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Ms. BROWNLEY of California. Mr. Chairman, this bill is one of the most important that the House will consider all year. It provides critical funds for military training facilities, improves living conditions for our troops and their families, and addresses the needs of our Nation's veterans.
As ranking member of the House Veterans' Affairs Subcommittee on Health, however, I wanted to bring your attention to a serious issue.
As you know, the advance appropriations process ensures that the VA health care funding is not delayed by Congress' failure to pass the appropriations bills on time. For the past 3 years, the GAO has been required to review the accuracy of the administration's projections for advance funding for veterans' health care programs. The report helps Congress evaluate VA projections for advance appropriations and ensures the VA receives the funding needed for veterans' health care.
Unfortunately, this GAO reporting requirement is scheduled to sunset on September 30. I believe this requirement should be extended, and a number of veterans service organizations have expressed concerns about this issue as well.
As the bill moves forward, I ask the committee to review this issue and continue the reporting requirement.
On another note, one of our most important obligations is to ensure adequate training and support of our troops. That is why one of my first stops as a Member of Congress was to Naval Base Ventura County. For fiscal year 2014, the Navy has requested funding for several important projects at Point Mugu and Port Hueneme, including military housing, training, and maintenance facilities. This bill provides funding for base infrastructure improvements, but it is a decrease from last year and also below the DOD request.
On behalf of my constituents serving at Naval Base Ventura County, I would like to express my hope that these reductions do not come at the expense of the much-needed infrastructure improvements at Point Mugu and Port Hueneme.
As a VA committee member, I am also pleased that H.R. 2216 funds veterans' benefits and programs. It provides $43.6 billion for VA medical services to serve about 6.5 million veterans.
It supports mental health care services, suicide prevention activities, traumatic brain injury treatment, homeless veterans' programs, and rural health initiatives. It continues work on an integrated DOD-VA electronic health record system, the paperless claims process system, digital scanning of health records, and transparent reporting on our progress with the claims backlog for VA benefits.
Finally, it funds construction and renovation of hundreds of VA health clinics, medical residences, and nursing homes. Support of our servicemembers, veterans, and their families is of the highest importance. However, we must be mindful of the entire budget picture.
Like many of my colleagues, I am concerned that we are operating under inadequate discretionary budget caps that will not allow us to provide sufficient funding later in the appropriations process for programs that are important to middle class families and seniors, such as education and health care programs.
While this bill is not perfect, it does provide critical funding for our Nation's military construction projects and for our Nation's veterans, and I intend to support the final passage of this bill.
I yield back the balance of my time.
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