[Vision2020] House Passes Veterans' Benefit Bill

[Tom Hansen]

>From the "Roundup Edition" of today's online Army Times with a very special
thanks to Senator Larry Craig.

HR 6314
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/C?c109:./temp/~c109H0lzTT


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House passes veterans' benefit bill

By Rick Maze

The House passed a stripped-down veterans' benefits bill Tuesday that
prevents the cutoff of some current programs and provides a new education
benefit to spouses of severely injured active-duty service members.

The bill, HR 6314, could be the final benefits bill passed this year,
although Rep. Steve Buyer, R-Ind., the House Veterans' Affairs Committee
chairman, issued a plea for the Senate to dust off some larger proposals.

Sitting in limbo is a bill that approves construction and renovation of
major veterans' facilities and a separate bill to provide new protections
against identity theft when the Department of Veterans Affairs loses
personal information on veterans.

 
"The hard work of the past two years must not go in vain," Buyer said in a
statement aimed at Senate Republican leaders. "I call upon the Senate
leadership to finish our negotiations. Let's complete our work. Let's not
forget our veterans and their families."

One major holdup on veterans' bills has been the inability of Buyer and Sen.
Larry Craig, R-Idaho, the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee chairman, to
reach a compromise on details. Several sticking points have emerged,
including Craig's wish that the House change federal law to allow veterans
to hire attorneys to represent them when filing benefits claims and Buyer's
insistence on changes in information technology oversight within the VA.

Senate committee aides have been working with Buyer's staff to try and write
a compromise bill that would pass before the current session of Congress
ends, but an agreement has proven elusive.

Buyer's concern about hard work being in vain results from the fact that
neither he nor Craig will be veterans' committee chairmen next year because
Democrats won control of Congress in the Nov. 7 election. Sen. Daniel Akaka,
D-Hawaii, was named Tuesday as Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee chairman.
No chairman has been named for the House committee.

The bill approved by the House on a 393-0 vote prevents a cutoff of
rehabilitation programs for homeless and seriously mentally ill veterans as
well as grants for veterans' programs. It also extends the VA advisory
committee on homeless veterans and health care for veterans exposed to
biological and chemical testing under Projects SHAD and 112 in the 1960s and
'70s.

There is one new benefit, which is built upon a current survivor benefit:
Spouses and children of service members who are permanently and totally
disabled from service-connected causes would be allowed to use VA survivor
education benefits while the member is still on active duty. Under current
law, that is allowed only after the disabled service member is separated
from active duty.

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Pro patria,

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"Patriotism is not a short and frenzied outburst of emotion but the tranquil
and steady dedication of a lifetime." 

--Adlai E. Stevenson, Jr.