Construction Reform Act of 2016

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. COFFMAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Construction Reform Act of 2016, an important piece of legislation that will further reform VA's severely troubled major construction program.

For decades, the Government Accountability Office has documented hundreds of millions of dollars in cost overruns on mismanaged VA major construction projects. GAO reports from 1981, 1993, 2009, and 2013 all reflect a stunning degree of bureaucratic incompetence in VA's construction management. In my own district, a single VA hospital project is over $1 billion over budget, and years behind schedule.

VA's construction failures represent billions of wasted tax dollars that should have gone towards VA's core mission: taking care of our Nation's veterans.

Since 2012, the House Veterans' Affairs Committee has conducted at least six separate hearings exploring the VA's construction failures, and this bill's reforms incorporate many of the committee's findings.

First, it forces the VA to leave hospital construction to the experts--to Federal construction managers like the Army Corps of Engineers. In fact, the contractor on the troubled Aurora, Colorado, project demanded that the Army Corps of Engineers take over the project from the VA before they returned to work on the project.

Previously, in 2014, the House unanimously passed my legislation, which required the Army Corps to take over the VA's most troubled projects, including the project in Aurora. I am pleased that my colleagues in both the House and the Senate are now fully supportive of this transfer of authority.

Second, this bill introduces a much-needed improvement over the contract change order process. The GAO and the Veterans' Affairs Committee identified the VA's inept change order management as a major driver of both cost increases and project delays.

Third, the bill creates a new, independent assistant inspector general for construction who would be required to report directly to Congress when significant construction problems have been discovered.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. COFFMAN. As we learned with the project in Aurora, the VA went to great lengths to hide the significant problems with the project from the American people, insisting in congressional hearing after hearing that the project was on time and on budget. It was not until the project's contractor sued the VA--and won on every count in December of 2014--that the VA finally admitted it had significant problems with the Aurora project.

I urge all of my colleagues to support this measure and continue with the long-needed construction reforms in the VA.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source