[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 169 (Monday, November 16, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11361-S11362]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          MILITARY TRANSITION

  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, this afternoon the Senate will resume 
consideration of the Military Construction and Department of Veterans 
Affairs appropriations bill. This critical legislation will provide 
full funding for veterans health care and other essential VA services.
  Last week, Mr. President, as I am sure you and many of my colleagues 
did, I had the opportunity to meet with veterans around my State, 
really for 2 days, and I came back to Washington with a renewed 
commitment to provide our Nation's veterans with full support and the 
benefits they so clearly deserve.
  Passing this VA appropriations bill is an important step toward 
fulfilling the promise we make to our veterans when they enlist: that 
we will take care of them when they return home. I figure, when they 
signed up for war there was no waiting line, so when they come home to 
the United States of America and they need a job or they need health 
care or they need any type of help from this government, there should 
not be a waiting line.
  But funding the VA's health care system--as we are doing this week--
and other existing veterans programs is only part of fulfilling that 
promise. Another critical component of fulfilling that promise is 
helping our newest generation of veterans make the difficult transition 
from military to civilian life--and what a difficult transition it is. 
New figures have recently come out that show that for post-9/11 
veterans, their unemployment in October was 11.6 percent--significantly 
above the national average. But, like many of the national unemployment 
rate statistics, this statistic conceals the true scope of the problem. 
Here is the number to remember: 18. Eighteen percent of veterans who 
left the military in the past 1 to 3 years are unemployed, according to 
a 2008 Department of Veterans Affairs employment survey. Of those 
veterans who have found work, 25 percent earn less than $21,800 per 
year and only 58 percent of veterans who are employed have been able to 
find work in the private sector.
  These are the people whom I saw when I was at home. One of the things 
that came to my attention was that a number of them would choose, if 
they could, to pursue apprenticeships. A lot of them want to go to 
college for 2-year or 4-year degrees. We have large numbers of 
returning soldiers in college in Minnesota. One of the things I found 
from visiting some of our technical colleges is that a number of them 
would like to choose to pursue a different way to find a job.

  A recent VA survey of private sector employers found there is a 
perception that servicemembers do not perform duties within tightly 
defined skill sets. The study concluded there should be a greater 
emphasis placed on business and professional training of veterans 
coupled with increased efforts to match their skills with available 
jobs. That is why I introduced bipartisan legislation last week, joined 
by Senator Johanns of Nebraska and Senator Murray of Washington, to 
help Iraq and Afghanistan veterans obtain the training and experience 
necessary for full-time employment by allowing them to use their post-
9/11 GI bill benefits for job training and apprenticeship programs.
  As my colleagues know, last year, under the leadership of Senator 
Webb, we passed into law the Post-9/11 Veterans' Educational Assistance 
Act, which will provide the men and women who served on active duty 
since September 11, 2001, with comprehensive educational benefits 
similar to those World War II veterans received. While I believe there 
is no greater investment we can make in the future of our veterans than 
granting them the chance to pursue the higher education of their 
choosing, I also believe we must not limit veterans' opportunities to 
only the pursuit of academic degrees. Not every returning soldier 
chooses to go to college, but they still want a job. Job training, from 
pipefitting to law enforcement, should also be covered by the GI bill.
  Our legislation, the Post-9/11 Veterans' Job Training Act, would 
allow veterans who wish to enter the workforce immediately rather than 
pursuing an academic degree to use their post-9/11 GI bill benefits to 
obtain critical training and job skills.
  Specifically, veterans enrolled in an on-the-job training or 
apprenticeship program could use their benefits to pay for a percentage 
of their monthly housing costs, which would decline over a period of 
months; certification and testing fees; relocation and travel expenses; 
and tutoring costs. We put these things together based on our 
discussion with veterans across the country to see what their exact 
needs were to make it easier for them to go through the pipefitting 
apprenticeship programs and others that land them in the workforce more 
immediately.
  In order to qualify under this legislation, veterans must be enrolled 
in programs that have been approved by their State's accrediting 
agency. As under the old GI bill, veterans can also receive a salary 
from their employer during this training. This bill will restore the 
same eligibility and benefits for job training and apprenticeship 
programs that were available to veterans under the Montgomery GI bill, 
but are no longer available under the post-9/11 GI bill.
  I talked to Senator Webb and I know there were some reasons this got 
changed. He is, in fact, supportive of including this, because we have 
seen this skyrocketing unemployment rate, in part because of the 
economy, and we want to find every opportunity we can for our veterans 
to find work.
  According to the VA, up to 10 percent of veterans use their 
Montgomery GI bill benefits for education other than college or 
graduate school, including for on-the-job training and apprenticeship 
programs. Through this legislation, post-9/11 veterans will be able to 
use their expanded benefits for the very same purposes. In Minnesota 
alone, there are over 50 such programs currently providing training and 
employment opportunities to veterans, including jobs in law 
enforcement, construction, engineering, and education.
  I was at one of these institutions in Minneapolis this last week and 
met with some of our veterans, some of whom have done multiple tours in 
Iraq and one who was leaving in a few months, and they found it very 
helpful to return to these apprenticeship programs--some of which 
involve incredibly complex subjects--offering them the opportunity to 
learn those trades, and this will greatly help them so they can better 
afford these programs. By applying the new GI bill benefits they have 
earned toward these programs, veterans can acquire the skills and 
experience they need for success in the civilian workforce.
  Last week, President Obama signed an Executive order creating a 
Council on Veterans Employment and directing each Federal agency and 
department to establish an office to focus on the hiring of veterans. 
Like the President, I am committed to ensuring that veterans have a 
path to stable employment when they leave the military.
  One other piece of legislation I wish to mention, because I am 
hopeful it will be included in our health care reform, is the Veterans 
to Paramedics Transition Act which I introduced along with Senator 
Enzi. It helps returning veterans with medical training to pursue 
further education as paramedics. One of the things I found in our

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State was that in rural areas of the country--rural areas of Minnesota, 
rural areas of Virginia, rural areas in Wyoming--there are not enough 
paramedics. Here we have these returning soldiers who are trained in 
this area, but for them to have to move again and to go through an 
entire 2 years of training can be very difficult. The idea is not to 
say no training is needed but to simply give them some credit; set up 
rules to make it easy for colleges to give them credit for that on-the-
job training they had as paramedics in Iraq and Afghanistan. It 
involves two problems: the problem of returning veterans who don't have 
jobs, and the problem of the lack of paramedics in the rural areas. So 
we are very hopeful, with the help of Senator Enzi and Senator Harkin, 
that we will be able to get this bill on the health care reform bill.
  I look forward to working with my colleagues to pass not just the 
Veterans to Paramedics Act but also this bill we introduced last week 
to make it easier for veterans, when they come home--our soldiers--to 
choose if they want to go to a pipefitting program or to go to a law 
enforcement program. For those veterans, there will probably be 10 
percent of them who don't feel at that moment that they want to pursue 
an academic degree, but they need a job.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  I yield the floor, and I note the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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