[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 9]
[House]
[Pages 12792-12795]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




 MOTION TO INSTRUCT CONFEREES ON H.R. 3230, PAY OUR GUARD AND RESERVE 
                                  ACT

  Mr. PETERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I have a motion at the desk.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will report the motion.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Mr. Peters of California moves that the managers on the 
     part of the House at the conference on the disagreeing votes 
     of the two Houses on the House amendment to the Senate 
     amendment to the bill H.R. 3230 (an Act to improve the access 
     of veterans to medical services from the Department of 
     Veterans Affairs, and for other purposes) be instructed to--
       (1) recede from disagreement with section 702 of the Senate 
     amendment (relating to the approval of courses of education 
     provided by public institutions of higher learning for 
     purposes of the All-Volunteer Force Educational Assistance 
     Program and the Post-9/11 Educational Assistance Program 
     conditional on in-State tuition rate for veterans); and
       (2) recede from the House amendment and concur in the 
     Senate amendment in all other instances.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 7 of rule XXII, the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Peters) and the gentleman from Florida 
(Mr. Miller) each will control 30 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from California.

                              {time}  2015

  Mr. PETERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I 
may consume.
  I rise today in strong support of the Veterans' Access to Care 
through Choice, Accountability, and Transparency Act of 2014, which the 
Senate passed on a bipartisan 93-3 vote last month.
  It is no secret that the Department of Veterans Affairs is failing to 
keep our Nation's promise to our veterans and their families.
  Ensuring that our veterans have access to the medical care and 
benefits that they have earned is one of the most important jobs of 
Congress and a top priority of mine, given the more than 200,000 
veterans who live in San Diego County.
  In recent months, failures at the Phoenix VA and other facilities 
across the country demonstrated a culture of complacency and ineptitude 
that is unacceptable and must change.
  At this time, Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to my colleague from 
Phoenix, Kyrsten Sinema.
  Ms. SINEMA. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from California (Mr. 
Peters) for offering this motion to instruct and for his leadership and 
work on behalf of veteran and military families.
  This motion urges House conferees to accept language in the Senate 
bill that ensures post-9/11 veterans receive instate tuition at 
colleges and universities, regardless of their home State. This concept 
was overwhelmingly supported by the House of Representatives when it 
passed the GI Bill Tuition Fairness Act in February.
  I am a cosponsor of the GI Bill Tuition Fairness Act, authored by 
Chairman Miller, and I appreciate his bipartisan leadership and 
dedication to improving opportunities for veterans. Tuition fairness 
gives our veterans a better chance to achieve the American Dream.
  In April of 2011, as a State senator, I authored and led the effort 
to pass this same law in Arizona. I am proud to now be a part of the 
national effort to make college more affordable for our veterans.
  As David Lucier, president of the Arizona Veterans and Military 
Leadership Alliance, said:

       This is an opportunity to create the `next greatest 
     generation' by investing in our veterans as they move out of 
     uniform--to being scholars--to becoming national and global 
     leaders.

  I couldn't agree more. Acting on tuition fairness is the right thing 
to do. Acting on a VA reform bill is also the right thing for Congress 
to do. But in Arizona, we are not waiting for Congress to act. We are 
making sure that

[[Page 12793]]

veterans receive the care they need right now.
  In Phoenix, we recently cohosted the Veterans First Clinic, which 
brought together community providers, the Phoenix VA, and over 20 
veteran-serving organizations to help veterans access services. We are 
leveraging community-based providers to make sure veterans receive 
timely access to care, and we are holding the VA accountable through 
monthly reporting meetings. We are moving forward while Washington 
drags its feet, because in Arizona we believe that veterans and their 
families should come first. But more action is required.
  I appreciate the bipartisan work to advance a VA reform bill, 
especially from Chairman Miller and Ranking Member Michaud. I call on 
the conferees to move quickly to produce commonsense reforms that can 
be signed into law. By working together, we can address this crisis and 
create a VA system that our veterans deserve.
  Again, I thank my colleague from California for offering this motion.
  Mr. PETERS of California. I thank my colleague, Ms. Sinema.
  While San Diego's VA centers have performed better than most, and the 
backlog of benefits claims has been reduced significantly in my region, 
we can't ignore the larger structural reforms that the entire VA system 
clearly needs.
  In San Diego, my district office staff has been working to help 
veterans and their families who have experienced the bureaucratic red 
tape at the VA firsthand. Since coming to Congress last year, we have 
handled more than 400 veterans' cases and have recovered more than 
$750,000 in benefits to which these veterans were entitled.
  I have also focused on ways to make the transition from Active Duty 
service back to civilian life an easier one for veterans and their 
families. Last year, I engaged with military commanders, nonprofits, 
and veterans' advocacy organizations to launch the Military Transition 
Support Project. This collaborative community effort will provide a 
central hub of information for servicemembers as they become veterans 
and search for housing, employment, and benefits. It is on its way to 
being a national model and doesn't cost the Federal Government or 
taxpayers a dime.
  The experience of Dr. Howard and Jean Somers, constituents of mine 
from Coronado, has only added to my urgency in addressing reform at the 
VA. The Somers' son Daniel served our country in Operation Iraqi 
Freedom. As the Somers testified in the House Veterans Affairs 
Committee 2 weeks ago, their son made several attempts after returning 
home from combat to seek help and counseling for posttraumatic stress 
but was ultimately unsuccessful, and eventually he took his own life. 
The VA system failed Daniel Somers; it failed his parents; and that is 
unacceptable.
  Both the Senate and the House have taken action to make real, 
substantive changes at the VA. I voted for many of these measures in 
the House, but the Senate's plan is comprehensive, bipartisan, and is 
the best opportunity for the quick action that our veterans deserve.
  It will benefit thousands of veterans by increasing their access to 
care by allowing the VA to lease more facilities, hire doctors and 
nurses to fill their most pressing staff shortages, and by allowing 
veterans to see non-VA providers if they have been forced to wait for 
an appointment or live too far from the closest facility.
  It would increase accountability on those responsible for the recent 
failures by allowing the VA Secretary to fire complacent employees, and 
through changes to the scheduling, staffing, and administrative 
processes in each facility.
  Part of my motion also has to do with ensuring that our veterans and 
their spouses are able to access a high-quality education after their 
time of Active Duty has ended.
  Veterans are advancing themselves at colleges and universities across 
my district, across San Diego, and across the country. Expanding 
instate tuition to our veterans, regardless of where they live, would 
expand their educational opportunities significantly and potentially 
reduce the financial burden that many of them face.
  As of today, only 24 States offer instate tuition benefits for 
veterans who have not yet met the standard residency requirements of 
that State. My home State of California is one of those that does not 
offer it.
  In the University of California system, one of the premier public 
university systems in the entire world, more than 1,600 veterans are 
currently enrolled. The instate tuition at a UC school averages $13,200 
per year. For nonresidents, it is $36,000. That is a difference of 
$23,000 that veterans must pay out of pocket.
  UC San Diego, part of which is in my district, enrolls 324 veterans, 
and nearby San Diego State has 1,127 veterans. In the California State 
University system, being a non-California resident costs nearly double 
the tuition, to the tune of more than $4,000 per year.
  By forcing veterans who fought not just for one State or for their 
home State but for the entire United States, to fit into the standard 
residency requirements, in many instances we are forcing them to delay 
their education or vocational training they need for career 
advancement. Instead of making it more difficult to use their earned GI 
Bill benefits, we should be making it easier and more financially 
feasible.
  A recent national investigation called ``Back Home: The Enduring 
Battle Facing Post-9/11 Veterans,'' noted the example of Marine Corps 
Corporal veteran Brian Oller, a student at UC San Diego's Scripps 
Institution of Oceanography, who is paying out of pocket to cover part 
of the $22,000 tuition, which his GI benefits don't fully pay.
  Fifteen thousand veterans are discharged in the San Diego region each 
year, and about half decide to stay in the area to restart their 
civilian lives. Many of them are not from California, but they should 
have access immediately to the instate tuition rate.
  Giving veterans the instate tuition rate is a bipartisan idea that I 
know our chairman, Mr. Miller, supports. The House passed a bill 390-0 
to provide this benefit. The comprehensive Senate bill I want us to 
vote on also includes that language.
  Mr. Speaker, I hope we can pass the Veterans Access to Care through 
Choice, Accountability, and Transparency Act in its entirety and 
provide the necessary relief and support to our veterans and show the 
American people that Congress is capable of passing comprehensive 
reforms to what is clearly a broken system.
  I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this 
motion to instruct. Let's actually get the needed reforms in place and 
expand educational opportunities and our support for our veterans.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. MILLER of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume, and I rise in opposition to the motion to instruct.
  Mr. Speaker, as I said during the debate last week on other motions 
to instruct that were brought to the floor, improving timely access to 
quality health care and imposing true accountability for senior 
managers are the keys to beginning the long process of restoring trust 
at the Department of Veterans Affairs. This was the central charge to 
the conferees that are currently meeting at the beginning of our 
conference, and it remains the same charge tonight.
  As I said last week, now is not the time to tie the hands of the 
conferees with an unnecessary motion on the floor.
  I know my colleague, Mr. Peters, has the best of intentions. They are 
rooted in his desire to serve veterans of this country, but 
unfortunately, somebody somewhere has different ideas.
  Veterans expect us to do what is best to improve the quality of care 
that they receive and the delivery of the benefits that they have 
earned. I certainly expect that none of these votes that have been 
taken--in fact, I believe we have done four, and another was noticed 
today--will be used by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle in 
30-second political ads.

[[Page 12794]]

  By adopting the motion to instruct, we would be telling our conferees 
to recede to the Senate's position on all provisions of the Senate 
bill.
  While I am still hopeful that a deal is possible, Senator Sanders and 
I and our staffs and other conferees continue to work each day and into 
the night. It is becoming more difficult, though, because the Senate 
has once again changed the goalposts, and I don't know what the 
Senate's real position is today. In fact, I said last week I don't know 
if the Senate could vote for their own bill now.
  Senator Sanders has recently indicated his desire to expand the scope 
of our conference committee's work by adding VA's request--and I say 
``request,'' but I really don't know. Is it an emergency request? Is it 
a supplemental request? Nobody seems to be sure exactly what it is. 
Most importantly, the VA doesn't know what it is. Senator Sanders is 
asking for the inclusion of an additional $17.6 billion into our 
conversation.
  As I said last week, both the VA Office of Inspector General and the 
General Accountability Office have said on numerous occasions that they 
do not have any confidence in the numbers that VA provides right now. 
Moreover, at every budget hearing before our committee in recent years, 
the Secretary has sat at the witness table and clearly said--when asked 
by members: Do you have the funds necessary?--the Secretary says: We 
have the funds necessary to meet the needs of our veterans.
  So why all of a sudden would we believe that VA sees this need for an 
additional $10 billion to hire 10,000 more health care staff and $6 
billion in new construction without thoroughly vetting the numbers--
also, add an additional $1.5 billion for IT--when we already know that 
VA has squandered hundreds of millions of dollars in IT money over the 
years?
  But what I want to do for the Members here tonight is to show you a 
typical budget submission, a request from the administration on behalf 
of the Department of Veterans Affairs. It is over 1,300 pages in four 
volumes to justify the money that is spent at the Department of 
Veterans Affairs.

                              {time}  2030

  Mr. Speaker, here is the explanation that was given to us for the 
$17.6 billion ask by the Department. I have in recent days called it a 
three-page document--$17.6 billion justified by a three-page document--
but actually, if you take the cover letter off and if you take the 
closing page off, you have one page to justify $17.6 billion.
  Now, in talking with Senator Sanders and Acting Secretary Sloan 
Gibson on the phone a couple of days ago, I expressed that this was not 
the way to justify this type of expenditure to this Congress. I believe 
people on both sides of the aisle will clearly admit that this is not 
what we would call ``regular order,'' but the Acting Secretary said, by 
noon yesterday, I would receive much more detailed information on this 
ask. So noon came and it rolled by, and it was at 9 o'clock last night 
when, finally, we got this deep dive--additional information--and they 
doubled the pages to two pages of information for a $17.6 billion ask--
two pages. The Acting Secretary will be before our committee tomorrow 
morning. I hope he brings three pages with him to justify this request.
  This is not enough information for such a huge ask by the VA. It is 
not some unsubstantiated guess put together in the back room of a 
massive bureaucracy. In fact, interestingly enough, it is titled, ``A 
Working Estimate,'' as of July 22. This isn't even the number that they 
are sure that they want to ask for.
  What is really disappointing is that I actually believe that we could 
have already come to an agreement if Senator Sanders had not insisted 
on moving the goalpost and adding this $17.6 billion ask into a clearly 
defined conference committee.
  With that, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. PETERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for 
time, and I am prepared to close.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. MILLER of Florida. Mr. Speaker, in closing, the House has almost 
a dozen bills that sit, languishing in the Senate right now, including 
the authorization of 27 VA clinics that passed in December--important 
changes to the processing of disability claims that has been so 
backlogged over the last few years, education benefits, including the 
instate tuition bill that passed unanimously out of this House, that 
has sat, languishing with the other 11 bills in the Senate that are 
waiting to be brought up for a vote. The Senate could pass these bills 
and send them straight to the President, and they would become law 
right away.
  Again, to my colleague from California, I would remind you that H.R. 
357, the GI Bill Tuition Fairness Act, did pass this House unanimously, 
and you were a cosponsor of the bill that passed by 390-0 in February. 
It gives States the incentive to provide all veterans instate tuition 
rates. It is very similar to the provision in the Senate bill that Mr. 
Peters wants our conferees to recede to in conference. Once again, this 
bipartisan bill could be sent to the President if the Senate would just 
bring it up for a vote.
  We are trying to work out a deal with the Senate, but I submit to 
this body today that these motions to instruct are clearly becoming 
unproductive, are slowing down our process, and unfortunately, I think 
they are being used as nothing more than a political ploy. I find it 
very interesting that not one member of the minority side on our VA 
Committee has offered over the last four times a motion to instruct 
conferees.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the motion to 
instruct, and I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. PETERS of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I 
may consume.
  In closing, first, I lament the notion that this is motivated 
entirely by politics; although, I understand that would not be entirely 
unusual in this body. It was 80 degrees in San Diego today--a beautiful 
day. I don't fly all the way over here to the 91-degree heat that feels 
like 100 not to do something, and veterans are a top priority for me.
  The point of this motion is that we have something right before us 
that would deal with the culture of complacency that has failed our 
veterans, and we could pass the bill supported both by Senator Bernie 
Sanders and Senator John McCain, which was passed by a vote of 93-3--I 
don't think you could get more bipartisan than that--and it would not 
raise the issues that Chairman Miller has discussed because, if we 
wanted to add more money, as Senator Sanders may want, we could take 
that up later.
  There are very, very many points of agreement in the Senate bill, and 
it would incorporate many of the things we did here in the House if we 
would pass it just like this. So it makes all the sense in the world to 
go ahead and have that bill before us so that we could pass it. It 
could be on the President's desk tomorrow, and at least many of the 
points of agreement, like the instate tuition, for example, would be on 
their way to helping veterans right away.
  Last week, I attended part of the stand down for homeless veterans in 
San Diego. The Veterans Village of San Diego organized the first stand 
down in 1988, and there are more than 200 similar programs nationwide 
that help provide a hand up, not a hand out for homeless vets. No one 
at the event asked me whether I thought the House or the Senate or the 
President had the best plan for keeping our promise to America's 
veterans. They want action, and they want it now. They don't want to 
hear about how the procedural rules of this place are some way to hide 
behind our lack of action.
  They fought for our country in the jungles of Vietnam, in the deserts 
of Iraq, and in the mountains of Afghanistan. The fact that this House 
can't put aside partisan politics to do the right thing for our 
veterans is even more messed up than anyone can imagine.
  Mr. MILLER of Florida. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. PETERS of California. I yield to the gentleman.

[[Page 12795]]


  Mr. MILLER of Florida. Mr. Speaker, surely, the gentleman did not 
insinuate that I, as the chairman of the most bipartisan committee in 
this Congress, was being partisan in any anything that I have said or 
done.
  Mr. PETERS of California. Absolutely not, Mr. Chairman. What I am 
suggesting is that the effect of our inability to vote on this Senate 
bill, which passed 93-3, sends the message that we just can't get it 
together.
  Mr. MILLER of Florida. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. PETERS of California. I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. MILLER of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I think it is important that I do 
know one bill that is much more bipartisan than the Senate's 93-3 vote, 
and that was the House's bill that passed 430-0.
  Mr. PETERS of California. Mr. Miller, I could not argue with you. The 
only other point I would make is that the provisions of that bill are 
contained within the Senate bill that I hope we are able to vote on. 
That is why we could kill two birds with one stone.
  Mr. Speaker, frankly, if we can't get this kind of thing done, it is 
no wonder that the approval rating of the body is at 9 percent. It is a 
shame.
  I do urge my colleagues to adopt the motion to instruct so that we 
can get this effort moving and provide our veterans with the 
educational opportunities that they deserve, with the support they 
deserve, and with the opportunities that they deserve because they 
fought so hard and so bravely for us.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. All time for debate has expired.
  Without objection, the previous question is ordered on the motion to 
instruct.
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion to instruct.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.
  Mr. PETERS of California. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and 
nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further 
proceedings on this question will be postponed.

                          ____________________