[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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