Ranking Member Wasserman Schultz Statement at the Subcommittee Markup of the 2026 Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Bill

WASHINGTON — Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL-25), Ranking Member of the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee, delivered the following remarks at the Subcommittee's markup of the 2026 Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Bill:

Thank you, Chairman Carter, for yielding.

And thank you Chairman Cole and Ranking Member DeLauro for joining us and for your commitment to the priorities that we work so hard to fulfill on this committee. 

I want to start by acknowledging that this subcommittee has had a longstanding tradition of bipartisanship. I often say that you can really switch between Judge Carter and myself chairing this subcommittee and you will basically see the same bill, save for some outlier issues each fiscal year.

We do not agree on everything, but we’ve always agreed that the needs of our service members and our veterans come first. Judge Carter, I have appreciated working with you. We have fought side by side against the common adversary of the United States Senate on the House’s priorities on many an occasion, and many times been successful because we are often far more prepared than our friends on the other side of the Capitol. Putting the priorities in this bill for our members, for all the members, and even though this is a broader set of topics – we all fight for veterans, and make sure we take care of them, we all want quality of life for our servicemembers – but we also have unique needs in our individual districts. Some have more defense installations, others have more veterans installations, some have a lot of veterans, some don’t have as many, but we all come together and bring our unique perspectives.

While I know the Chairman worked hard to produce a work product under difficult, and as he said, nontraditional circumstances, unfortunately, this year, I do have serious concerns about the bill before us today, and I will not be able to give the bill my support.

First, this bill is hurtling us down the path toward VA privatization, straight out of the Project 2025 playbook. 

It transfers a record amount of funding from VA medical services to community care – a 67 percent increase – pushing veterans into private care even though study after study shows that when given the options, veterans prefer receiving medical care at VA. In 2024, during the Biden Administration, veteran trust in VA health care rose to a record 92 percent. 

I understand that there is a need for community care, especially among our rural veterans. However, countless studies show that when veterans seek care at private hospitals and clinics, they wait longer to see providers, and the care they get is not as high quality.

Private providers are not specially trained to deal with veteran-centric issues, like toxic exposures, and they often have a poor understanding of military culture. Private providers don’t coordinate well with VA, either, leading to inconsistent, confusing, and often substandard care. We should invest more in VA, provider recruitment and retention – not run with abandon towards privatization. 

Second, this bill fails to include guaranteed funding for the PACT Act’s Toxic Exposure Fund, even though the Administration requested it for FY 2027. Last year, this bill included guaranteed advance funding, which I supported and believe is a commonsense thing to do. We promised our veterans with service-connected illnesses due to toxic exposure, that we would ensure that they had health care through the VA. Advance funding provides the certainty VA needs to plan for and provide consistent high-quality care for our veterans who were subjected to toxic exposures. 

Additionally, this bill fails to hold the Administration accountable for its chaotic and illegal actions over the last few months. There are currently no provisions in this bill that require VA Secretary Collins to be held accountable for the mass illegal firings of dedicated VA employees, including employees that staff the veterans crisis line. 

And this bill does nothing to rein in DOGE and protect veterans’ sensitive personal information. I do appreciate, Judge Carter, Chairman Cole, and Ranking Member DeLauro, that we all agree that we should protect the House’s jurisdiction and make sure that the approval process is tightened, and ensure that we are not just notified of transfers of hundreds of millions of dollars, and that we be given a reprogramming request and an opportunity for approval. But this bill does nothing to stop President Trump from declaring an emergency where none exists and stealing funds from military construction projects, as he did in his first time, to fund a section of border wall on an already fortified military base.

Without provisions to address these abuses, this committee’s power of the purse is drastically weakened. And it sets a terrible precedent that I’m quite sure my Republican colleagues would not appreciate, if a Democratic administration behaved in this way. 

On the military construction side, this bill underfunds military construction by $904 million compared to the President’s budget request and fails to fund some specific needs such as installation resilience and NATO infrastructure commitments. We know that warming temperatures are having a devastating impact on our military installations – including sea level rise, recurrent flooding, hurricanes and extreme weather, as well as extreme heat and drought. 

Florida is home to three combatant commands and over 20 military bases. During the first Trump Administration, DOD completed a report on military bases most vulnerable to climate change - eight Florida bases made that list. This bill includes zero dollars in dedicated funding to mitigate the damage that extreme weather has on a military installation and the readiness of the force. 

We have a major quality of life problem for our servicemembers and their families, yet funding from these programs is being stolen for a fake emergency to fund an unnecessary wall and a paint job for Secretary Hegseth’s government furnished housing. And this bill does nothing to stop that. 

Finally, this bill includes a plethora of harmful poison pill riders. It once again prohibits the VA from implementing its interim final rule to provide a woman’s right to an abortion and abortion counseling. The message sent on that is clear – Republicans want to further limit women’s access to health care. Never mind if an abortion is in the best medical interest of the veteran. Disturbingly, Republicans think you should only have access to abortion if you’re dying. So this bill has the government making personal medical decisions for veterans, not their doctor or the veteran themselves. It’s a cruel and ironic way to treat those who fight for our freedoms.

This bill undermines VA’s ability to keep at-risk veterans safe by preventing VA from reporting a beneficiary to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. That helps keep guns out of the hands of those who are prohibited under Federal law from purchasing or possessing firearms. This bill is, in effect, prohibiting VA from following the law that is intended to protect veterans. 

Veterans make up about one in five adult firearm suicides, and we see an average of 4,600 veteran firearm suicides every year. It is tragic and unacceptable that this bill undermines our efforts to keep veterans safe.

Lastly, we know that our veterans rely on government services outside of this bill.

Without knowing the allocations for all 12 subcommittees, we have no idea how certain programs like financial aid at the Department of Education, and housing assistance at HUD, will ultimately fare in these bills.

Given the Republican track-record on their lack of support for funding beyond defense, I can only assume that vital programs veterans rely on outside this bill will be axed. 

This is unacceptable and I encourage my colleagues to be more transparent – tell us what the subcommittee allocations are before we forge ahead with more markups.

With all these serious concerns, I cannot in good conscience support this bill.

The subcommittee has a long-standing tradition of bipartisanship, and I truly value my friendship with Chairman Carter. I know there are obstacles that I hope we can work through as we have in the past.

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. This bill, sadly, does not yet achieve that.

Thank you, and I yield back.

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