and we conduct criminal investigations, which is 
something that the other organizations within the Department do 
not do.
    So if--you know, if employees have concerns that there may 
be a crime being committed or something, they need to know that 
they can come to us and that we have the authority and the 
resources to look into that. So I would say that.
    And again, it really is important for the Inspector General 
to be able to communicate directly with the employees, which 
has been something that our office has not been able to do so 
far, just to highlight again the importance of blowing the 
whistle when you see things that you do not think are right. 
And, making sure employees understand they do not have to be 
right about whether it is a problem; they just need to report 
it. We will look into it. We will figure out if it is right or 
wrong or otherwise.
    And so I think those are really the important things that 
this bill will accomplish.
    Senator Hassan. Thank you very much and thank you for your 
work.
    I wanted to turn now to you, Ms. Ogilvie. New Hampshire 
National Guardsmen and Reserve swear to defend the Constitution 
and their country just as their active duty counterparts do, 
and they deserve the same respect and recognition. So that is 
why I introduced bipartisan legislation with Senator Shaheen 
and Senator Cramer, sitting right across from me, and Senator 
Hoeven to reform the Veterans Cemetery Grants Program to ensure 
that all members of Reserve components and the National Guard 
are eligible to be buried in State veterans cemeteries.
    I am glad to hear that the VA supports this legislation. 
Will you all commit to continue your work with my office so 
that we can get this done?
    Ms. Ogilvie. Yes, ma'am. I will speak for the National 
Cemetery Administration and say that we are committed to 
working with you.
    Senator Hassan. Yes. And I will just note that our National 
Guardsmen and women in particular, and Reserves, have been so 
heavily deployed during the War in Afghanistan, the Global War 
on Terrorism generally. The thought that they are not eligible 
to be in our veterans cemeteries is really just outrageous. So 
I appreciate that very much.
    And lastly, Mr. Chair, I will just finish with I really 
appreciated the conversation you all were having with Senator 
Brown about the issue of transition and the impact of 
transition on our veterans' mental health. I am pleased that we 
were able to pass the Solid Start Act, which would make it 
permanent in statute through this Committee.
    I will just note that one of the veterans I talk with a lot 
in New Hampshire has pointed out to me. He said, you know, why 
do we act as if PTSD is something we have to diagnose and maybe 
treat as unusual when in fact given the experience of our 
servicemen and women we should expect PTSD? And we should be 
expecting to need to help people deal with it and treat it 
appropriately.
    And I think that goes for the whole issue of mental health 
generally. So I look forward to working with all of you so we 
can really make sure that the stigma around it is lifted and 
lessened over time and really get the treatment that our 
veterans need so completely, as our active service men and 
women do, too.
    So thanks for you work on that, and thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Chairman Tester. Senator Cramer.

                      SENATOR KEVIN CRAMER

    Senator Cramer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks to all of 
our witnesses for being here. And thank you, Senator Hassan for 
supporting that legislation, and I want to drill down on it a 
little bit if you do not mind.
    I, too, am grateful for the support that you all are 
providing in your testimony and today. I am a little perplexed 
why it takes legislation to do the right thing. It does not 
seem to be that complicated a rule. That said, that is why we 
are here. So I appreciate your work on it and your helping us 
get it done but also get it done right.
    I am also glad that General Quinn is coming to North Dakota 
next week to talk about it and hear directly from folks. I am 
disappointed that my schedule was not consulted before. I mean, 
I would love to be there with him, but nonetheless, he is going 
to be talking to the right people. That is good.
    So, Ms. Ogilvie, you mentioned in your testimony that the 
VA published this notice of request for information in the 
Federal Register this past summer, and you go on to say that 
the majority of the responses were supportive of expanding the 
eligibility for burial benefits. I am wondering if you could 
just add a little more color to that response. You know, when 
you say the majority, was it a large majority? What kind of 
comments did you get?
    Ms. Ogilvie. Thank you for your question. I have to take 
this for the record to have the National Cemetery 
Administration get an answer back to you.
    Senator Cramer. Okay. All right. You also mentioned--and 
maybe you are going to give the same answer, but you mentioned 
in your testimony the legislation would create an inconsistency 
between the VA national and the VA grant-funded. Largely, 
former Governors love the grant-funded cemeteries in our 
States. We all do. And you state this inconsistency that would 
also create inconsistencies across States as current State laws 
are different. Right?
    But doesn't that inconsistency exist either way? I mean, 
how is that relevant to the law? Do you know? Or, to the bill.
    Ms. Ogilvie. I am sorry. I am going to have to take this 
for the record as well and have someone from the National 
Cemetery Administration get back to you on that.
    Senator Cramer. Okay. Maybe I will just offer them, you 
know, for the record, and we can get back. And that is fair. 
Then I do not have any other questions.
    I also just want to give a shout-out to S. 2794 that 
Senator Tuberville introduced, the Supporting Families of the 
Fallen Act, and that is supported by Senator Rounds. I know 
that you guys have talked about it. Just kudos to him on doing 
it. It is the right thing, and I am sure we will have success. 
But thank you.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That is all I have.

    [For VA response to Senator Cramer, see Questions 1 and 2 
on page 117 of the Appendix.]

    Chairman Tester. Senator Blumenthal has graciously yielded 
his position, not his time but his position, to Senator Murray 
who is online. Senator Murray, the floor is yours.

                      SENATOR PATTY MURRAY

    Senator Murray. Well, thank you very much, Senator 
Blumenthal, and thank you to all of our panelists today. There 
has been a lot of discussion surrounding how to improve the 
Transition Assistance Program, TAP, along with how to help our 
veterans and their families make the transition as seamlessly 
as possible. This program is incredibly important, with over 
200,000 servicemembers leaving the U.S. Military and 
transitioning back to civilian life every year.
    Senator Brown's bill outlines a pilot program that would 
help counsel servicemembers about mental health and make 
veterans aware of the services that are available to them at VA 
facilities.
    Ms. Ogilvie, I wanted to ask you, what else is VA doing to 
engage with veterans and improve suicide prevention protocols, 
and what other outreach does VA do to make veterans aware of 
the mental health resources that are available to them?
    Ms. Ogilvie. So VA's curriculum for TAP is an eight-hour 
curriculum, and it is one day. The curriculum does cover social 
and emotional health resources, does cover vet centers, how to 
seek help, how to integrate into your community again.
    In addition to that, as I mentioned before, we are doing 
Solid Start. We are contacting veterans three times in the 
first critical year after separation, making sure that we 
connect with them and talk to them about any needs that they 
may have.
    I will also defer to Ms. DeBord to talk a little bit more 
about what is going on from the health and social work 
perspective.
    Ms. DeBord. Thank you, Ms. Ogilvie.
    So, Senator Murray, what I would say is there is obviously 
always a lot of work going on, but over this last year, under 
the Health Executive Committee, they have created a Care 
Coordination Work Group. So--and there is a lot of work being 
done in this space. How can we synergize our work together, 
making sure that we are addressing the needs of these 
transitioning veterans?
    Also, JIF was established, which paid for, which funded the 
virtual liaisons, the five virtual liaisons that cover all of 
the country, that are not covered at the military treatment 
facilities.
    So there is a lot of fairly robust work going across the 
aisle between DOD and VA.
    Senator Murray. Okay. Thank you for that. You know, another 
question I wanted to ask you about is--I have been taking a lot 
of time to talk with student veterans across Washington State, 
and I have heard a lot about the need for improved 
communication from VA around the Veteran Readiness and 
Employment Program and a desire for more support for vet 
centers at our colleges and universities. The Veteran Education 
Empowerment Act by Senator Rosen addresses this concern by 
reauthorizing a grant program to help higher education 
institutions establish and maintain these student veteran 
centers.
    But, Ms. Bowman, if I could just ask you, what differences 
in retention are you seeing when a college or university does 
have a robust program versus a program that is not well funded?
    Dr. Bowman. This is kind of out of what we know and do as 
the Office of Academic Affiliations. I do not know exactly what 
is done at colleges per se in terms of understanding these 
things. We are familiar with the health professions programs, 
particularly those that we support, who rotate at the VA, and 
we do have 120,000 trainees in VHA a year under the training 
supervision of our various VA employees and health 
professionals.
    But I do not have a specific answer to what is done at the 
colleges, and I am not sure simply how to get an answer, but I 
can see what I can find out. And I hope that you----
    Senator Murray. Well, I think it is really important to 
know because a lot of our veterans are really struggling at our 
colleges and universities today, finding a place where they 
feel comfortable, where they feel that they can get the help 
and support that they need, that they have earned, and a lot of 
colleges and universities are not set up to do this. These vet 
centers at a college make a huge difference, but they are not 
uniform.
    And I really would appreciate if you looked at Senator 
Rosen's bill and get back to me with a response.
    Dr. Bowman. We will work on that, and the information will 
probably come from--related to the veteran centers. And I thank 
you.
    Ms. Ogilvie. We deferred that bill to the Department of 
Education for their views. So I would recommend maybe checking 
with the Department of Education on what their views are on 
that. They may be able to provide more information.
    Senator Murray. Okay. I will do that, but I hope you do as 
well.
    So thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the 
time.
    Chairman Tester. Senator Blumenthal.

                   SENATOR RICHARD BLUMENTHAL

    Senator Blumenthal. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
    Thank you all for being here and thank you to all of you in 
the VA for your service to our veterans.
    I want to add my voice to the sentiments expressed by a 
number of my colleagues, including Senator Brown, on behalf of 
the Daniel J. Harvey Jr. and Adam Lambert Improving 
Servicemember Transition to Reduce Veteran Suicide Act. You 
know, as long as I have been on this Committee, which is 10 
years, we have worked on this problem, and we are nowhere near 
where we have to go. I am willing to try anything and 
everything that we can to provide the support that is needed by 
our veterans, whether it is using the TAP program or in any 
other arena or concern.
    And I see that you have some concerns about some of the 
technical aspects of this bill, but I urge you to support it 
and provide us as soon as possible specific suggestions so that 
we can move forward with it.
    I must say that I am disappointed with your apparent 
opposition to the Building Credit Access for Veterans Act of 
2021 in contrast to the VFW, and we are going to hear from them 
later. You do not seem to believe there is a problem with 
veterans having access to this type of credit.
    And I am quoting the VFW's written testimony supporting the 
legislation. The VFW describes it as, quote, ``one of the most 
significant measures that provides economic opportunity and 
upward mobility for veterans to establish a stable life for 
themselves after serving.'' That is access to the VA Home Loan.
    And you say in your testimony that you, quote, ``the VA 
does not have data to suggest that creditworthy veterans are 
unable to access the home loan benefit.''
    There is data. Maybe it is not the data that you would look 
to have in specific statistics and numbers, but the reason we 
are proposing it is that we talked to veterans, not only the 
sponsors, but I think many others.
    And your point, I think, is that ``VA regulations and 
policies already contemplate the use of alternative credit 
information and scoring models to be used by lenders when 
underwriting VA-guaranteed loans.'' It is not enough to 
contemplate it. It is to do it that we want.
    And again, we would not be proposing this program if there 
were not solid evidence that it is necessary to consider 
alternative scoring information and scoring models to make 
these loans available. They are one of the main ways that 
veterans can lift themselves up financially, getting this kind 
of loan. And Senator Scott and I--it is bipartisan--feel that 
it is necessary.
    I would be happy to hear your comments.
    Ms. Ogilvie. So VA agrees that alternative credit scoring 
is essential for veterans. What our position on this bill is, 
is that we do not need a pilot program to establish that.
    So VA guarantees the loan, but the lenders underwrite the 
loan. We already encourage lenders to use alternative credit 
scoring means, and this bill would propose a pilot that has the 
Secretary designate what kind of alternative credit scoring 
means are possible. And we already encourage lenders to use any 
credit scoring means that they have.
    Senator Blumenthal. I recognize you encourage it. That is 
like contemplating.
    Ms. Ogilvie. Right.
    Senator Blumenthal. Encouraging lenders may get results and 
just as likely will not get results because the lenders are 
looking for the most secure kind of loans. And I do not need to 
spell it out for you. If there is no credit history, for all 
kinds of reasons, it may seem insecure. So the whole purpose of 
the pilot program is to show that these encouraged alternative 
ways of scoring and assessing credit information actually work.
    Ms. Ogilvie. Right. So unfortunately, VA cannot mandate 
that lenders utilize alternative credit scoring models. If 
Congress's intent is to encourage lenders to utilize those 
alternative credit scoring models, we would propose that the 
best way to get at that is to mandate that the lenders utilize 
them in their automated underwriting processes.
    So lenders use manual--or automated underwriting to be able 
to score veterans and other lenders. I am sorry, other 
borrowers. And if we mandated or if through a pilot a lender 
signed up to work with us, to use alternative credit scoring, 
it would amount to a manual underwriting, and a lot of lenders 
do not like to do that.
    Senator Blumenthal. Here is what we are trying to do. You 
are encouraging the lenders to do something that they are going 
to say does not work. And if we seek to mandate it, they are 
going to tell us the same thing. What we are trying to do is 
show that these alternatives do work, and the best way to do it 
is through a pilot program.
    I hope you will support this legislation. I am out of time. 
But this program is vital to our veterans. And I do not impugn 
your good motives. I know you want to help veterans. I am just 
trying to enable the VA to have a way of proving the system, an 
alternative system that could well work for veterans.
    Thank you.
    Chairman Tester. Thank you. I want to start out my 
questioning with just a statement. Thank you all for being 
here. I appreciate it very much. And I have not got a lot of 
time.
    This is a question that I am just curious about, Mr. 
Wilber. I assume that the Inspector General's subpoena 
authority probably was a result from what occurred in West 
Virginia. Is that a fair statement?
    Mr. Wilber. We had actually been looking for this authority 
for some time even before that had occurred.
    Chairman Tester. Okay. And do you see this authority as 
being able to speed up the investigatory process?
    Mr. Wilber. Well, we primarily see it as a way of creating 
a complete record of what had happened in an underlying matter 
that we may be investigating. Really, we see this as largely 
supporting our health care inspections, some of our audits, and 
some of our special reviews. And so, yes, I think having this 
authority could certainly speed things up in the sense that we 
know we will be able to get access to people. We will be able 
to speak to them. And having that information, particularly if 
we can get it early on in one of our projects, will allow us to 
use that information, yes.
    Chairman Tester. Thank you.
    Ms. Ogilvie, the claims backlog is nothing new, and I do 
not think there is any one solution that can fix it, but there 
are many provisions of the Veterans Benefits Improvement Act 
that I think will cut the timeline for processing these claims. 
For example, this bill is going to require an outreach program 
to explain to veterans how VA contractors will schedule the 
civilian exams and what kind of information they will be asked. 
Can you talk a little bit about this outreach, and will it save 
time? Will it potentially prevent fraud?
    Ms. Ogilvie. Yes, we support this section of the bill. So 
VBA already utilized a government delivery system to e-mail 
veterans to let them know in advance of when the contractors 
are contacting them for exams so that they do not think that it 
is, you know, a spam call or anything like that. And so that 
proactive contact has been very helpful for them.
    We also--once the exams are scheduled, we also e-mail them 
every day to remind them of their exams. But we think that the 
examination scheduling will definitely be improved by involving 
their representatives, who they already know and trust, to make 
sure that scheduling is done.
    Chairman Tester. Do you also use electronic notification 
when it comes to mailing veterans their claim decisions?
    Ms. Ogilvie. At this time, no, unfortunately. So there is 
legislation, or there is a law already in place, that says that 
most decision notices have to be mailed by first class mail. So 
the electronic delivery section would really improve our 
ability to deliver, electronically, notices and decisions to 
veterans who choose to do so in a much more timely manner, 
enabling possibly even same-day delivery for veterans who are 
checking their status tracker online of their appeals and their 
claims. And they will see a decision is made, but if it is 
coming in the mail they may not get it for several weeks or 
even now, with the government printing delays, months.
    Chairman Tester. Yes. Okay. We will just continue on with 
the RURAL Exams Act, Ms. Ogilvie, which would require VA to 
offer performance-based incentives to encourage contractors to 
provide better quality exams for rural veterans as well as 
financial disincentives to discourage contractors from failing 
to provide an exam in a timely manner.
    Okay, Ms. Ogilvie. Can you explain some of the challenges 
VA faces in providing medical disability examinations to rural 
veterans and how the incentives in this bill will help 
veterans?
    Ms. Ogilvie. So VA faces similar challenges with providing 
examinations and providing treatment for veterans who are in 
rural areas. Our vendors already have--they have expanded their 
mobile clinic fleets. So we have some expansion of assistance 
with our vendors to reach rural veterans. A lot of these mobile 
fleets, they provide the specialty type of examinations, such 
as audio, vision, and dental, audio being one of the most 
popular exams that we provide. We also encourage vendors to use 
telehealth, to use the acceptable clinical evidence when 
possible.
    But you know, any challenges that exist with any rural 
veterans, as you would expect--you know, it takes veterans a 
long time, too, if they have to travel to a facility. And you 
know, we try to do what we can to accommodate them, but 
sometimes that--you know, that impacts it.
    So one of the things that we also do right now with a 
modified contract that we just put in place in September is 
that we do provide monetary incentives to contractors, both 
positive and negative, for their performance, for their 
quality, for their customer satisfaction, and for their 
performance requirement levels which are measured by the 
average days pending of the exam request.
    So these additional incentives for rural veterans, we would 
have to create a new metric for that, but that is something 
that--you know, that is something that we would look into.
    Chairman Tester. Okay. Thank you.
    Senator Blackburn, virtually.

                    SENATOR MARSHA BLACKBURN

    Senator Blackburn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Ms. Ogilvie, I would like to come to you. In 2016, the VBA 
centralized distribution of the disability compensation claims 
workload throughout the National Work Queue, which prioritizes 
and distributes claims to regional offices based on their 
capacity. I understand that you all did this in hopes of 
spreading the workload from one office that may be overworked 
to one that did not have as much work.
    And I know that you primarily use timeliness and accuracy 
measures to assess the regional offices' performance in 
processing disability compensation claims. And I want to focus 
on the accuracy measures because the GAO report that you got in 
October 2018 recommended that VBA develop and implement a new 
regional office performance measure that allows it to better 
measure the accuracy of each regional office's work. So has VBA 
implemented new performance metrics to assess the accuracy of 
each regional office's work and not just the office that 
completes the claim?
    Ms. Ogilvie. So each regional office is assessed on 
timeliness metrics and quality metrics, yes.
    Senator Blackburn. Okay. And talk to me about the watch 
metric so that you are looking at the individual's performance 
and accuracy at each regional office.
    Ms. Ogilvie. I am sorry. Can you clarify that question a 
little bit? Which watch metric are you referring to 
specifically?
    Senator Blackburn. The one that looks at the individual's 
performance accuracy.
    Ms. Ogilvie. So----
    Senator Blackburn. And this is part of your VBA performance 
metric plan.
    Ms. Ogilvie. Right. So we have driving and watch metrics in 
VBA. The driving metrics, you know, depends on the regional 
office. Different regional offices have different performance 
metrics based on what special issues they are dealing with at 
that regional office.
    Senator Blackburn. Okay. Then let us do it this way. 
Explain to me how this new metric would fit into a regional 
office's evaluation and into each individual's evaluation. The 
reason I want to know this is I know that a good number of the 
claims continue to go to appeal and then continue to end up in 
court, end up before the judge. So let us look at this metric 
as how you are looking at that regional office's competencies 
and also the individual's competency and their accuracy.
    Ms. Ogilvie. So as part of our quality program, we do 
look--we can drill down to an individual basis to figure out 
where trends are, what specific employees are causing specific 
errors. I would mention about the----
    Senator Blackburn. Okay. So in that, do you hold these 
employees accountable, and what kind of accountability do they 
face?
    Ms. Ogilvie. Yes, ma'am. The quality metric is part of 
every employee's individual performance plan, and if they are 
not meeting their quality metrics they would be put on a 
performance improvement plan and eventually terminated if they 
did not improve.
    Senator Blackburn. Okay. How many people have been 
terminated under this plan?
    Ms. Ogilvie. I am going to have to take that for the record 
and get back to you.
    Senator Blackburn. Okay. That would be helpful. What I 
would like to know is under this new plan, your performance 
metric plan, how many employees have been put on an improvement 
plan and how many have been removed? How many offices have been 
put on an improvement plan?
    The reason for this, the--once you had that Appeals 
Improvement Modernization Act that was done in 2017, you should 
have had a better review process in place. Now the fact that we 
continue to hear so much from our veterans about the 
dissatisfaction with the way these claims are processed, both 
on accuracy and timeliness, and the fact that there seems to be 
so many of these that go to appeal and then that end up going 
to a judge, would you not agree with me that this says that 
something is wrong with this process?
    Ms. Ogilvie. Actually, I would say that since the Appeals 
Modernization Act passed in 2017 we have been able--in the 
past, there has always been an appeal--historically, 10 to 12 
percent of claims have gone to appeal. Since the Appeals 
Modernization Act, we have been able--because there is a closed 
record in that, in several lanes of that law, we are able to 
actually drill down to specific errors that are being done and 
error trends based on those lanes. And we have integrated work 
groups that work together to address common issues that we are 
seeing and trends that we are seeing as part of the Appeals 
Modernization Act.
    Senator Blackburn. Okay. What total percentage of appeals 
now--or claims go to appeal now?
    Ms. Ogilvie. So it is hard to measure it in the same way 
because there is three separate lanes right now, one of them--
two of them being claim lanes and one being an appeal. I know 
that out of the ones where a disagreement is filed----
    Senator Blackburn. Okay. Let us do this because my time is 
expired. Why don't you get those numbers for us? I think you 
have heard frustration, not only from me but from others, that 
there seems to be a lack of accountability, individually and in 
these regional offices, and a frustration from veterans with 
accuracy and timeliness when it comes to the VBA. So our goal 
would be to help you improve that.

    [For VA response to Senator Blackburn, see Questions 1 and 
2 on page 114 of the Appendix.]

    Mr. Chairman, you were generous with the time. Thank you so 
much.
    Chairman Tester. Senator Moran.
    Senator Moran. Chairman, thank you. I want to use this 
moment while the veterans witnesses are here, while the 
Department of Veterans Affairs witnesses are here. The 
Republican members of this Committee asked Secretary McDonough 
in a letter dated October 27th to provide details about the 
vaccine among VA personnel, compliance of the vaccine mandate, 
VA's operational assessment of the impact of the mandate. We 
asked for a response by November the 5th. We have not yet 
received a reply. It is a month past the VHA's deadline for 
personnel to be vaccinated and five days away from the deadline 
for the remainder of VA personnel.
    And my question is--which I do not expect you to be able to 
answer, Ms. Ogilvie--when can we expect a reply? And so I hope 
that you would take that back to the Department, but perhaps it 
is not even necessary for you to do that. I expect that the 
Secretary will learn of my inquiry. So if you want to respond, 
you are welcome to.
    Ms. Ogilvie. I would just say that I will make sure to 
check in on that for you and make sure that you get a reply 
soon.
    Senator Moran. Thank you for your kindness.
    Ms. Ogilvie. Thanks.
    Chairman Tester. The other thing that I would offer up--and 
I do not know if you have the Secretary's direct line. If you 
do not, I will give you his number.
    [Laughter.]
    Senator Moran. Just a response, but you and I can have this 
conversation among ourselves.
    Chairman Tester. I am just here to help. I am just here to 
help, Jerry.
    So it is good. That concludes our first panel. I would like 
to--so thank you all very much. You are welcome to stay.
    We have another panel up that is very important. It is the 
veterans' advocates. We have Jeremy Villanueva, Assistant 
National Legislative Director for the Disabled Americans 
Veterans, and we have Patrick Murray--get your name right this 
time, Patrick. Patrick Murray, Legislative Director for the 
Veterans of Foreign Wars, which has been referenced already 
today.
    And as soon as you guys get seated, Mr. Villanueva, we will 
let you begin. But thank you both for being here. You have been 
here before, and you will probably be here again. And we value 
your input and look forward to your testimony.
    So, Mr. Villanueva, you are up.

                            PANEL II

                              ----------                              


                 STATEMENT OF JEREMY VILLANUEVA

    Mr. Villanueva. Thank you, Chairman Tester, Ranking Member, 
and members of the Committee. Thank you for inviting DAV to 
testify at this hearing before the Senate Veterans' Affairs 
Committee to provide our views on the legislation before you.
    DAV is a nonprofit charity that provides a lifetime of 
support for veterans of all generations and their families, and 
I am honored to be here to discuss these important pieces of 
legislation. Our submitted written testimony addresses all 22 
bills on today's agenda, but I would like to highlight 4 in my 
remarks to you.
    In the 2020 VA Challenge Survey, 6 of the top 10 unmet 
needs for homeless veterans were civil legal assistance. Family 
law court fee and fines, debt collection, expungement of a 
criminal record, and child support issues are common examples 
of civil legal needs expressed by veterans. These legal issues 
can impact income and access to housing, leaving veterans at 
risk of falling into poverty and homelessness.
    In addition, today's veterans are at a higher risk for 
involvement with the criminal justice system. Post-traumatic 
stress disorder has been estimated to affect nearly 20 percent 
of Iraq and Afghanistan War veterans, and the prevalence of 
combat experience leads to higher rates of PTSD and of 
increased severity. PTSD, especially untreated, has shown a 
strong positive association with increased rates of arrest and 
conviction for veterans.
    To help justice-involved veterans, we support S. 1564. This 
bill would authorize the VA to provide law school programs 
grants of up to $2 million a year to help provide free legal 
assistance to veterans. This practice of law schools providing 
legal assistance to veterans is one that DAV has supported, and 
we consider it a key component of eliminating veteran 
homelessness. However, we consider it critical that additional 
funding be appropriated for this and that funding from existing 
VBA programs not be used for this purpose.
    S. 1936 would codify protections ensuring veterans, 
survivors, and their families do not lose access to their 
educational and employment benefits due to natural disasters 
and events such as the pandemic we are currently experiencing. 
By extending delimiting dates for programs such as Veteran 
Readiness and Education and Dependents' Educational Assistance, 
we are ensuring that disabled veterans, their families and 
survivors can finish the program that this Nation promised 
them. It is critical that legislation is passed that extends 
these provisions prior to the December 21st expiration of the 
previous protections. Student veterans and their families 
should never lose their benefits due to forces outside of their 
control.
    S. 2513 would make automatic, reoccurring, annual clothing 
allowance payments to veterans unless that veteran elects to no 
longer receive them or the VA determines that the veteran is no 
longer eligible. This legislation would allow veterans to 
receive five years of clothing allowance benefits before the 
first review of eligibility. It would also require the VA to 
establish a regulatory standard to determine if the veteran's 
disability that requires the allowance is subject to change. If 
it is not, the review will no longer be required such as in the 
cases of amputees and those catastrophically disabled. Veterans 
should not have to take unnecessary steps to access benefits 
they are entitled to, and this bill would streamline and 
improve the clothing allowance process.
    And finally, DAV supports S. 1664, which would require the 
VA to establish an ongoing national training program for claims 
processors who review compensation claims for service-connected 
PTSD. Claims processors would be required to participate in 
this training at least once a year starting in their second 
year of being a VA claims processor. Additionally, the bill 
would require standardization of training at all VA regional 
offices and establish a formal process for conduct of annual 
studies.
    An OIG report from December 2020 focused on PTSD-related 
claims, estimated that claims processors did not follow VA 
regulations and procedures when handling 16 percent of these 
PTSD cases. The majority of errors were due to improper or 
inadequate stressor verification. The report determined that 
these employees do not fully understand the various types of in 
service stressors nor the stressor verification procedures. 
This was the result of a lack of training on PTSD claims after 
the first year of employment coupled with the lack of clear and 
concise guidance.
    We are greatly concerned by the report's findings and the 
negative impact that a lack of proper training has on a 
veteran's ability to obtain the benefits they have earned. The 
VA must prioritize ongoing instruction and quality control of 
training and manuals. Veterans struggling with PTSD face many 
challenges. However, VA training and correct rating decisions 
should not be one of them.
    Mr. Chairman, that concludes my testimony, and I would be 
happy to answer any questions you or the Committee may have. 
Thank you.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Villanueva appears on page 
83 of the Appendix.]

    Chairman Tester. There will be questions. Thank you for 
your testimony. Appreciate it very much.
    Patrick Murray, from the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the 
floor is yours.

                  STATEMENT OF PATRICK MURRAY

    Mr. Murray. Chairman Tester, Ranking Member Moran and 
members of the Committee, on behalf of the men and women of the 
Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States and its 
auxiliary, thank you for the opportunity to provide our remarks 
on these important issues.
    The VFW supports the GI Bill National Emergency Extended 
Deadline Act of 2021. This legislation would make permanent the 
extensions of time limits and eligibility periods created for 
students using VA education benefits during the COVID-19 
pandemic. As we continue to face uncertainty, it is critical we 
do not force student veterans to ponder the fate of their 
education benefits in times of national emergency. The VFW 
supports making these extensions automatic and believes that 
all time limits, age limits, periods of eligibility or 
delimiting dates should be removed from VA education and 
employment benefits as these are truly lifelong needs for 
veterans and their families.
    We have also been pleased to hear continued reports from 
VBA on the status of the Digital GI Bill upgrades and continued 
meeting of milestones toward automation. Updating these IT 
services will streamline the process for determining 
eligibility and improve communication between VA and 
institutions. We believe these enhanced technology measures 
will have a direct impact on students' success and prevent 
overpayments that may cause students financial distress.
    The VFW supports S. 2089 and S. 2644. Both of these 
proposals would provide parity for certain members of the 
Reserve component.
    S. 2089 would allow members of the National Guard and 
Reserve, some of whom have access to VA health care, education 
benefits, and VA Home Loan eligibility, to have the eligibility 
to be buried in a State veterans cemetery. States that choose 
to broaden the eligibility of veterans beyond what the NCA 
currently allows should not be restricted from the Veterans 
Cemetery Grants Program.
    S. 2644 would allow all members of the National Guard and 
Reserve to earn eligibility toward the GI Bill for every type 
of duty. As our country increasingly calls upon the service of 
our Guard and Reserve forces in times of national crisis, and 
as the nature of their orders on which these individuals are 
activated varies, it is important their service is recognized 
alongside of their active duty counterparts.
    The VFW supports the Every Veteran Counts Act, which would 
collect, maintain and publish veteran demographic information. 
We suggest making sure the current crop of VA users is also 
specifically identified in this repository of information as 
well. Knowing which veterans are utilizing VA and which 
veterans are not would help inform stakeholders about any and 
all gaps for veterans' care. The VFW believes detailed data 
collection and transparency of which specific veterans are 
affected by which specific issues will help determine how we 
should focus resources and attention in the future.
    The VFW supports the intent of S. 2405 to improve outreach 
to veterans, but we have a few concerns and would like some 
clarification. The VFW believes the language should be 
clarified in this legislation to ensure States have the 
flexibility to fully allocate grant funds, not only to county, 
tribal, and state service officer but also service officers 
from VSOs that are recognized by VA for preparation of their 
claims. Many States do not utilize accredited county service 
officers, and the VFW would like to ensure these States are not 
inadvertently overlooked or underprioritized in this proposal. 
States such as Rhode Island, Kansas, and Montana utilize State 
services officers or have VSOs perform those duties on behalf 
of the State. We would like to see this proposal be all 
encompassing to make sure that veterans in every State could 
benefit from these grants.
    The VFW supports some portions of the draft Benefits Bill 
but have concerns with certain sections of the proposal. We 
believe the VA accreditation portion of this proposal is 
unnecessary. If the intent of this portion is to allow for more 
transparency for veterans and their claims, then we believe 
adding a permission for VSOs accredited in the OGC's data base 
to have read-only access will accomplish that goal. Asking VA 
to accredit, maintain, and oversee their own service officers 
is an unnecessary step in accomplishing that.
    Additionally, while we appreciate the Committee's support 
in restoring and approving notifications to veterans and their 
representatives, we believe any changes are premature at this 
time. The current Claims Accuracy Review Pilot Program is only 
in phase two of implementation, and we believe we should wait 
until we have more information to fully assess the pros and 
cons of this program before making permanent changes.
    Chairman Tester, Ranking Member Moran, this concludes my 
testimony. I am prepared to answer any questions you or any of 
the members may have.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Murray appears on page 97 of 
the Appendix.]

    Chairman Tester. Thank you, Patrick. To the second by the 
way, I might add, of the testimony. Good job.
    Good job to you both. We appreciate your testimony, your 
input, your suggestions.
    This is a question for both of you. As you are both aware, 
the COVID pandemic has resulted in an increase in the backlog 
of pending disability claims. What are you guys hearing from 
your members about the timeline for getting these claims 
processed?
    Mr. Murray. Senator, right now we are concerned, and we 
think a--we are hearing that it is too long. If you look at 
numbers from 2019 versus today, the average days for complete 
was 82 versus 146 right now. So it has jumped up by almost 
double.
    But a very fast way to reduce the backlog and what we are 
calling workload, not necessarily backlog, is the National 
Personnel Records Center. Last month, up until last month, they 
were only operating at 25 percent. They finally jumped up to 
about 45 percent. That is a place that a lot of elderly 
veterans, who some of them present with more complicated health 
care issues, who need that care and benefits right now--the 
National Personnel Records center, cranking out the records and 
the work that they need to get done, will help some of our 
elderly veterans get the care and benefits right now and drop 
down that backlog immediately.
    Chairman Tester. Mr. Villanueva, do you have anything to 
add from your membership?
    Mr. Villanueva. Yes, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much for 
that question. And it is--the timeliness of getting the claims 
back to the veterans is, of course, important. And like Patrick 
just said, this is--we are at 146 days now, which is, you know, 
again, you know, quite a bit longer than what it was prior to 
the pandemic.
    That being said, you know, we have not had that many, you 
know, complaints from, you know, our membership about the 
timeliness. However, the quality, to ensure that these are 
claims are done accurately we think would do, you know, 
significant amounts to reduce not just the backlog of pending 
claims but pending appeals. You know, there is 90,000, you 
know, appeals that are backlogged at the board. And as long as 
we can ensure, especially with PTSD claims, that they are done 
right the first time and given back to the veteran, then that 
would significantly reduce this workload.
    Chairman Tester. Okay. Let us talk about the RURAL Exams 
Act for a second. Could you guys explain some of the challenges 
your rural members face when they are trying to schedule a 
disability medical examination and how, and if, the RURAL Exams 
Act would address those challenges?
    Mr. Patrick. Senator, distance is obviously one of the most 
glaring issues that some rural veterans are facing to either VA 
facilities or access to either contracting examiners that can 
perform those. The RURAL Exams Act, one of the key things that 
we really appreciate in there is timeliness. It is something 
that we have been trying to change the way we are talking about 
this.
    In the past, we have talked about the speed of exams. 
Timeliness has a usefulness category in that if exams are done 
in an efficient, quick, and useful manner, that will knock down 
the backlog. Having an exam returned to you and it is 
incorrect, you then put it back in the appeals. Even if 
eventually you get it adjudicated months later, that is not 
timely. We appreciate that this Act has ``timely'' in it. That 
will help us make sure that they are done with an element of 
speed but also an element of usefulness.
    Chairman Tester. Mr. Villanueva?
    Mr. Villanueva. Yes. So one thing that, you know, we have 
to understand about, you know, rural veterans, as I am sure, 
Mr. Chairman, that you know, you know, is that many rural 
veterans are, you know, in a worse health shape, wage-earners a 
lot of times, you know, and elderly. Many of these people 
cannot afford to take the time out to go to the next urban, 
built-up area to go and take these examinations.
    And then when you couple that with homebound veterans, even 
if you are going for an examination for being homebound, it is, 
you know, unacceptable to expect that a homebound veteran 
should get up and move sometimes hundreds of miles away just 
for an examination for a claim that they do not even know how 
it is going to come out.
    So any way that we can get the access to these rural 
veterans, you know, would definitely benefit our membership.
    Chairman Tester. Thank you. The GRAD VA Educational 
Assistance Parity Act would allow Federal active duty performed 
by members of the Guards and Reserve to go toward their GI 
eligibility. Could you folks talk about this legislation, if 
you like it and if you think it is necessary?
    Mr. Murray. Senator, we like it. We think it is necessary. 
We strongly support it. Every day in uniform should count the 
same, making sure that the men and women who are standing next 
to each other, standing next to their active duty counterparts, 
are getting the same equitable benefits as each other.
    Chairman Tester. Anything to add, Mr. Villanueva?
    Mr. Villanueva. No, sir, Mr. Chairman. Of course, we 
definitely understand and, you know, support the intent of this 
legislation. However, we do not have a resolution to support 
it.
    Chairman Tester. Very quick question and then I am going to 
kick it over to Senator Moran. You have heard a lot about the 
Act, the bill, that allows for IG subpoena authority. Do you 
guys have any problem with that?
    Mr. Patrick. Senator, we believe that that might be 
necessary to get to the bottom of some of the issues and will 
only make VA better. If VA is better, it is taking care of our 
veterans in a better capacity.
    Chairman Tester. Okay. Thank you both.
    Senator Moran.
    Senator Moran. I like that answer. Thank you.
    Senator Tester asked about the difference in treatment 
between Active and Reserve and Guard, so he has covered my 
question. I thank you for your support of that legislation.
    Let us talk about the backlog a little bit more. In your 
testimony, Mr. Villanueva, you discussed the benefits, the 
discussion draft mentions that it alleviates some of the 
concerns DAV has had with the current state of VA medical 
disability exams and the claims process and the current 
backlog. Outside of what is included in this bill, what more do 
you think the VA can be doing to reduce the backlog down to 
pre-pandemic levels?
    Mr. Villanueva. That is a great question, Senator. You 
know, A-number-one thing, you know, I think that might not be 
talked about, you know, although it is addressed in one of 
these bills, is of course the training. The training for VA 
employees because, you know, as we look at it, I think that the 
backlog, you know, specifically with say, you know for example, 
PTSD claims. Simple mistakes that get to the veteran and the 
veteran has to disagree with and that that delays the process 
and includes more work for the VA to do fix that.
    You know, we believe that a fully trained and, you know, 
competently trained VA employee puts out good work and quickly, 
and that alleviates the claim on both the VBA side and the 
board side. You know, we used to say in the military, you know, 
slow is smooth, but smooth is fast. You know, as long as these 
folks are competently trained and confident in what they are 
doing, you know, we believe that this would, you know, not only 
speed up the process but also reduce the backlog.
    Senator Moran. Thank you.
    Mr. Murray, anything you would add to that?
    Mr. Murray. As Mr. Villanueva said, accuracy. I had a 
colleague this morning testify before the House on MST claims, 
and the OIG report stated that approximately 50 percent of them 
were being adjudicated incorrectly, which kicks them back into 
the system. That is just another example of clogging up the 
system with claims that should have been done correctly the 
first time. So cultural competency training is important.
    The other thing that we have heard from our members is 
allowing not only feedback to help make sure that there is 
review and oversight of the C&P exams but also allowing for 
veterans to have some agency in the decision about their exams. 
We had a veteran from New Jersey that was assigned a C&P exam 
three weeks later. Well, three weeks later was actually her due 
date for her child. If she was not able to make that exam, then 
it was going to be counted as a missed exam. She called us, 
frantically worried about that, because she did not have any 
say in when to actually schedule that, what is best for her. 
Obviously, giving birth to your child is a very legitimate 
reason for missing an exam.
    But that is the kind of decision we think would help 
improve the system, not just making sure that things are more 
accurate, but so that veterans have more of a say in the 
process.
    Senator Moran. I debated whether to phrase this question 
this way, but you have kind of set the stage for this. I mean, 
you have mentioned a couple of things: training of VA 
employees, accuracy matters, allowing the veteran to have 
engagement in how the--what the timing is of the exam.
    I have been a member of the Veterans' Committee for 25 
years. I cannot imagine I have not supported, endorsed every 
piece of legislation designed to speed up the process, some of 
which became law. First of all maybe, is there examples of 
legislation that we have passed that had a difference in 
reducing the backlog of claims, or have we--in addition to that 
question, have we now ran the gamut of things that we can do 
legislatively to alleviate the backlog and it really now rests 
with the VA and its employees? In some ways, your answer to 
that was, particularly you, Mr. Villanueva, training, attention 
to detail, accuracy.
    How many more bills, or what is the bill we can pass that 
gets us to a position that is different than what we have been 
in for so long?
    Mr. Murray. Senator, I do not want to say that we have 
exhausted all options. Outside-the-box thinking always helps.
    But typically when we face a backlog over time, it is 
hiring new, additional people, like a surge capacity for a 
period of time but also making sure that they are done 
correctly. A fully developed claim, thoroughly reviewed, 
quality the first time reduces that redundancy. So some of it 
does rely on the actual individuals in the process itself. We 
would always encourage more help to speed it up, but you know, 
there are some certain steps that are almost the traditional 
backlog-reducing steps that just need to happen every time that 
there is ebbs and flows of the backlog.
    Senator Moran. Anything further?
    Mr. Villanueva. Yes, Senator. You know. And I would be 
remiss to say that the VA has not, you know, gotten speedier, 
especially in the last 10 years, you know, when it comes to the 
efficiency and getting these claims back to the veterans. That 
being said, we should--we could always be better. We should 
always strive for better and--you know.
    And I know this pandemic did not help things, you know, at 
all, getting things out and--you know, we have had to--you 
know, all of a sudden the VA has had to pivot to, you know, 
telehealth appointments to get the C&P examinations done, which 
of course, you know, I am sure added onto the backlog.
    But you know, like my colleague from the VFW said, yes, 
training should always be a must. We have to strive to get 
better. The moment we start sitting on our laurels and start 
being happy about that there is no more backlog, the backlog, 
as we have all seen, will always just grow. So, always striving 
to be better and staying on the VA and making them accountable 
for when there is deficiencies.
    Senator Moran. Maybe my takeaway from your answers is this, 
which is, while there may be legislative things we should do--
we ought not foreclose that opportunity--we ought to be focused 
on number of personnel, personnel training, personnel attitude 
approach, and appropriations to make sure the necessary 
resources are there to complete the process. Is that a fair 
summary of where we might be?
    Mr. Murray. Getting it right the first time is going to 
make this process a lot faster, Senator. That is what we really 
hope to have happen. And training, cultural competency, making 
sure that individuals--as I mentioned, the MST example, while 
it is a smaller subset of claims, those are complex claims that 
take up a lot of time, that if you are doing them two or three 
times, that just only gums up the system. Let us get it right 
the first time.
    It also helps that ease of mind of the veterans to make 
sure that their belief, that they have, you know, the faith in 
the system and not have to fight the system. It should be very 
non-adversarial. And getting it right the first time will 
really help with that.
    Mr. Villanueva. Cultural competency, you know, instilling 
confidence, you know, showing the veteran that this can be done 
but also, you know, being relevant with the times, 
understanding that the new advances in technology that are out 
there and taking advantage of them, so that we can reach the 
more rural veterans and that we can--you know, the VA can, you 
know, be there and put the onus not on the veteran to be able 
to provide some of these things that are needed for, you know, 
a basic claim.
    Senator Moran. Thank you. Thank you to the DAV and to the 
Veterans of Foreign Wars, the VFW, for your testimony today and 
for the work you do with your members and other veterans.
    Chairman Tester. I want to echo those comments. I also want 
to thank the Office of Inspector General and the VA for being 
here today. Both panels were valuable because they shared the 
kind of insight that we need to move forward with today's 
agenda.
    We will keep the record open for one week, and with that, 
this hearing is adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 4:55 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]

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