Tillis Discusses Toxic Exposure Bill During Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs Hearing

Statement

This week, U.S. Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC), a member of the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, participated in a hearing with veterans to discuss his ToxicExposure in the American Military (TEAM) Act, legislation that fundamentally reforms and improves how veterans exposed to toxic substances receive health care and benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

Watch the full video here.

"I think we are going to make progress on the TEAM Act. We can figure out a way to resolve some minor differences with some of our colleagues on the House side and move forward with the bill this Congress and hopefully the first half of the Congress."

"This is a group of people that my office has spent a lot of time with, and we're going to spend a lot more time with them because we're going to do everything we can to get the TEAM Act passed and include great ideas from other members embodied in the same bill. And we're going to need your support to make sure that in this Congress, we can all have a celebration, hopefully without masks and without it being virtual, of what I think is a major step forward."

"We have made great progress. I got exposed to this when I first came to the Senate six years ago with the Camp Lejeune situation. We've fought and dealt with Democrat and Republican administrations where the presumptions were almost maddening. As a U.S. Senator, I found it maddening. I can't imagine what it would be like for a veteran who has encountered an illness going through this process."

"I really do hope you all will not only think about those veterans but think about that servicemember, that active servicemember, and what more we can do to better integrate and better identify these problems before that veteran or that servicemember may ever know they have an exposure or a problem."

Source