Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, we all have a shared commitment to our Nation's veterans. That shared commitment is reflected in many of the programs that are supported by yourself and my other colleagues in this body every year. I deeply respect the knowledge and dedication that my fellow Senators have brought to this critical issue. Each of my colleagues, almost without exception, has supported measures that have helped our veterans over the years.

I rise to introduce my first piece of legislation, a bill to help our Nation's veterans.

Our Nation must keep faith with the men and women who have served and sacrificed for our freedom. Unfortunately, and unconscionably, America is still failing them and their families by tolerating unemployment, homelessness, and inadequate health care. We must renew our commitment to the more than 250,000 veterans in Connecticut and 22 million across the country to ensure that no veteran is left behind.

Our commitment to veterans must be unwavering. Despite our best intentions, we fail all too often to accord our veterans the support they have earned. Unfortunately, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs, more than 76,000 veterans are homeless on any given night and nearly twice that number will be homeless at some point during the year. The unemployment rate among veterans has doubled over the past 3 years. Twenty-seven percent of veterans in their early twenties are unemployed. That number is almost twice the unemployment rate of their peers who have not served in the military. The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently reported that unemployment for veterans who served their country after September 2001 to be 11.5 percent, again, a figure far higher than the national unemployment rate.

Twenty percent of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans are estimated to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. When veterans return home, they must wait at least half a year, on average, for a claims decision by the Department of Veterans Affairs before they can receive benefits. Those numbers are simply unacceptable. As I speak today, America's longest war continues, with less than 1 percent of the Nation in uniform. Never in the history of the country have so few fought for so long, at such great personal cost and sacrifice.

Under the leadership of Secretary Shinseki, the Department of Veterans Affairs has taken strong steps toward the goal of building a 21st century system that supports caregivers of seriously injured Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, improving services to women veterans, expanding the availability of health care, and preventing veteran homelessness.

Gaps in the system remain, and they are debilitating, destructive, and devastating for many veterans. We can do better and we must do more. The legislation I introduce today is entitled Honoring All Veterans Act of 2011. Its 16 comprehensive provisions are only the first phase of my efforts.

This legislative proposal is a comprehensive package but only an opening salvo in a sustained, unceasing campaign to ensure that no veteran is left behind. It is a downpayment on a larger debt. The goal is to give all veterans the homecoming and the services they need and deserve. Our military men and women have kept their promise to serve and sacrifice for this country, and we must now keep faith with them. Our commitment to veterans should reflect the depth of their sacrifice. This measure is entitled Honoring All Veterans Act because all veterans are brave service men and women, serving today in places we can barely pronounce the names of. They are deployed around the globe, and they deserve to be honored for defending our freedom and democracy. We must honor that service not only in words but in deed.

This legislation comes from veterans and their families--seeing and hearing their struggles and dreams, their achievements and defeats as I have worked for them during my 20 years as attorney general and 4-plus months as a Senator.

In the VFW and American Legion halls, in living rooms, in school auditoriums, and in countless gatherings across the State of Connecticut, I have been privileged to listen and learn from veterans and their families who have shared their personal stories and insights.

This legislation simply continues the work I have done as attorney general. I worked to make the Department of Defense release information on those who may have been improperly separated from military service, and urged the Department of Veterans Affairs to update its obsolete database systems that were preventing tens of thousands of disabled veterans from obtaining deserved tax benefits. In 2007, I worked with the Connecticut congressional delegation to make the Department of Defense provide accurate information about educational benefits to veterans. I have fought for them individually when they encountered bureaucratic resistance and red tape from an unresponsive system. I am proud of that work and proud, most important, of my partnership with veterans in Connecticut in proposing this legislation. My goal then, and it has been continuously, is to keep faith with our veterans, to honor our promises to them.

This Honoring All Veterans Act of 2011 will address four key areas: first, expanding job opportunities for veterans; second, assisting homeless veterans; third, improving veterans health care, with a special emphasis on mental health services;

fourth, modernizing the Department of Veterans Affairs.

On expanding job opportunities to honor all veterans and give them the welcome home they deserve, we need to focus first on jobs. Like all Americans, veterans are striving to provide for their families and participate in the economic recovery to find jobs in our slowly recovering economy. Good jobs require education and training, as well as independent living services for veterans. Our Nation has done much to address this issue, such as the expanded post-9/11 GI bill, but gaps in the system remain. They are all too glaring. My legislation will expand job opportunities in five significant ways.

First, the legislation raises the statutory cap for the Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment Independent Living Program to welcome hundreds of additional veterans. This vital program helps veterans with severe service-connected disabilities, enabling them to live independently. It helps veterans with those kinds of disabilities to participate in family and community life and increases their potential to return to work. There is a strong case for removing the cap on participation in the program. I would like to recognize the distinguished junior Senator from Hawaii for the work that he has done in this regard. I hope that my legislation will ensure the program can continue to assist veterans coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan, while Congress works to find funding to remove the cap completely.

Second, the legislation authorizes veterans to reuse the Department of Defense Transition Assistance Program, known as TAP, and meet with counselors at any military installation for up to 1 year after their separation. This program was developed to assist military personnel leaving the service with information about jobs, education, and career development. Veterans returning to Connecticut wishing to participate again in the Transition Assistance Program should have that opportunity to participate for a second time, maybe even a third time. Coming back from deployment, servicemembers are often focused on other important aspects of the transition process, rather than how to find a job. They may have never written a resume before or attended a job interview. Having started the job search they have specific areas where they realize they need help. I discussed this idea at a recent Senate Armed Services Committee hearing with the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Manpower and Reserve Affairs. He testified that the military is right now in the process of redesigning the TAP program. I am going to work toward having this provision included in the redesign of the TAP program so that TAP continues to be an opportunity once a servicemember returns home.

Third, the legislation authorizes a study of how best to ensure that civilian employers and educational institutions recognize veterans' military training. The military recruits the most talented men and women in America to serve, and then it invests heavily in their professional development. Yet when they trade their uniforms in for civilian clothes, employers and others such as professional accrediting organizations often refuse to recognize or understand how to make use of their military experience and the expertise they have gained.

The Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America reported that 61 percent of employers do not believe they have ``a complete understanding of the qualifications ex-servicemembers offer,'' and recently separated servicemembers with college degrees earn on average almost $10,000 less per year than their nonveteran counterparts.

One way to close this gap is to have the Department of Defense review the list of military occupations specialties, such as the 22 MOS's in Army engineering or 16 MOS's in Army communications, and ensure that completing MOS qualifications will provide those servicemembers with credentials recognized by civilian employers.

The study authorized in this legislation will start that process. I am committed to working in the Senate to see this problem resolved.

Fourth, the legislation reauthorizes the Veterans Education Outreach Program to provide money for campus-based outreach services to veterans. This program was first established in 1972 to provide colleges with a significant number of veterans on campus with additional resources to make sure those students get the most out of their educational experience and use VA benefits available to assist them. I believe that the return of veterans from deployments during the Global War on Terror requires the same kind of on-campus support. While there are other programs helping veterans pay the cost of tuition and many colleges have great veterans services on-campus, the Veterans Education Outreach Program is the missing link to ensuring veterans are informed about their VA benefits and maximizing the opportunity to study and obtain employment.

Fifth, the legislation authorizes a comprehensive program at the Department of Labor to assist veterans with TBI or PTSD in the workplace. It provides technical assistance to employers of veterans living with those conditions and provides best practices relating to helping those employees develop successful strategies for on-the-job success. The legislation requires the Office of Disability Employment Policy to coordinate an inter-agency working group which will produce a federal homecoming plan for reintegration of these veterans. These tasks have been conducted to a limited degree by the Department of Labor through the America's Heroes at Work program and the Veterans Employment & Training Services and they are to be commended for their efforts to date. However, by defining these requirements in statute, it is my hope that these programs will expand to reach all veterans that need help.

This legislation also reaches veterans in a variety of other key areas. Recently, a female veteran visited my office. She and her two children were homeless and needed help. In their case, we could find temporary shelter. But on the issue of homelessness, many veterans do not know where to turn or are hesitant to do so. The current per diem given to homeless veterans does not address rising costs and regional variations in helping homeless veterans. Women are particularly underserved now, and my hope is that new housing projects take care of female veterans. For example, the Newington Mission Homeless Project in my state will help forgotten heroes find shelter. The Honoring All Veterans Act reforms the per diem program and helps military families avoid homelessness by permanently extending their foreclosure protection for servicemembers.

On improving veteran health care and mental health services, as I have traveled Connecticut meeting with veterans, I have seen firsthand how veterans with traumatic brain injury or post-traumatic stress disorder face unique challenges in accessing the Department of Veterans Affairs for benefits and medical assistance. Veterans deserve the best possible medical care, particularly when it comes to treating TBI or post-traumatic stress. These are the signature wounds of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. More than a quarter of these injuries are undiagnosed, according to the military itself. Then too often, even if they are diagnosed, servicemembers are screened but do not receive a full course of treatment.

To address this issue, my legislation requires the Department of Defense to identify and then close the gap between screenings and treatment. Simply diagnosing a soldier or a marine with symptoms of PTSD or TBI does not heal them.

This legislation also addresses the problem of finding qualified psychiatrists, psychologists, and nursing professionals to work in VA medical hospitals and outpatient clinics by accessing graduates from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. This university trains outstanding medical professionals for military service. Under existing law the Secretary may exempt graduates from working in a military hospital after graduation, based upon forecast demand. The Honoring All Veterans Act allows those graduates identified by the Secretary as excess to military requirements to serve out their commitment in the VA medical systems, rather than releasing them to private hospitals. This provision is just one example of how the legislation is crafted to better utilize the existing resources of the DOD and VA medical systems.

Modernizing the Department of Veterans Affairs is the final section of this legislation. It addresses the DOD and VA transition process through improved monitoring and oversight. It increases pension benefits and gives veterans grounds for appeal at the Board of Veterans Appeals if the VA has misplaced or misfiled their documents.

I hear about this problem, as my colleagues do, again and again as I listen to veterans. Recently, a veteran visited my office. He has been waiting on a hearing date with the Board of Veterans Appeals for over a year.

His story is typical.

This legislation provides much needed improvement to the Board of Veterans Appeals. I look forward to working with my colleagues to address other much needed improvements.

We can honor our veterans whose claims are stuck in the Board of Veterans Appeals by confirming judges to the court that reviews them. Three of those nine seats are now vacant, and each judge must preside over 600 cases per year, far more than any other Federal appellate court.

Finally, in closing, let me recognize the many veterans throughout the State of Connecticut who helped me craft this measure.

I thank CDR Richard DiFederico of the VFW and CDR Daniel Thurston of the American Legion for their very dedicated work, not only in assisting me but day in and day out on behalf of veterans.

I thank Bob Janicki, who has spent recent years after serving this country in the U.S. Marine Corps during the Vietnam era, for providing help to homeless veterans and veterans seeking jobs.

Paul ``Bud'' Bucha is a veteran and friend with the most distinguished service record possible in winning the Medal of Honor. His life after military service, giving back to other veterans and managing several successful companies, has been an example of how veterans continue to provide leadership with courage and vision.

MSG Frank Alvarado has made a number of very helpful suggestions, including, for example, reauthorizing the Veterans Education Outreach Program.

I would also like to acknowledge my deep respect to Dr. Linda Schwartz, who has been a tireless advocate for all veterans.

Connecticut is blessed to have the leadership of veterans who help each other, care for each other, look out for each other. I look forward to working with them in ensuring that this legislation is passed. I have no illusions that accomplishing passage of these kinds of measures will be easy, but I hope for support across the aisle. This kind of goal certainly ought to unite us, not divide us. We have so much more in common on this issue than in conflict. I am hoping we can work together to ensure that we keep faith with our veterans, that we honor their service, ensure that we welcome them home with the kind of services they need and deserve so that no veteran will be left behind.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a summary of this legislation

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