[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 60 (Thursday, April 29, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E810]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         NATIONAL CEMETERY FOR VETERANS IN MIAMI, FLORIDA AREA

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. CORRINE BROWN

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, April 29, 1999

  Ms. BROWN of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I am today introducing legislation 
requiring the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to establish a national 
cemetery in the Miami, Florida, metropolitan area to serve the needs of 
veterans and their families, and to report to Congress on a schedule 
for that establishment and an estimate of associated costs.
  I am distressed that the Department of Veterans Affairs continues to 
ignore the long-identified national veterans' cemetery needs of 
southern Florida. In both 1987 and 1994, the Miami area was designated 
by congressional mandated reports as one of the top geographic areas in 
the United States in which need for burial space for veterans is 
greatest. Yet, as late as August 1998, VA's strategic planning through 
the year 2010 indicated nothing more than a willingness to continue 
evaluating the needs of nearly 800,000 veterans in the Miami/Ft. 
Lauderdale primary and secondary service area. Mr. Speaker, that is 
over 54 percent of the estimated State veteran population and 3.3 
percent of the total U.S. veteran population. By VA's estimate, there 
will be nearly 25,000 veteran deaths in the greater Miami area in FY 
2000, and by the year 2010, the annual veteran death rate in southern 
Florida will be nearly 26,000.
  Although VA statistics show that demand for cemetery space will 
increase sharply in the near future--with burials increasing 42 percent 
from 1995 to 2010--the Administration's FY 2000 budget for VA failed to 
include a request for the funding required to initiate a single new 
national cemetery.
  Mr. Speaker, the time for evaluating the needs of southern Florida is 
long past and the time for action is rapidly slipping away. National 
veterans' cemeteries are not built in a day. It takes at least five-to-
seven years to plan and build one. For those who served this country 
with pride and dignity, VA has an obligation to provide an opportunity 
to be buried in a national cemetery near their home--an opportunity not 
now available to those who live in southern Florida.
  It has been the intent of Congress since the establishment of the 
National Cemetery System in 1862 that the Federal Government purchase 
``cemetery grounds'' to be used as national cemeteries ``for soldiers 
who shall have died in the service of the country.'' Today, of the 115 
national cemeteries administered by VA, only 57 are open to all 
interment, 36 can accommodate cremated remains and family members of 
those already interred, and 22 are closed to new interments. In 
southern Florida there is not a veterans cemetery of any description.
  I urge Members to support my legislation so that the Memorial Days of 
the 21st century can be observed by the families and friends of 
veterans in southern Florida at a nearby, appropriate national resting 
place of honor for an American hero.

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