[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 7]
[House]
[Pages 9338-9339]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  RESIGNATION OF VA SECRETARY SHINSEKI

  (Ms. BROWN of Florida asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. BROWN of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to thank Secretary 
Shinseki for his service.
  When you are born you get a birth certificate and when you die you 
are going to get a death certificate, and that dash in between is what 
you have done to make this a better place.
  I have served on the Veteran Affairs' Committee for 22 years, and I 
know that my colleagues in the House and in the Senate talk a good 
talk. We talk about what we want to do for veterans. But talking and 
walking and rolling, I know for a fact that not until we had a 
Democratic House, a Democratic Senate, and a Democratic President, we 
got the largest funding in the history of the United States for the 
veterans.
  This Secretary opened up the system so that all the Vietnam veterans 
could come in without proving one by one. So it is a lot of work that 
we have got to do--not what we have got to do, not just the VA, but 
what we have to do to make sure that we have the kind of service the 
veterans deserve.

  As a senior member of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee, I am 
disappointed in the resignation of VA Secretary Shinseki. While he felt 
he would have been a distraction going forward to resolve the issues 
brought to light by Phoenix, I feel Secretary Shinseki was the person 
most capable of fixing these issues. I am grateful for his service both 
as a soldier and a veteran.
  Since being sworn in as the seventh Secretary of Veterans Affairs in 
2009, Secretary Shinseki has brought reform and a new way of thinking 
to the VA. As a former Chief of Staff of the Army, Secretary Shinseki 
knew what the young men and women protecting our freedoms overseas were 
going though and wanted to make sure they did not have to fight a 
bureaucracy to get the services they earned.
  The young men and women coming back and the veterans from previous 
wars shared more than battlefield wounds when they returned home, they 
shared a difficulty in getting care and benefits for their signature 
wounds. For the Vietnam veterans, it was exposure to Agent Orange; for 
veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, it was Traumatic Brain Injury.
  Secretary Shinseki made the decision in 2009 to establish service 
connection for Vietnam Veterans with three specific illnesses that, 
based on the latest scientific evidence, have been associated with 
exposure to the herbicides referred to as Agent Orange--Parkinson's 
disease, ischemic heart disease, and B-cell leukemias.
  This was the right thing to do for Vietnam Veterans and, thanks to 
this decision, Veterans who served in Vietnam during the war and who 
have one of the ``presumptive'' illnesses do not have to face another 
hurdle and prove an association between their illness and their 
military service. Thanks to this quick and decisive action VA has 
granted more than 160,000 retroactive claims associated with these 
three presumptive conditions, and awarded more than $4.5 billion in 
retroactive benefits, with an average retroactive benefit payment of 
nearly $27,000. Under Secretary Shinseki, the VA continues to expand 
and improve its mental health programs, adding more than 3800 mental 
health professionals to its clinical staff. As part of VA's 2012 hiring 
initiative, VA has hired 1,600 mental health clinicians for newly 
created positions and 800 Peer Specialists and Peer Apprentices.
  Since 2009, Congress has increased the mental health care budget by 
42 percent and VA has treated 1.4 million Veterans with specialty 
mental health services in fiscal year

[[Page 9339]]

2013 (FY13) alone. Under Secretary Shinseki's leadership, the VA has 
expanded access to mental health services with longer clinic hours, 
telehealth capability to deliver services, and standards that mandate 
rapid access to mental health services.
  In July 2010, VA published a historic change to its rules, 
streamlining the process and paperwork needed by combat Veterans to 
pursue a claim for disability pay for PTSD.
  After Secretary Shinseki made it easier for those claiming Agent 
Orange and PTSD injuries, the claims backlog had major increases. With 
his work to have overtime and sharing of records, the claims backlog 
has been reduced by more than 50% in the past 14 months. The VA has 
shown an unwavering commitment to improving the delivery of benefits to 
Veterans. With input from all of it veteran partners, the VA created 
and is implementing a comprehensive plan to end the Veterans disability 
benefits claims backlog.
  When Secretary Shinseki took office, he set a goal of ending Veterans 
homelessness by 2015. The VA, along with local, state, and federal 
partners has decreased the number of homeless Veterans on a given night 
by 24 percent since 2010 and are continuing to work to keep bringing 
this number down.
  The VA provides quality and timely healthcare and benefits to our 
veterans. We have a duty to make sure that all those who have defended 
this country when called upon receive the care they have earned through 
their service. The VA is better for Secretary Shinseki's service to our 
veterans.

                          ____________________