[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 63 (Monday, April 21, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Page S3181]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               VETERANS BENEFITS ENHANCEMENT ACT OF 2007

  Mr. AKAKA. Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to support 
consideration of S. 1315, as reported by the Committee on Veterans' 
Affairs, the proposed Veterans Benefits Enhancement Act of 2007. This 
is a comprehensive bill that would improve benefits and services for 
veterans, both young and old, and it should be debated and voted on.
  I believe that a brief recap of how we came to seek cloture on this 
veterans bill would be helpful in assisting my colleagues in their 
deliberation on cloture.
  Last June the committee held a markup during which the then-ranking 
member, the Senator from Idaho, offered an amendment that would have 
modified a provision of the bill relating to Filipino veterans of World 
War II. This amendment would have reduced the amount of pension that 
Filipino veterans residing in the Philippines would receive.
  I stress that the amendment was not to eliminate pension benefits for 
these veterans from the bill entirely--it was merely to reduce the 
benefit in line with what the Senator from Idaho viewed as appropriate. 
I disagreed with his assessment and we debated the issue. Ultimately, 
his amendment was not adopted.
  As that markup concluded, the Senator from Idaho noted that he 
intended to bring his amendment regarding the pension issue to the 
floor during consideration of S. 1315, a step I certainly understood 
and accepted.
  The report on S. 1315 was filed in August and I expected that it 
would come to the floor in September. However, there was an unexpected 
change in the committee's Republican leadership in early September, 
with the Senator from Idaho being replaced by the Senator from North 
Carolina. I did not push for consideration of S. 1315 while the new 
ranking member took over the responsibilities of the position.
  When in October, committee staff began, at my direction, to seek 
agreement for the bill to be brought to the floor, those efforts were 
not successful.
  Later in the fall, despite his suggestion that there was need for 
debate, the former ranking member curiously objected to my attempt to 
gain unanimous consent to debate the bill. I wrote to my colleague in 
an attempt to find a middle ground between the level of pension 
benefits in the bill as reported, and the level that he had sought 
during the June markup.
  On December 13, 2007, I received a letter from the former ranking 
member that indicated that he did not feel that we were far apart from 
finding a compromise on the bill, and that he looked forward to working 
with me to gain final passage.
  However, my optimism was short-lived. On that same day, the majority 
staff received a counteroffer from the minority staff, on behalf of the 
committee's new ranking member, the Senator from North Carolina, which 
proposed to entirely eliminate pension benefits for Filipino veterans 
residing in the Philippines from the bill.
  Shortly thereafter, I was surprised to learn that this counteroffer 
was embraced by the committee's former ranking member--rendering his 
offer to negotiate null and void.
  Additional efforts earlier this year to find a compromise or, at a 
minimum, to enter into an agreement for debate, were again rejected.
  Now, after over 7 months of obstruction in bringing this bill to the 
floor, we have to resort to a cloture vote on the motion to proceed to 
the bill, an action unprecedented in the history of the Veterans' 
Affairs Committee.
  I am dismayed that, along with the Filipino veterans provisions 
included in the bill, a number of other worthy provisions have not been 
enacted because of obstruction by the minority.
  Among other things, S. 1315, as reported, would: Establish a new 
program of insurance for service-connected veterans; expand eligibility 
for retroactive benefits from traumatic injury protection coverage 
under the Servicemembers' Group Life Insurance program; increase the 
maximum amount of veterans mortgage life insurance that a service-
connected disabled veteran may purchase; recognize that individuals 
with severe burn injuries need specially adapted housing benefits; and 
extend for 2 years the monthly educational assistance allowance for 
apprenticeship or other on-the-job training.
  This is by no means a comprehensive recitation of the 8 titles and 38 
provisions that are in this omnibus legislation. However, I hope it 
gives our colleagues an overview of the types of benefits that 
servicemembers and veterans stand to gain by passage of this 
legislation.
  I ask our colleagues to vote in favor of cloture so as to bring this 
measure to the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Republican whip.

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