[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 122 (Thursday, July 31, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5206-S5209]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
VETERANS ACCESS, CHOICE, AND ACCOUNTABILITY ACT OF 2014--CONFERENCE
REPORT
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair lays before the Senate the
conference report to accompany H.R. 3230, which the clerk will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
The committee of conference on the disagreeing votes of the
two Houses on the amendment of the House to the amendment of
the Senate to the bill H.R. 3230, making continuing
appropriations during a Government shutdown to provide pay
and allowances to members of the reserve components of the
Armed Forces who perform inactive-duty training during such
period, having met, after full and free conference, have
agreed to recommend and do recommend to their respective
Houses as follows:
That the Senate recede from its disagreement to the
amendment of the House and agree to the same with an
amendment and the House agree to the same, signed by a
majority of the conferees on the part of both Houses.
(The conference report is printed in the House proceedings of the
Record of July 28, 2014.)
Mr. McCAIN. What is the parliamentary situation?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma is to be recognized
to raise a budget point of order.
Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, let me say, first of all, I voted for the
bill when it left here with the hope that we could accomplish
something. We did accomplish some things. But it came back with $12
billion unpaid for. Because of that, I raise a point of order against
the emergency designation provision contained in section 8803(b) of the
conference report for H.R. 3230, the Veterans' Access to Care Through
Choice, Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014 pursuant to section
403(e)(1) of the fiscal year 2010 budget resolution, S. Con. Res. 13.
I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, pursuant to section 904 of the
Congressional Budget Act of 1974, the waiver provisions of applicable
budget resolutions, and section 4(g)(3) of the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go
Act of 2010, I move to waive all applicable sections of those acts and
applicable budget resolutions for purposes of the pending conference
report.
I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There is a sufficient second.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I will speak very briefly. Mainly, I come
here on the floor to thank the Senator from Vermont and my good friend
from North Carolina on the hard work they and members of the Veterans
Affairs' Committee have done on this issue. I greatly respect my dear
friend from Oklahoma and his concern. But I would have to say to my
colleagues: If there was ever a definition of an emergency, that
emergency faces us today because our veterans are not receiving the
care we owe them as a nation.
There are veterans who are dying as we speak for lack of care. There
is gross mismanagement. There are problems that will take our new
Secretary of Veterans Affairs literally years to
[[Page S5207]]
fix. I am proud that in this legislation there is choice, and there is
the ability of the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to fire people who are
not doing their job.
Those are the important aspects, most important to me, because I
think we can change the Veterans Administration. But the present
situation cries out for immediate action. Obviously there were parts of
this legislation that I did not agree with. Obviously there were parts
that the Senator from Vermont did not agree with. But the hard work put
together by the Senator from North Carolina and the Senator from
Vermont--I am very proud to say we bring before you a way to put a
final stamp on beginning to end. This is not the beginning of the end.
This is the beginning of the beginning of our effort to help those men
and women who have defended our Nation with honor and dignity. We owe
them that.
I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of the waiver of the Budget Act
and to vote in favor of this legislation.
Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, yesterday the House voted 420 to 5 for
this conference report. They understood that taking care of veterans,
as Senator McCain just indicated--the men and women who have put their
lives on the line to defend us, who have sacrificed so much--is a cost
of war, and in fact what we are talking about is an emergency. That is
what the House said overwhelmingly yesterday.
On June 11, 2014, 6 or so weeks ago, by a vote of 93 to 3, the Senate
supported the Sanders-McCain bill and it was emergency funded as a cost
of war.
This bill, as Senator Coburn indicated, is about one-third of the
cost of what we voted on in the original Sanders-McCain bill.
Let us defeat this point of order. Let us stand with the veterans of
this country, let us reform the VA, and let us go forward.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I will be very quick.
What our colleagues should know is, since 2009, the VA budget has
increased 58.7 percent, a 40-percent increase in the number of
providers, with a 17-percent increase in the number of veterans using
those providers. The problem is not money at the VA. The problem is
management, accountability, and culture. So we are going to borrow $12
billion from our children and reward the poor behavior and charge it to
our children.
I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
Mr. McCAIN. I would say in response to my dear friend from Oklahoma,
I agree with every single thing that he has said. But we must embark on
fixing this problem. The choice and the ability to give the Secretary
of Veterans Affairs the authority to hire and fire people is important
to me that I believe they deserve our support.
I would also ask my friend from Oklahoma, can we leave here for 5
weeks and not address this issue? There are 50 veterans in my State
that have probably died--at least allegations are such. Can we leave
here and not act?
If I had written this bill with only you and me, I would say to my
friend from Oklahoma, it would probably be $10 billion less and all of
it paid for. But we had to negotiate, not only with the other side of
the aisle but with the other side of the Capitol.
So this is not perfect legislation. But for us not to pass it at this
time would send a message to the men and women who have served this
country that we have abandoned them. We can't do that.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
Mr. CORKER. Mr. President, I first thank everybody who worked on
this. I know there are a lot of political conundrums that people find
themselves in. We have an August recess. This issue has come up. But I
wonder if I could ask a question of the Senator from Oklahoma, who
knows so much about these issues.
Our staff has looked at the CBO report, and people keep talking about
$10 billion on the floor, but the Choice Program is only funded for 3
years. It looks to me as if this bill is really creating an unfunded
liability. It is a $250 billion cost over the next decade. I can't
verify that based on the CBO numbers that have come out. But as we look
at them, it looks as if the Choice Program continues and grows, and the
number we are talking about is massive.
So I do wish we had more detailed information from CBO, the kind of
information we got on the first bill after the fact. For some reason,
we are not getting it on this.
But it appears to me that if this choice concept continues and we
don't do those things to actually wind down and backfill--wind down VA
for not providing services to these people because they are seeking it
elsewhere--the cost of this could well be $250 billion over the next 10
years unpaid for.
I would like for somebody to answer that. I don't know if Senator
Coburn or someone else could. But we are not talking about $10 billion
is all I am saying.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. COBURN. What we are talking about is an errant CBO score that
doesn't fit with reality or the information given to them by the VA.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, what we are talking about, really, is
rather than get in a car or van and drive for 40 miles and hours and
have that all reimbursed and paid for, a person will go to the local
care provider. Common sense shows that costs one heck of a lot less, I
would say to my colleague.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, Senator Coburn forgot to mention one
point when talking about the increase in VA funding. He forgot to
mention that we were in two wars.
He forgot to mention that 500,000 men and women came back from Iraq
and Afghanistan with posttraumatic stress disorder and TBI, not to
mention the loss of legs, the loss of arms, eyesight and hearing.
He forgot to mention that many of the veterans from World War II,
Korea, and Vietnam are getting older and need more detailed care.
So I think it is important that we put $5 billion into the VA to
provide the doctors, the nurses, the personnel they need, so that the
veterans can get into the VA and have quality and timely care. That is
what this legislation is about.
I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion to
waive.
The yeas and nays have been previously ordered.
The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from North Carolina (Mrs.
Hagan), the Senator from Iowa (Mr. Harkin), and the Senator from Hawaii
(Mr. Schatz) are necessarily absent.
Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the
Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander), the Senator from Mississippi
(Mr. Cochran), and the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Roberts).
Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Tennessee (Mr.
Alexander) would have voted ``yes.''
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber
desiring to vote?
The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 86, nays 8, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 253 Leg.]
YEAS--86
Ayotte
Baldwin
Begich
Bennet
Blumenthal
Blunt
Booker
Boozman
Boxer
Brown
Burr
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Chambliss
Coats
Collins
Coons
Cornyn
Crapo
Cruz
Donnelly
Durbin
Feinstein
Fischer
Franken
Gillibrand
Graham
Grassley
Hatch
Heinrich
Heitkamp
Heller
Hirono
Hoeven
Inhofe
Isakson
Johanns
Johnson (SD)
Kaine
King
Kirk
Klobuchar
Landrieu
Leahy
Levin
Manchin
Markey
McCain
McCaskill
McConnell
Menendez
Merkley
Mikulski
Moran
Murkowski
Murphy
Murray
Nelson
Paul
Portman
Pryor
Reed
Reid
Risch
Rockefeller
Rubio
Sanders
Schumer
Scott
Shaheen
Shelby
Stabenow
Tester
Thune
Toomey
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Vitter
Walsh
Warner
Warren
Whitehouse
Wicker
Wyden
[[Page S5208]]
NAYS--8
Barrasso
Coburn
Corker
Enzi
Flake
Johnson (WI)
Lee
Sessions
NOT VOTING--6
Alexander
Cochran
Hagan
Harkin
Roberts
Schatz
The PRESIDING OFFICER. On the motion to waive, the yeas are 86, the
nays are 8. The motion to waive is agreed to.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, this week, the Senate confirmed Bob
McDonald as the new Secretary of the VA and today we passed a
compromise veterans bill that will help repair the overwhelmed Veterans
Health Administration. These are two steps in the right direction to
help the men and women who serve in our military receive the care they
need when they come home.
Bob McDonald is an excellent choice to head the VA. I met with
McDonald soon after he was nominated for this position and there is no
doubt he is eager to take on the task of seeing that the VA honors its
promise to the men and women of our armed services. McDonald ran
Proctor and Gamble for several years and knows what it means to put the
customer first. At the VA, veterans are the customers and we have to
provide them with the best service possible. McDonald is a veteran, a
West Point grad, and best of all, he is from Arlington Heights, IL. I
am confident he is the right person for this difficult job.
After an internal audit, the VA confirmed whistleblower assertions
that many VA employees manipulated waitlists to make wait times look
better than they really were. The agency found that in some cases,
staff intimidated schedulers into falsifying data. This is
unacceptable.
I visited the Hines VA Hospital near Chicago last Friday where I met
with Joan Ricard, director of the facility, and Rob Nabors, President
Obama's Deputy Chief of Staff, who is overseeing the investigation into
problems at the VA. We discussed some problems identified by
whistleblowers at Hines pertaining to waitlists and other issues.
I am pleased that the Senate adopted the Veterans bill conference
report. The House passed the bill 420-to-5 yesterday. VA Committee
Chairman Sanders worked very hard both with Members across the aisle
and in the House to put this bill together. It will begin to fix some
of the problems identified by the various investigations into
misconduct at VA medical facilities.
This bill will allow the Secretary to fire senior staff who are not
doing their job or who lied about secret waitlists. It will create 27
new VA health facilities to expand capacity, including a new research
lab at Hines in Chicago. That research lab is 100-years-old and in dire
need of repair. The new lease will help make it usable again.
This legislation will make it easier for veterans to get the care
they need outside the VA system if necessary. Now, any enrolled veteran
who lives more than 40-miles from the nearest VA facility or who would
have to wait too long for an appointment will be able to go to a
private doctor. We need to get those waitlists down, and this is one
way to make sure veterans are seen.
The IG investigation has cited a shortage of doctors, nurses, and
other staff as being partly to blame for the waitlist problem. There
simply is not enough staff to see all the veterans who need treatment.
The bill also provides $5 billion to hire new staff.
These are improvements we can all agree on.
Some have expressed concern about the cost of this bill but caring
for veterans is part of the cost of going to war. We spent $1.7
trillion in the Iraq War alone. We can spend $12 billion to honor the
promise we made to our servicemembers.
When we talk about war, we are not just talking about the thousands
of people who died in Iraq and Afghanistan. We're talking about 200,000
men and women who came home with major injuries, both those we can see
and some we cannot. We are talking about people with post-traumatic
stress and traumatic brain injury, people missing limbs and those who
lost hearing or eyesight. Veterans who are entitled to healthcare
services should get the best healthcare they can, and they should get
it in a timely manner.
There is no question that we need to fix this health care system.
Where misconduct has been identified, those responsible should face the
consequences, criminal or otherwise. The Sanders-Miller compromise is a
good step in that direction. Secret waitlists and failures to provide
care do not reflect the promise we made to the men and women who serve
this country. Wars create veterans and veterans need medical care.
Caring for servicemembers is part of the cost of going to war.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question occurs on adoption of the
conference report.
The Senator from Vermont is recognized.
Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, before we vote, I wish to take this
opportunity to thank Senator McCain for his intervention and making
sure that we had serious negotiations.
I thank the staff of the Veterans' Affairs Committee: Steve
Robertson, Dahlia Melendrez, Travis Murphy, Jason Dean, Carlos Fuentes,
Becky Thowman, Ann Vallandingham, Janet Gehring, Elizabeth Austin-
Mackenzie, Kathryn Monet, Katie Van Haste, Shanna Lawrie, Raphael
Anderson, and Shannon Jackson. These guys worked really hard for
months, and I very much appreciate what they did.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the adoption of
the conference report.
Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There is a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from North Carolina (Mrs.
Hagan), the Senator from Iowa (Mr. Harkin), and the Senator from Hawaii
(Mr. Schatz) are necessarily absent.
Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the
Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander), the Senator from Mississippi
(Mr. Cochran), and the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Roberts).
Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Tennessee (Mr.
Alexander) would have voted ``yea'' and the Senator from Mississippi
(Mr. Cochran) would have voted ``yea.''
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber
desiring to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 91, nays 3, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 254 Leg.]
YEAS--91
Ayotte
Baldwin
Barrasso
Begich
Bennet
Blumenthal
Blunt
Booker
Boozman
Boxer
Brown
Burr
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Chambliss
Coats
Collins
Coons
Cornyn
Crapo
Cruz
Donnelly
Durbin
Enzi
Feinstein
Fischer
Flake
Franken
Gillibrand
Graham
Grassley
Hatch
Heinrich
Heitkamp
Heller
Hirono
Hoeven
Inhofe
Isakson
Johanns
Johnson (SD)
Johnson (WI)
Kaine
King
Kirk
Klobuchar
Landrieu
Leahy
Lee
Levin
Manchin
Markey
McCain
McCaskill
McConnell
Menendez
Merkley
Mikulski
Moran
Murkowski
Murphy
Murray
Nelson
Paul
Portman
Pryor
Reed
Reid
Risch
Rockefeller
Rubio
Sanders
Schumer
Scott
Shaheen
Shelby
Stabenow
Tester
Thune
Toomey
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Vitter
Walsh
Warner
Warren
Whitehouse
Wicker
Wyden
NAYS--3
Coburn
Corker
Sessions
NOT VOTING--6
Alexander
Cochran
Hagan
Harkin
Roberts
Schatz
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order requiring 60 votes
for adoption of the conference report, the conference report is agreed
to.
MAKING CERTAIN CORRECTIONS IN THE ENROLLMENT OF H.R. 3230
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will
proceed to consideration of H. Con. Res. 111 which the clerk will
report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
A concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 111) directing the
Clerk of the House of Representatives to make certain
corrections in the enrollment of the bill H.R. 3230.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the concurrent
resolution (H. Con. Res. 111) is agreed to
[[Page S5209]]
and the motion to reconsider will be considered made and laid upon the
table.
The majority leader.
____________________