November 02, 2017

Ranking Member Walz Statement Following HVAC Markup

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Ranking Member Tim Walz (D-MN) released the following statement after the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs passed eight bills out of committee:

“Each day, I continue to be proud of the work this committee does to improve the lives of our nation’s veterans. Whether it is streamlining the authorization process for veterans’ apprenticeship programs, improving the Veterans Crisis Line, or making VA telemedicine even better, the bipartisan legislation we passed out of committee today will make many remarkable improvements to the lives of veterans across our country,” said Rep. Walz, the highest ranking enlisted servicemember ever to serve in Congress.

“Unfortunately, the committee was unable to advance legislation to extend the presumption of exposure for Agent Orange to include Blue Water Navy Veterans. I have been the lead Democrat and cosponsor of this bipartisan legislation longer than anyone else and believe that we have a moral and ethical responsibility to fix this and get it right for these veterans. However, asking one group of veterans to pay for another group of veterans’ benefits is not only bad policy, it is the wrong answer for all veterans. That is why finding the funds to pay for this bill outside the VA budget in a way that doesn’t take away from other veterans’ earned benefits is absolutely critical. I will continue to call on Chairman Roe to make that happen.” 

The committee passed the following bills out of committee:

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