[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 33 (Thursday, February 27, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1189-S1191]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
VETERANS LEGISLATION
Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, lest we forget, more than 30,000 brave
Americans are still serving in harm's way in Afghanistan. Hundreds of
thousands of men and women in uniform are serving around the world.
They all volunteered. In return for their volunteerism, we made a
number of promises. The ability to maintain the strongest and most
dedicated military force in the world depends on our Nation's ability
to keep those promises.
I am a proud cosponsor of the legislation being debated this week, S.
1982, which is perhaps the most significant veterans legislation to
come before Congress in many years. This legislation has the strong
support of virtually every veterans organization in the country,
including the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the
Disabled American Veterans, the Vietnam Veterans of America, and the
Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. These organizations support
the bill because it renews our promise to our veterans.
I am very fortunate to represent the State of New Mexico, which has
one of the highest rates of military volunteerism in the Nation. New
Mexico, a small State of 2 million people, is home to more than 170,000
veterans, and 2,000 New Mexicans endured the Bataan Death March during
World War II.
New Mexico is home to many of our Nation's finest military
installations: Kirtland Air Force Base, the Air Force's sixth largest
base, with over 100 partners and a strategic role in ensuring our
Nation's safe, secure, and reliable nuclear weapons complex; Cannon Air
Force Base, the fastest growing Air Force base in the country, leading
the fight in special operations; Holloman Air Force Base, an
indispensable Air Force base with unparalleled airspace now and into
the future; and White Sands Missile Range, the largest military
installation in the Nation, with a testing and training environment
that is unmatched anywhere in the world.
Additionally, New Mexico's National Guard employs roughly 3,800 full-
time and part-time military personnel.
Collectively, there are 18,000 military personnel serving today in
New Mexico. Volunteerism is not simply a career choice for New
Mexicans; it is a way of life. It is ingrained in our State's rich
history of putting community and country first.
The bill before us today renews our promise to all of them and to all
of those who are willing to lay down their lives for their country. It
provides benefits to all generations of veterans and their families,
and it eliminates the cost-of-living adjustment penalty on military
retirees.
The legislation incorporates bills and ideas from both Democrats and
Republicans to address the disability claims backlog, including one of
my own. Across New Mexico I have heard from too many veterans who are
frustrated with the delays they experience in receiving their
disability benefits.
Last June Senator Heller of Nevada and I introduced the Veterans
Benefits Claims Faster Filing Act, which requires the Secretary of
Veterans Affairs to ensure that every veteran is informed of the vast
differences in times for processing compensation claims when filing a
fully developed claim versus a non-fully developed paper claim.
It takes, on average, 113 days for veterans to receive a final
disability rating if they file a fully developed claim online. Compare
that to over a year if they file a non-fully developed paper claim.
Filing claims online through the Fully Developed Claims Program
accelerates turnaround time and makes processing more efficient. Doing
so also provides an additional year of retroactive benefits as an
incentive to veterans who file a fully developed claim.
The Faster Filing Act and other legislative efforts represent a
collective effort to reduce the backlog and ensure that our veterans
receive the benefits they have earned.
I am also proud to have cosponsored legislation introduced by my
colleague from Alaska Senator Begich to provide advanced appropriations
for all--all--VA spending accounts. This would ensure that veterans
receive uninterrupted access to the benefits they have earned, even in
the midst of a government shutdown such as the one that so
irresponsibly occurred last fall. It is unacceptable that veterans
would fall victim to the partisan politics of a government shutdown.
The legislation today includes a fix to ensure that never happens
again.
The bill also helps put veterans back to work. It reauthorizes a 2-
year extension for the Veterans Retraining Assistance Program, which
retrains unemployed veterans for high-demand occupations. It requires
the VA to establish a 3-year program to provide young veterans under 30
the opportunity to serve in an internship that would pair veterans with
private sector employers so they can gain civilian work experience.
The bill expands the VA's successful caregivers program to provide
caregiver benefits to veterans of all generations, in a similar manner
as post-9/11 veterans.
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America's service men and women consider our Nation's principles
important enough to defend them against all enemies and at any cost.
They volunteer to do so. But volunteerism only works if we fulfill our
promises. Few sacrifices are as selfless as those our military men and
women make in defense of this Nation. We owe them more than a debt of
gratitude; we owe them action in both our words and our deeds. This
bill backs our word with action. It fulfills our promises. I hope we
see it pass this week.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Washington.
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, on Tuesday I came to the floor to talk
about one issue that we are rarely divided on in this building; that
is, our duty to keep the promises we have made to provide not only care
but opportunity to all those who have honorably served in our Nation's
Armed Forces.
The comprehensive veterans legislation that is now before us is
really the test for many Members of Congress. Can we all put politics
aside for the good of our Nation's veterans to keep that promise? Can
we show these heroes that despite our differences, we will work as
diligently toward getting them the benefits and care they have earned
as they worked for our Nation?
Now, unfortunately, some of our colleagues on the other side of the
aisle are indicating they would now prefer to put politics over
promises, under the guise of an alternative to this bill. Given what we
have seen recently on other bills--supported, by the way, by a majority
of Americans--we should not be surprised, but I truly did think and
hope this bill would be a different story because it contains ideas
from both Democrats and Republicans and because this is an issue which
has historically united this body and because we have all pledged to do
whatever it takes on behalf of our veterans.
So once again where we are today is that some of our colleagues have
decided to use unrelated issues to sour this entire effort for our
veterans and their families who stand to benefit the most from this
comprehensive legislation we are offering.
With their alternative bill they have now proposed to strip away
life-changing programs for veterans who are looking to take the skills
they learned on the battlefield to the boardroom. With this
alternative, they have decided to halt the expansion of opportunities
for our caregivers who are integral to the health and well-being of
some of our most vulnerable heroes.
But among these and many other examples of the Republican effort to
derail this landmark legislation, there is one issue I find most
egregious; that is, their shameful opposition to provide our
catastrophically wounded heroes with access to reproductive services
they so desperately need to start a family.
This shouldn't be a political issue. This is about giving veterans
who have sacrificed everything every option we have to help them
fulfill a simple dream of starting a family.
As we all know, our men and women in uniform have become increasingly
susceptible to reproductive, spinal, and traumatic brain injuries due
to the changing weapons of war. But as we know, thanks to modern
medicine, many of these servicemembers are being kept alive and they
are returning home. In fact, as of the new year, there are 2,348
servicemembers who are living with reproductive, urinary or pelvic
injuries as a result of this war. Similar to so many of our veterans,
these men and women come home and want to return to their lives. They
want to find employment and, importantly, they want to start a family.
Yet what they find when they go to the VA is that the fertility
services that are available don't meet their extremely complex needs.
In fact, veterans who suffer from these injuries find that the VA is
specifically barred from providing more advanced assisted reproductive
techniques such as IVF. They are told, despite the fact that they have
made such an extreme sacrifice for all of us, we cannot provide them
with the medical services they need simply to start a family.
These are families such as SSG Matt Keil and his wife Tracy. Despite
returning home from Iraq as a quadriplegic, Staff Sergeant Keil and
Tracy started talking about exploring the possibility of starting a
family together, but because his injuries prevented him from having
children naturally, Tracy turned to the VA and began to explore her
options for fertility treatments. But because of that VA ban they were
told no and turned away. They were out of options, and the Keils
decided this was important enough to them that they were willing to pay
out-of-pocket, out of their own pockets, for IVF treatment in the
private sector to the tune of $32,000 per round of treatment.
Thankfully, Staff Sergeant Keil and Tracy welcomed twins Matthew and
Faith into the world after only one round of treatment.
Tracy said after their birth:
The day we had our children something changed in both of
us. This is exactly what we had always wanted, our dreams had
arrived.
The VA, Congress and the American people have said
countless times that they want to do everything they can to
support my husband or make him feel whole again and this is
your chance.
Having a family is exactly what we needed to feel whole
again. Please help us make these changes so that other
families can share in this experience.
Tracy and Matt aren't alone. There are many men and women out there
who share this common thread of a desperate desire to fulfill their
dream of starting a family, only to find that the catastrophic wounds
they sustained while defending our country are now preventing them from
seeing that dream through.
It shouldn't be that way. Unfortunately, Republicans are indicating
they will not join us today in overturning this absurd and antiquated
ban. Apparently, they would rather our Nation's heroes spend tens of
thousands of dollars of their own money in the private sector to get
the advanced reproductive treatments they need to start a family. They
don't see the problem in letting our veterans' marriages dissolve
because of the stress of infertility, in combination of course with the
stress of readjusting to life after such a severe injury, driving
relationships to a breaking point.
Any servicemember who sustains this type of extremely serious injury
deserves a lot more. We came very close actually to making this bill a
reality in the last Congress. In fact, Tracy Keil, whom I just talked
about, watched from the gallery when we unanimously passed this
legislation--unanimously.
But I am, once again, imploring Republicans to stand and explain to
our men and women in uniform--who I know are paying very close
attention to this debate--why they now want to turn their backs on the
catastrophic, reproductive wounds that have become a signature of these
wars.
Only yesterday I spoke to a crowded room of heroes from Disabled
American Veterans and told them the heartbreaking story of the Keil
family that I just shared and why this legislation is so important. If
their cheers and applause are any indication, I would say they
wholeheartedly agree our women veterans deserve this, our male veterans
deserve this, and certainly our military families deserve this.
I am on the floor to ask my colleagues a simple question: Are you
willing to tell those brave men and women who didn't ask those
questions when they were put in harm's way that you are going to let
politics get in the way of our commitment to them?
The catastrophic wounds we have seen from injuries in Iraq and
Afghanistan have meant that our veterans' dreams to start a family have
been put on hold because of the tremendous cost of IVF services. We
believe that is a cost of war, and we believe the VA absolutely should
cover it, and it is unacceptable to let unrelated issues stand in the
way.
Even the major veterans service organizations and their leaders have
said to us that issues such as the Iran sanctions--that the other side
wants to offer--have no place in this comprehensive veterans
legislation, people such as American Legion Commander Daniel Dellinger,
who said: ``Iran is a serious issue that Congress needs to address, but
it cannot be tied to S. 1982, which is extremely important as our
nation prepares to welcome millions of U.S. military servicemen and
women home from war,'' or IAVA founder and CEO Paul Rieckhoff, who
called this
[[Page S1191]]
comprehensive legislation ``a game changer that will change the
trajectory for millions of veterans for decades to come.''
As serious and as timely as they may be, unrelated issues such as
Iran sanctions are just calculated attempts to dismantle our bipartisan
effort to expand health care, education opportunities, employment, and
benefits for our Nation's heroes. We can't allow our commitment to them
to lapse or get caught up in separate issues of political
grandstanding.
I thank the Senator from Vermont and all of his staff for their
tireless work on this comprehensive legislation they have brought to
the floor. I truly hope our colleagues will reconsider opposing this
commonsense and important step to give those who have sacrificed
everything the reproductive treatments they need to start a family.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Virginia.
Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, may I inquire how much time remains for the
Democrats during morning business?
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Twelve minutes remain.
Mr. KAINE. I ask unanimous consent to use the remainder of the
Democrats' time.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection.
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