House passes veterans’ benefit bill

Since 11-20-06

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Subject: House passes veterans’ benefit bill

http://www.navytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-2358012.php

House passes veterans’ benefit bill

By Rick Maze
Navy Times
November 14, 2006

The House passed a stripped-down veterans’ benefits bill Tuesday that prevents the cutoff of some current programs and provides a new education benefit to spouses of severely injured active-duty service members.

The bill, HR 6314, could be the final benefits bill passed this year, although Rep. Steve Buyer, R-Ind., the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee chairman, issued a plea for the Senate to dust off some larger proposals.  Sitting in limbo is a bill that approves construction and renovation of major veterans’ facilities and a separate bill to provide new protections against identity theft when the Department of Veterans Affairs loses personal information on veterans.

“The hard work of the past two years must not go in vain,” Buyer said in a statement aimed at Senate Republican leaders. “I call upon the Senate leadership to finish our negotiations. Let’s complete our work. Let’s not forget our veterans and their families.” One major holdup on veterans’ bills has been the inability of Buyer and Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee chairman, to reach a compromise on details.

Several sticking points have emerged, including Craig’s wish that the House change federal law to allow veterans to hire attorneys to represent them when filing benefits claims and Buyer’s insistence on changes in information technology oversight within the VA. Senate committee aides have been working with Buyer’s staff to try and write a compromise bill that would pass before the current session of Congress ends, but an agreement has proven elusive.

Buyer’s concern about hard work being in vain results from the fact that neither he nor Craig will be veterans’ committee chairmen next year because Democrats won control of Congress in the Nov. 7 election. Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, was named Tuesday as Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee chairman. No chairman has been named for the House committee.

The bill approved by the House on a 393-0 vote prevents a cutoff of rehabilitation programs for homeless and seriously mentally ill veterans as well as grants for veterans’ programs. It also extends the VA advisory committee on homeless veterans and health care for veterans exposed to biological and chemical testing under Projects SHAD and 112 in the 1960s and ’70s.

There is one new benefit, which is built upon a current survivor benefit: Spouses and children of service members who are permanently and totally disabled from service-connected causes would be allowed to use VA survivor education benefits while the member is still on active duty. Under current law, that is allowed only after the disabled service member is separated from active duty.



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Contributed,
YNCS Don Harribine, USN(ret)