EFFECT OF GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN ON VA BENEFITS AND SERVICES TO VETERANS HEARING BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON VETERANS’ AFFAIRS U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2013 Serial No. 113–38 Printed for the use of the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs ( U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 85–863 WASHINGTON : 2014 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800 Fax: (202) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402–0001 VerDate Aug 31 2005 15:32 Jul 31, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 5011 Sfmt 5011 Y:\113THC~1\FC\FIRSTS~1\10-9-13\GPO\85863.TXT LEN VACREP180 with DISTILLER COMMITTEE ON VETERANS’ AFFAIRS JEFF MILLER, Florida, Chairman DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine, Ranking GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida CORRINE BROWN, Florida DAVID P. ROE, Tennessee MARK TAKANO, California BILL FLORES, Texas JULIA BROWNLEY, California JEFF DENHAM, California DINA TITUS, Nevada JON RUNYAN, New Jersey ANN KIRKPATRICK, Arizona DAN BENISHEK, Michigan RAUL RUIZ, California TIM HUELSKAMP, Kansas GLORIA NEGRETE MCLEOD, California MARK E. AMODEI, Nevada ANN M. KUSTER, New Hampshire MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado BETO O’ROURKE, Texas BRAD R. WENSTRUP, Ohio TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota PAUL COOK, California JACKIE WALORSKI, Indiana JON TOWERS, Staff Director Pursuant to clause 2(e)(4) of Rule XI of the Rules of the House, public hearing records of the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs are also published in electronic form. The printed hearing record remains the official version. Because electronic submissions are used to prepare both printed and electronic versions of the hearing record, the process of converting between various electronic formats may introduce unintentional errors or omissions. Such occur- rences are inherent in the current publication process and should diminish as the process is further refined. ii VerDate Aug 31 2005 15:32 Jul 31, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 0486 Sfmt 0486 Y:\113THC~1\FC\FIRSTS~1\10-9-13\GPO\85863.TXT LEN VACREP180 with DISTILLER C O N T E N T S October 9, 2013 Page Effect Of Government Shutdown On VA Benefits And Services To Veterans ... 1 OPENING STATEMENTS Hon. Jeff Miller, Chairman, .................................................................................... 1 Prepared Statement of Chairman Miller ........................................................ 40 Hon. Michael H. Michaud, Ranking Minority Member ........................................ 3 Prepared Statement of Hon. Michaud ............................................................ 41 Hon. Corrine Brown, U.S. House of Representatives, Prepared Statement only ........................................................................................................................ 41 WITNESSES Hon. Eric K. Shinseki, Secretary, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs ............ 4 Prepared Statement of Hon. Shinseki ............................................................ 42 STATEMENT FOR THE RECORD Paralyzed Veterans of America .............................................................................. 46 Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America ........................................................... 48 AMVETS ................................................................................................................... 49 Veterans of Foreign Wars ....................................................................................... 51 iii VerDate Aug 31 2005 15:32 Jul 31, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 0486 Sfmt 0486 Y:\113THC~1\FC\FIRSTS~1\10-9-13\GPO\85863.TXT LEN VACREP180 with DISTILLER VerDate Aug 31 2005 15:32 Jul 31, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00004 Fmt 0486 Sfmt 0486 Y:\113THC~1\FC\FIRSTS~1\10-9-13\GPO\85863.TXT LEN VACREP180 with DISTILLER EFFECT OF GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN ON VA BENEFITS AND SERVICES TO VETERANS Wednesday, October 9, 2013 U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON VETERANS’ AFFAIRS, Washington, D.C. The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:29 a.m., in Room 334, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Jeff Miller [Chairman of the Committee] presiding. Present: Representatives Miller, Lamborn, Bilirakis, Roe, Flores, Denham, Runyan, Benishek, Huelskamp, Amodei, Coffman, Cook, Walorski, Michaud, Brown, Takano, Brownley, Titus, Kirkpatrick, Ruiz, Negrete McLeod, Kuster, O’Rourke, and Walz. Also Present: Representative McNerney. OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN MILLER The CHAIRMAN. This hearing will come to order. Before we begin, I would like to ask unanimous consent from the Committee that the gentleman from California and former Member of this Com- mittee, Mr. McNerney, be allowed to join us at the dais today and participate in today’s proceedings. Hearing no objection, so ordered. Mr. Secretary, welcome to the Committee. I appreciate, sincerely appreciate you being here on relatively short notice. And we are here today to understand how veterans are being impacted by the lapse in appropriations that has the government currently in a shutdown mode. There is plenty of blame that can be shared as to why we are in this position, but that is not why I called the hear- ing. I really called the hearing so that we can get the best possible information available out to the veteran community. Veterans want to know whether their disability checks and GI bill benefits will be paid in November and thereafter. They want to know if their disability claims will be decided or further delayed. Families want to know if their loved ones will receive a timely bur- ial at VA national cemeteries. And many of VA’s employees them- selves want to know whether they will be serving veterans on the job or whether they are going to be furloughed. I understand that answers to some of these questions are en- tirely dependent on how long this shutdown lasts. And although I want to be sure that most of us agree that we want the shutdown over quickly, it is our responsibility to ensure that the public, espe- cially veterans, understand what the current state of play is. First of all, Mr. Secretary, I want to say, that in the last couple of weeks, getting good information about VA’s contingency plans and the effect of a lapse in appropriations, and its effect on vet- erans has been very difficult to get out of your office. For example, the original field guide that VA put out regarding the shutdown (1) VerDate Aug 31 2005 15:32 Jul 31, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 Y:\113THC~1\FC\FIRSTS~1\10-9-13\GPO\85863.TXT LEN VACREP180 with DISTILLER 2 impact at first spoke of no effect, no effect on payments to veterans, or processing of their benefits. But in a later version, VA stated that a prolonged shutdown would impact both, but didn’t provide any details as to how it would be impacted. Secondly, the Veterans Health Administration is not shut down at all because it has received a full year’s appropriation for 2014 back in March. So hospitals, clinics, and vet centers should all be open for business. Yet the President made a statement the day be- fore the shutdown saying that veterans will find their support cen- ters unstaffed and implied that counseling services for veterans with PTS would be affected. Third, this Committee has consistently been told VBA’s manda- tory overtime effort towards the backlog would actually end on Sep- tember 30. Yet days into the shutdown, we are now informed that the shutdown prevented VA’s planned continued payment of over- time. Fourth, although a shutdown should have a relatively uniform ef- fect across all regional offices, as suggested by your own field guide, my staff met with several representatives from VSOs last week, who relayed that their members are hearing mixed messages out of different regional offices. And I think it goes without saying none of this is ideal. Some degree of confusion is to be expected, and we understand that. But VA employees should be worrying about VA’s mission of service to veterans, not planning for furloughs or managing an agency on spare change remaining from last year. However, what can never be expected is anything less than the full truth, as best as it is known at the time. This grave situation does not need to be assisted by misleading statements from anybody, statements de- signed to aid a political argument by any political party, regardless of which one we may belong to. It is my hope that we can uphold the best traditions of this Com- mittee and rise above all of that today. Mr. Secretary, I appreciate your willingness to join us in this effort. Since this hearing was called last Friday, we have had a little bit more clarity on some of the issues we have been asking your staff about for the last 10 days. But I thought the public should hear some of the same infor- mation. Now, one last point before I conclude. Last July, we held a hear- ing on a bill that the Ranking Member and I introduced that pro- posed to advance fund the entire VA discretionary budget. The ad- ministration declined to take a position on the bill, saying, instead, it needed to conduct a review first. It is obvious that no review is necessary given where we are today. Mr. Secretary, I sincerely hope that you are making that case with the administration. And I will follow up with you on that point during questioning. And I now recognize the Ranking Member, Mr. Michaud, for his opening statement. [THE PREPARED STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN MILLER APPEARS IN THE APPENDIX] VerDate Aug 31 2005 15:32 Jul 31, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 Y:\113THC~1\FC\FIRSTS~1\10-9-13\GPO\85863.TXT LEN VACREP180 with DISTILLER 3 OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL H. MICHAUD Mr. MICHAUD. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for having this hearing today. And I want to thank you, Mr. Secretary, for coming. Before we begin exploring how the government shutdown is af- fecting veterans and the VA, I want to acknowledge the very real consequences the lapse in appropriation has had on VA employees.