[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 16 (Monday, January 29, 2024)]
[House]
[Page H269]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     APPRECIATING EMPLOYEES AT THE NATIONAL PERSONNEL RECORD CENTER

  (Mr. RASKIN asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, we are pretty good at attacking Federal 
workers around here, but we are not very good at praising them.
  So I rise today to offer my profound appreciation for the hardworking 
employees at the National Personnel Records Center, who last week 
completed a huge achievement: They eliminated a large pandemic-related 
backlog of veteran records requests.
  This is important to me, so I have been monitoring the situation 
closely. Veterans and their families rely on these records in order to 
access all the benefits that they have earned, as well as critical 
services, including housing and healthcare.
  Due to restrictions in place to protect worker health and safety 
during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the National Personnel 
Record Center amassed a gigantic backlog of tens of thousands of 
unfilled veteran record requests.
  Last Congress, as a consequence of bipartisan oversight and urging by 
leaders in the House, employees at the National Archives came to 
implement several critical new steps in order to address this backlog, 
including enhanced and reorganized staffing levels, technology updates, 
and digitizing millions of paper records.

  We owe great thanks to the employees of the National Personnel Record 
Center for a job well done and for their great commitment, their 
passionate hard work, and their unswerving devotion to eliminate this 
backlog for America's veterans. It was a true success story of Federal 
workers.

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