Military Construction and Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2016

Floor Speech

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Mr. MEEHAN. I want to thank the gentleman, and I want to thank him for his hard work on this bill.

Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Pennsylvania has put together a fiscally responsible piece of legislation that will support the U.S. military, the military families, and the veterans who have served our country.

As you have heard in the discussions that have taken place with other colleagues, particularly with those from Pennsylvania, when red tape and mismanagement stand between a veteran and his or her care, we all have a responsibility to blow the whistle and to call for appropriate reforms.

The inspector general for Veterans Affairs released a report 2 weeks ago on the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Regional Office, as my colleague identified, and the report was even more scathing than we were led to believe it would be. It confirmed our worst fears--that the Philadelphia VA Regional Office is rife with systematic mismanagement, poor morale, the deliberate manipulation of data, and individuals who are more focused on misleading the Nation than on serving our veterans.

I would like to thank Chairman Miller on the Veterans' Affairs Committee for convening a hearing on these reports just last week in order to explore these matters in greater detail. Out of those hearings, we learned that the VA isn't planning on holding anyone responsible until after the completion of yet another report. This may be the nature of the process, but it is deeply troubling.

What the VA needs is not an endless loop of bureaucratic reviews and inquires--it is competent management that is needed, management that will hold the employees and the other management accountable. While we wait for the next report, with this bill, Congress has an opportunity to take reform action with VA H.R. 2029, which will give the VA employees the tools they need to expedite the veterans benefits and care process.

One of the findings from the IG report that stuck out at me was that, in Philadelphia, the average response time for some 31,000 inquiries was 312 days. According to policy, that response should have happened within 5 days. I asked the Director of the VA: What do you tell the veterans? He had no answer. That response time is completely unacceptable. The funding in this bill will provide additional staff to expedite the processing of these claims and get those veterans the benefits they deserve.

Again, I want to thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Dent) for his hard work on this bill. I look forward to continuing to work with him, as well as with other colleagues, to bring about the important reforms that are needed at the Philadelphia benefits office.

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