[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 26 (Thursday, March 1, 2001)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E263-E264]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                VETERANS HOSPITALS EMERGENCY REPAIR ACT

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, March 1, 2001

  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, on behalf of myself, Mr. Evans 
of Illinois, Mr. Moran of Kansas and Mr. Filner of California, and 
other members of the Veteran's Affairs Committee, I am introducing a 
new measure, the ``Veterans Hospitals Emergency Repair Act,'' that my 
colleagues and I hope will begin to address what has become a troubling 
and lingering problem in some of our Nation's veterans hospitals: a 
crumbling and substandard patient-care infrastructure. The problems 
even include buildings that could collapse in earthquakes. In fact, Mr. 
Speaker, just yesterday in Tacoma, Washington, a temblor of 6.8 
magnitude damaged patient care buildings 6 and 81 on the campus of the 
American Lake VA Medical Center.
  Mr. Speaker, for the past several years, we have noted that the 
President's annual budget for VA health care has requested little or no 
funding for major medical facility construction projects for America's 
veterans. As we indicated last year in our report to the Committee on 
the Budget on the Administration's budget request for fiscal year 2001, 
VA has engaged in an effort through market-based research by 
independent organizations to determine whether present VA facility 
infrastructures are meeting needs in the most appropriate manner, and 
whether services to veterans can be enhanced with alternative 
approaches. This process, called ``Capital Assets Realignment for 
Enhanced Services,'' or ``CARES,'' has commenced within the Department 
of Veterans Affairs, but will require several years before bearing 
fruit. In the interim, Mr. Speaker, some VA hospitals need additional 
maintenance, repair and improvements to address immediate dangers and 
hazards, to promote safety and to sustain a reasonable standard of care 
for the nation's veterans. Recent reports by outside consultants and VA 
have revealed that dozens of VA health care buildings are still 
seriously at risk from seismic damage. The buildings at American Lake 
damaged in yesterday's earthquake were among those identified as being 
at the highest levels of risk.
  Also, Mr. Speaker, a report by VA identified $57 million in 
improvements were needed to address women's health care; another 
report, by the Price Waterhouse firm, concluded that VA should be 
spending from 2 percent to 4 percent of its ``plant replacement value'' 
(PRV) on upkeep and replacement of its health care facilities. This PRV 
value in VA is about $35 billion; thus, using the Price Waterhouse 
index on maintenance and replacement, VA should be spending from $700 
million to $1.4 billion each year. In fact, in fiscal year 2001, VA 
will spend only $170.2 million for these purposes.
  While Congress authorized a number of major medical construction 
projects in the past three fiscal years, these have received no funding 
through the appropriations process. I understand that some of the more 
recent deferrals of major VA construction funding were intended to 
permit the CARES process to proceed in an orderly fashion, avoiding 
unnecessary spending on VA hospital facilities that might, in the 
future, not be needed for veterans. I agree with this general policy, 
especially for those larger hospital projects, ones that ordinarily 
would be considered under our regular annual construction authorization 
authority. We need to resist wasteful spending, especially when overall 
funds are so precious. But I believe that I have a better plan.
  Mr. Speaker, when I assumed the Chairmanship of the Veterans 
Committee earlier this year, I asked what steps my colleagues

[[Page E264]]

and I might take immediately that could help our veterans. The 
legislation that I am introducing today is part of the answer. This 
bill, which I am pleased is cosponsored by my friend and the Ranking 
Member of theJerry Moran of Kansas, our new Chairman of the Health 
Subcommittee, as well as the Subcommittee's Ranking Member, Mr. Bob 
Filner of Califomia, as well as other members of the Veteran's Affairs 
Committee, sets up a temporary, 2-year program of delegated 
authorizations of smaller construction projects (each limited to a cost 
of less than $25 million) that would update, improve and restore VA 
health care facilities in a defined number of sites each of these 
years. The Secretary would be given this power to approve individual 
facility projects, generally based on recommendations of an independent 
capital investments board and on criteria detailed in our bill that 
place a premium on projects to protect patient safety and privacy, 
improve seismic protection, provide barrier-free accommodation, and 
improve VA patient care facilities in several specialized areas of 
concern, such as privacy needs for women veterans, in order to meet the 
contemporary standard of care for our veterans.
  The bill would require the Secretary, at the end of the process, to 
report his actions to the VA Committee and to the Appropriations 
Committee as well. The bill also would mandate a review of this 
delegated-project approach by the General Accounting Office, to ensure 
this is an effective mechanism to advance some VA medical construction 
during the pendency of CARES.
  Mr. Speaker, our bill would authorize appropriations of $250 million 
in fiscal year 2002, and $300 million in fiscal year 2003, to 
accomplish these projects under the authority provided. Thus, I believe 
we can make the case for this interim approach and gain support for 
moving a specific list of relatively small but critical projects 
forward with independent review. I believe we soon can be doing 
something urgently needed for veterans, in the best traditions of our 
continuing commitment to them. Then we can await the development and 
conclusion of the CARES process, more comfortable in the knowledge that 
at least for many VA hospitals, their emergency maintenance needs for 
small-scale construction projects will not go unnoticed, unauthorized--
and unfunded.
  It should be noted that nothing in this bill prevents the Committee 
or the Congress from still considering the merits of large-scale, VA 
major medical facility construction project authorizations in these two 
fiscal years, should we decide to take such decisions, now or in the 
future. By its nature, the bill is intended as a stopgap measure to 
give the VA Secretary limited authority to keep its health care system 
viable while the CARES process proceeds.
  Mr. Speaker, I believe, and I hope that my colleagues will agree with 
me, that this is a worthy bill. On very short notice, when VA was 
informally advised about the prospect of this kind of bill being 
introduced and considered by this House, 25 projects that would be 
appropriate under its terms were immediately identified. I am certain 
that there are many more, in all sectors of the VA health care system, 
that the Secretary will have an opportunity to consider and approve 
under this authority. Many VA facilities need funds right now for small 
projects on an emergency basis. In good conscience, we cannot continue 
to ignore them. In my judgment, we cannot afford to wait several years 
before deciding to provide ftinds when these projects confront the VA 
system, the veterans, and us today.
  I strongly urge my colleagues to support this bill and help enact it 
as a high priority early this year.

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