Unanimous Consent Request--Executive Calendar

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, I reserve the right to object, and I rise to object to this unanimous consent request.

The VA, for years, has made promises that they have year after year failed to meet. For years, veterans and their family members have called my office, whether I was in the State senate or over in the House or here in the Senate. They are distressed by the lack of service they receive from the VA. My caseworkers would work tirelessly with these constituents, only to end up frustrated by a very unresponsive VA. This is unacceptable. It has become the culture of the VA, and this is something that has to change.

Now, for weeks, the committee has been asking for feedback on legislative proposals which have the potential to affect the workflow and the capacity of the VA. The VA has been silent on this even though we have asked for their views and have asked them to weigh in. The reason we have asked them for this is the VA has a backlog of over 180,000 cases. Their wait times this year have continued to escalate. They are not going down.

So, yesterday, I had a call with Secretary McDonough expressing my concerns with the lack of feedback that the committee has received on what is shaping up to be the most consequential legislative effort in the veterans space in an entire generation. The formal response that I received today was incomplete, but it contained a promise that they would have more fulsome feedback by July 30.

I will continue to keep my hold on these pending VA nominees until I receive the official views on the COST of War Act, on the toxic exposures bills. We owe our veterans. We owe it to them to get this right.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source