TREA Washington Update for May 9, 2008

From the Washington Office:

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY TO YOU ALL!

Another big week for politics. The fight for the Democratic nomination for President continues. It now seems clear (if it didn’t before) that neither candidate will win without the Superdelegates’ votes, so now the political maneuvering and campaigning has returned to DC behind closed doors. In the meantime the remaining Primary campaigns continue. There was a huge and surprising fight in the House concerning the War Supplemental (please see below) which has pushed the vote back to next week. Congress is also fighting over a huge Farm Bill and a Home Mortgage bill. But we all can take comfort that the House of Representatives passed a resolution, HRes 1113, approving of the goals of Mother’s Day  

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1) Fight Among Democrats In The House Delay Passage Of War Supplemental

2) Hearing on Veterans’ Suicides Held

3) New Federal Recovery Coordinator Program Office Established

4) DC Circuit Court of Appeals Reverses Vietnam Blue Water Case

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From the Washington Office:

1) Fight Among Democrats In The House Delay Passage Of War Supplemental-Surprising everyone this week (including their leadership) the Blue Dog Democrats in the House stopped cold the passage of the War Supplemental. The Coalition of 47 conservative Democrats refused to support the bill’s expected passage this week due to the inclusion of veterans’ education program improvements included in the bill. The provisions, which TREA and other VSOs have been strongly lobbying for, would expand the funding for active duty veterans’ education costs and is a part of Senator Jim Webb’s (D-VA) S22. However, the Blue Dog Coalition threatened to vote against the Supplemental unless offsets were found to completely pay for the new program (pay-as-you-go). According to a preliminary cost estimate released Thursday by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the proposal is estimated to cost $728 million over two years. But the program would then cost $51 billion of mandatory funding over 10 years. Hopefully a spokesman for Speaker Pelosi was correct when he predicted that an agreement will be reached by next week. “The bill is going to come to the floor next week. It will pass, and it will include the GI bill.”

However it is clear that there are disagreements over this issue even at the top of House Democratic leadership. While Speaker Pelosi (D-CA.) said, “We are going to spend nearly $200 billion on the war in Iraq, and it’s not paid for. So I think it’s OK for us not to pay for the education of our troops when they come home,’’ House Majority leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) said“ It clearly is an entitlement, and their concern is justified.” But Representative Hoyer said he hoped an agreement could be reached.

The position startled the Democratic leadership, which at first thought they could continue consideration of the bill but then delayed consideration until May 14. In the meantime on the Senate side, Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) the Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee said that he may proceed ahead of the House in considering the Supplemental. “My patience is growing thin,” Byrd said in a statement. “I am putting my colleagues in both the House and Senate on notice that whether the House acts or not next week, the Senate Appropriations Committee will move forward with a markup.” (This would be a surprise since all spending bills commence in the House of Representatives.)

Both the House and Senate bills include the veterans’ education provisions as well as extensions of unemployment insurance. However the Senate version of the Supplemental includes many additional non-military provisions including delays of 7 Medicaid regulations, $490 million for grants that assist state and local law enforcement agencies, $451 million for highways, $275 for the Food and Drug Administration and $10.4 billion for natural disaster recovery relief ( The House version includes only the $5.8 billion for levees asked for by President Bush) The additional spending could prompt a Presidential veto if included in the final version. On the House side the Supplemental includes riders including timelines for withdrawing troops from Iraq, which President Bush has already said are unacceptable to him. It is expected that such restrictions would be stripped from the bill during Senate floor consideration. But it is clear that there will be many steps before the Supplemental is passed.

2) Hearing on Veterans’ Suicides Held-On Tuesday, May 6, the House Veterans Affairs Committee held a hearing on suicides of veterans; especially those returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. There is growing concern about this issue from many sources. A case on whether the VA is providing sufficient mental health treatment is pending in a federal district court in California while a report released on Monday by the US Institute of Mental Health stated that “suicides and psychological mortality could exceed battlefield deaths” if the soldiers’ mental damage is left untreated. Committee Chairman Bob Filner (D-CA) called on VA Secretary James Peake to fire both VA Under Secretary for Health Dr. Michael Kussman and VA Deputy Chief for Patient Care Services Officers for Mental Health Dr. Ira Katz for their alleged roles in obfuscating veteran suicide data. Secretary Peake testified as to the efforts the VA has made to deal with this issue.

3) New Federal Recovery Coordinator Program Office Established-On Wednesday the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Defense and the Department of Health and Human Services announced the establishment of a joint Federal Recovery Coordinator Program Office. The Office was one of the central recommendations of the Presidential Commission on returning Wounded Warriors headed by former Senator Bob Dole and former HHS Secretary Donna Shalala. It is designed to cut through bureaucratic problems to obtain the services needed by seriously injured service members and their families. The coordinators will coordinate both federal health care assets and civilian resources to help meet the veterans’ needs and goals. The VA is the lead Department for setting up the office. It has appointed Ginnean Quisenberry to be the Office’s Director. There are presently 6 staff members working with 85 severely injured patients Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., and Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio. Four additional coordinators are expected to be hired in the near future. Additionally, a fourth site will be established at the Naval Medical Center in San Diego in the near future. The program is intended to work with the patient after his or her discharge and will link public and private resources. The program is intended to be a life time commitment to these patients who are suffering from seriously debilitating burns, spinal cord injuries, amputations, visual impairments, traumatic brain injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder.

When a veteran settles in a remote area, VA intends to use multimedia systems that integrate video and audio teleconferencing so that veterans may visit a federal clinic or private center near their homes to link up with their case coordinator for a meeting. http://www1.va.gov/opa/pressrel/pressrelease.cfm?id=1499

4) DC Circuit Court of Appeals Reverses Vietnam Blue Water Case-Yesterday the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit unfortunately reversed the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims in Haas v. Peake. That decision had found that Vietnam War blue water veterans who had served on ships off the coast of Vietnam but had never set foot within the land borders of Vietnam were entitled to a presumption of service connection disability if they suffer from one of the listed diseases associated with Agent Orange exposure. The Court of Appeals of Veterans Claims had ruled that the VA’s regulatory interpretation that the veteran needed to have “set foot within the land borders of Vietnam” was unduly restrictive. The Court of Appeals reversed and ruled: “We hold that the agency’s requirement that a claimant have been present within the land borders of Vietnam at some point in the course of his duty constitutes a permissible interpretation of the statute and its implementing regulation, and we therefore reverse the judgment of the Veterans Court.” This was a 2-1 decision with a thoughtful dissent by Judge Fogel so the Claimant may attempt to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. You can find the full 57 page decision in the list of decisions at http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/dailylog.html  

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