Military Construction And Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act, 2010

Floor Speech

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Mr. WAMP. Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

It is, indeed, a high privilege and a great honor to stand on the floor today with Chairman Edwards and present the 2010 Military Construction Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Appropriations bill.

Indeed, this bill is not about us, it's not about our individual districts. It's about them, those that volunteer to serve our country in the uniform of our Armed Forces, past, present, and future, their willingness to stand between a threat and our civilian population, extend freedom from this generation to the next, and join the thousands of others that have preserved our freedoms and protected our way of life.

This is a very important bill; it is worthy of our support. It is a bipartisan product. As the chairman said earlier, this bill is not pushed by lobbyists or outside interests other than the veteran service organizations and the families of those that are serving and have served.

It is our honor, and frankly our sacred duty, to make sure that we give these great Americans what they deserve and what they need. I think if you ask our men and women in harm's way today, what can we do for you, the first thing they would say is take care of our families while we're serving and, when we come home, support us. This bill does that, and I'm grateful for that.

I can't thank Chairman Edwards enough. He is diligent, he is fair, he is honorable, and he is totally committed to these men and women in uniform. And we are working together to guarantee the efficiencies of these resources and the investments that we're making.

This bill funds the needs for military construction and family housing for our troops, their families, the quality of life construction projects, and provides funding for all the programs that the Veterans Administration and related agencies have asked for in their budget request. This bill literally touches every soldier, sailor, aviator, marine, military spouse, child, every veteran who participates in VA programs; and it takes good care of our national cemeteries and monuments that are funded in this bill as well.

We worked together through 18 hearings. We asked a lot of questions; we had very good witnesses. So a totally cooperative effort.

I want to thank all of our subcommittees from both sides. Specifically today I want to thank Mr. Farr and Mr. Crenshaw, who really supported the chairman and myself through this process, Mr. Farr as vice chairman, Mr. Crenshaw when I could not be there on certain days; outstanding work by them.

This bill reflects bipartisan input and cooperation, and that is the tradition of this bill, and we have honored that tradition and worked very well together, and it truly is a bipartisan bill.

I want to just talk about a couple of initiatives in the bill without going into specific numbers because Chairman Edwards has already highlighted many of the numbers.

The Guard and Reserve initiative is extremely important because we have been fighting terrorists since September the 11th, 2001. The op tempo of our National Guard and Reserve forces remains at a very high level. It's very likely to remain that way for the foreseeable future. The Guard and Reserve have had more than 719,000 activations since September the 11th, including the current level of 142,000. So I'm pleased to join Chairman Edwards in supporting the additional $200 million in this bill to address urgent unfunded requirements for the Army and Air National Guard and for the Reserve forces of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force.

On BRAC, the BRAC 2005 account in the President's budget request is $7.5 billion. The department and the services have testified that it's going to be absolutely critical for them to have this funding on October 1 of this year in order to meet their September 15, 2011, statutory deadline to complete BRAC 2005. I will continue to work with Chairman Edwards to make sure that this gets done on time. However, the House-passed defense authorization bill cuts $350 million from this BRAC account for this year on the cost of the provision that requires prevailing wage equivalency with Hawaii for military construction on Guam related to the relocation of our Marines from Japan. The CBO has scored this provision as costing $10 billion over the next 10 years. That's twice the amount of the entire relocation from Japan to Guam, and this is the largest Milcon investment in a generation, and it's really important that we address this issue throughout this process. I spoke at the Rules Committee yesterday to raise this issue. We have spoken with the leadership of the House. We have spoken with the leadership of the Congress to say this is a problem and it has to be addressed as this bill moves forward and as the process moves forward because we simply can't afford to double the cost of the relocation from Japan to Guam based on a prevailing wage issue. It's too much. Too much. We've got to resolve it.

On the advanced appropriations issue, the chairman spoke eloquently about this. We reached a bipartisan agreement. I am very pleased with the way they allowed Ranking Member Mr. Lewis and me to weigh in because none of us want to retreat from our constitutional prerogative or obligation we have to oversee all the funding on an annual basis. However, we share the goal of making sure that the VA has the money they need in a timely manner and can make decisions that maximize their effectiveness because it's a big bureaucracy, and when the money is in doubt, the changes and reforms necessary to improve efficiency can't be met. The bill contains $48.2 billion for advanced appropriations for medical services, medical support and compliance, and medical facilities, which is $3.7 billion above the amount recommended in the fiscal year 2010 bill on these accounts.

On VA spending I continue to be concerned, as is Ranking Member Lewis, about the ability of the VA to absorb large funding increases provided in this bill. I'm very pleased to support the increases, but it is absolutely our job to make sure not just that we raise the funding levels but that the money is well spent, spent in a timely manner, that it's effectively spent, and that there is accountability through the entire process. So we continue to raise this issue. I think there is a bipartisan commitment to this, and I want to point that out as well.

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