Today, the House Rules Committee’s final action on H.R. 9237 takes place with no amendment to Section 108.

COWAC transmitted a signed open letter to Chairman Jerry Moran, Ranking Member Richard Blumenthal, and the Members of the United States Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs regarding Section 108 of S. 4744, the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act.

[DOWNLOAD THE SIGNED LETTER (PDF)]

We support this package. The Major Richard Star Act corrects a long-standing injustice against more than 59,000 medically retired, combat-injured veterans, and the blast overpressure provisions in Sections 310 and 311 reflect the congressional recognition our community has sought.

We ask the Senate to fix the one provision that finances it on the backs of veterans who have not yet filed their claims.

The letter puts three matters before the Committee.

The procedural record. H.R. 9237 received no committee markup. It moved under a closed rule, with the sole submitted amendment being the Chairman’s own technical manager’s amendment. The Senate companion, S. 4744, was placed directly on the Legislative Calendar under Rule XIV, bypassing the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee entirely. No committee of jurisdiction in either chamber has examined Section 108. The Senate floor is the only forum left.

The offset is a policy choice. Veterans’ compensation is exempt from pay-as-you-go sequestration under 2 U.S.C. § 905. The remaining budget rules are waivable, and the House proved it by waiving all points of order against this very bill. Congress cannot suspend its own budget rules to pass the package while claiming those rules forced it to restrict future veterans’ ratings for tinnitus and sleep apnea. Both propositions cannot be true.

The bill’s own supporters concede the point. The twenty organizations endorsing this legislation state in their own letter that, ideally, Congress would act without offsets from future disability compensation, that the Star Act would be funded through the defense authorizing committees, and that pay-as-you-go rules would be waived for these earned benefits. They also warn that if the Department implements similar rating-schedule changes administratively, the projected savings revert to the Treasury and Section 108 purchases nothing.

The letter asks the Committee to strike Section 108 on the Senate floor or remove its restrictions on future tinnitus and sleep apnea evaluations; to fund the Star Act through the defense authorizing committees; to waive the pay-as-you-go point of order if an offset is demanded, exactly as the House waived its own rules; to obtain a written statement from the Administration, before any floor vote, on whether these rating-schedule changes will proceed independently by regulation; to preserve Sections 310 and 311; and, should any form of Section 108 survive, to guarantee prospective application only, no retroactive harm, and statutory reinvestment of any scored savings in veterans’ programs.

Background on the procedural record and the financing analysis is in our earlier statement, Silence on Process Is a Position.

Take action:

Find and contact your two Senators: https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm

Contact the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee. Members: https://www.veterans.senate.gov/members

Chairman Moran: https://www.veterans.senate.gov/contact-chairman

Ranking Member Blumenthal: https://www.veterans.senate.gov/contact-ranking-member