Bishop Statement at Subcommittee Markup of Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Bill

Mr. Chairman, I believe that your mark has done a lot of responsible things and if this bill remains intact I believe that we will be able to report out a bill with bipartisan support.

Thank you for yielding Mr. Chairman and thank you for your hard work. As I have said in each hearing and I will re-emphasize it again today, that I believe sequestration is the wrong way to reduce budgets and the Members of this Congress, both Republican and Democrat, need to start working together to find compromise in making fiscally responsible decisions.

So I hope that as we begin the FY 2014 appropriations cycle we can come together to resolve sequestration in a bipartisan fashion and reduce spending in a responsible way that does not undermine our economic recovery.

Military Construction

Turing to the bill, I am pleased that the subcommittee recommendation includes $797 million for the construction or replacement of 17 Department of Defense Education Activity Schools (DODEA).

I believe that providing the funds for DODEA schools will not only help our servicemembers children get a quality education in a safe facility, it will also give our servicemembers one less thing to worry about.

Mr. Chairman, I am also pleased that the subcommittee recommendation includes $151 million for the third increment of the medical center replacement in Landstul. This is an important project and I am glad it is progressing smoothly.

Veterans Affairs

Mr. Chairman, moving to the Veterans Affairs title, I must say that I am pleased that the mark meets the discretionary budget request in all areas of administrative expenses, research, medical care, information technology, and facilities.

I believe the funding level in this bill will continue to allow our Veterans to receive outstanding care.

However, I have come to be very frustrated with two issues, the claims backlog and the lack of an integrated Electronic Health Records. We have a serious problem in this country when there are over 850,000 veterans awaiting compensation claims.

I also find it very troubling that we can put a man on the moon but we can't figure out how to create a joint intergraded electronic health record system.Mr. Chairman, on the issue of the Claims Backlog it is my hope that fully funding the General Operating Expenses for the VBA, the Veterans Benefit Management System, and the Veterans Claims Intake Program coupled with the rigorous report requirements that we've included will get claims off paper and lead to a break through on the backlog.

On the issue of the Electronic Records it is my hope that the language included in the bill that restricts funds for the development of an electronic health record unless the system meets the requirements of being single, joint, common, and integrated will quickly lead to one system that is used by both Departments and provides for the seamless transition of medical records and possibly speed up the claims process by not bringing more paper to the VA.

Clean Bill

Finally, Mr. Chairman I am very pleased that after we met to discuss the bill, you chose to craft a clean bill or as we called it in our meeting a "no drama bill".

Mr. Chairman, I believe that your mark has done a lot of responsible things and if this bill remains intact I believe that we will be able to report out a bill with bipartisan support.

One last thing I would really like to thank the staff for working so hard to get us to this point, however we still have a long way to go.

Thank you Mr. Chairman and I yield back.