Ranking Member Wasserman Schultz Statement at the Full Committee Markup of the Fiscal Year 2024 Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Funding Bill

Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL-23), Ranking Member of the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Subcommittee, delivered the following remarks at the Appropriations Committee's markup of the fiscal year 2024 Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies bill:

– As Prepared For Delivery –

Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, for yielding.

Just last summer, we passed historic, monumental legislation on a bipartisan basis – the PACT Act – to better serve and better take care of our veterans of all wars who have been exposed to harmful chemicals like Agent Orange, burn pits, and other toxic substances.

As part of that legislation, we established, again, on a bipartisan basis, the Cost of War Toxic Exposures Fund to ensure the steep cost of healthcare and services related to toxic exposures will always have its own dedicated funding stream.

That funding for toxic exposures should not have to compete with other discretionary priorities.

That funding for toxic exposures is so important and necessary that we provided its own funding source to ensure we keep our promise to our veterans to take care of them.

The theme of my remarks that you will hear loud and clear is ‘keeping our promises.’

The Republicans’ original MilCon-VA mark broke that promise by drastically underfunding the TEF.

Thankfully, as part of the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, President Biden was able to deliver the promise we all collectively made to our veterans by fully funding the Toxic Exposures Fund.

While the Toxic Exposures Fund is fully funded because of Democrats’ insistence, Chairman Carter, it is with a truly heavy heart, because I have appreciated the work we have done together over the past few years, that unfortunately, I am unable to support this bill.

While Republicans are now fully funding Medical Care at VA, we now know – thanks to a press story last night leaking the full slate of 302(b) allocations, that the rest of the domestic bills that veterans rely on will be gutted.

We literally just passed the bipartisan Fiscal Responsibility Act, and Republicans are already reneging on the agreement.

Clearly, promises do not mean much to them.

Republicans cannot credibly claim to fully fund veterans when they cut the Department of Housing and Urban Development by more than 25 percent which will eliminate housing vouchers for more than 50,000 veterans.

Republicans cannot credibly claim to fully fund veterans when they cut the Department of Labor by more than 30 percent, which will eliminate job training for more than 4,200 veterans who are experiencing or at risk of homelessness.

The MilCon-VA bill is just one piece of the puzzle, and gutting all the other programs that veterans rely on throughout the federal government breaks our promises to veterans, and I cannot and will not support any of it.

Republicans are introducing sham bills that they know will be rejected by the Senate because they do not adhere to the agreement. Why are you wasting our time? We all know where we are going to end up. This is reckless and irresponsible.

Additionally, while Republicans are no longer proposing critical Medical Facilities funding be transferred to fill the construction funding void, they still haven’t provided a viable solution to provide desperately needed funding for construction projects like the President’s budget proposal does. 

I have traveled across the country and seen facilities falling apart at the seams, desperately needing reinvestment, and Republicans rejected the President’s proposal to provide $2 billion in mandatory funding in an effort to try to whittle down the over $100 billion infrastructure backlog.

We clearly can’t start to make real progress in VA’s infrastructure backlog without dedicated investment in our facilities outside the normal discretionary funding streams.

We need this funding to ensure the quality of care at VA’s facilities for our veterans and VA employees, and it’s long overdue.

On the MilCon side, this bill actually cuts funding for servicemembers and their families by $1.3 billion compared to the enacted level – compared to current services.

Furthermore, Republicans want to cut military construction funding by another $200 million, as you’ll see today. So, this bill could actually be cutting funding for military construction by $1.5 billion compared to the enacted level. Ask any of our military leadership—30 percent of our military infrastructure worldwide is in poor condition.

We have a recruitment and retention problem, and Republicans are cutting funding for military construction.

We have a major quality of life issue for our servicemembers, and Republicans are cutting funding for military construction.

Republicans cut dedicated funding for PFAS remediation and cleanup and dedicated funding for military installation climate change and resilience projects.

We are backtracking on our commitment to our servicemembers and their families.

Lastly, I would be remiss if I did not mention how disappointing the community project funding process has been this year.

It’s disappointing that Republicans wouldn’t give us an allocation that would support the seven Democratic projects that were submitted to this subcommittee.

This bill only provides $15.3 million for Democratic CPFs, when over $400 million was requested, but it did support $279 million for Republican CPFs.

Democrats did not treat Republicans this way when we were in the majority. In fact, we fully funded Republican CPFs that were executable.

This is just one more way that Republicans are shortchanging the American people.

I cannot in good conscience support this bill, and it saddens me.

The subcommittee has a long-standing tradition of bipartisanship, and I hope that we can work together in good faith going forward to take care of our veterans, servicemembers, and their families in the way they deserve.

That will mean to me fixing this bill and bringing it back to the levels necessary so we don’t break our promises, to our veterans and servicemembers, and to one another.

Thank you, and I yield back.