Rep. Derrick Van Orden, Chairman of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity, opened a markup session today to consider 12 bills aimed at updating veterans’ benefits programs. The session focused on six Republican-sponsored bills that target modernization of the GI Bill, enhanced affordability for disabled veterans, and improvements to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Home Loan program.
Van Orden stated his support for many items on the agenda, emphasizing their importance in “streamlin[ing] the delivery of benefits for veterans and their families by modernizing the GI Bill program, providing additional resources and affordability to disabled veterans, and improving the VA home loan program.”
The subcommittee has requested informal cost estimates from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) for each bill under consideration. Van Orden noted that “many of these preliminary scores are only a range of potential costs because the Subcommittee has still not received official cost estimates on the bills from the Congressional Budget Office.” He also stressed that none of today’s bills include offsets needed to advance further in Congress: “If we cannot find an offset for a bill, we would not be able to consider it at a Full Committee markup. We want to make sure that we are not passing legislation out of this Subcommittee that would increase the debt and the burden on the American taxpayer.”
One proposal discussed would raise Monthly Housing Allowance (MHA) rates for On-the-Job training and apprenticeship programs. Another seeks to streamline payments for Automobile Adaptive Equipment (AAE) providers while adding oversight regarding adaptive vehicle timeliness. A separate bill aims to expand emerging technologies within VA’s VET-TEC program to help veterans access new career paths.
Van Orden acknowledged concerns about some measures and late amendments submitted before markup. He referenced comments from Ranking Member Takano at a previous hearing: “We did not receive testimony until 6 p.m. last night giving us little opportunity to review it prior to this hearing... It is inexcusable. This should never happen again. And I want to reiterate that. It will not happen again, or I will lodge an even larger protest with the chairman.”
He added there are ongoing opportunities for improvement as legislation moves forward: “The Ranking Member and I will continue to work with our colleagues on the Committee and any stakeholders that have feedback on these bills as we continue to work through the legislative process.” Van Orden expressed confidence in bipartisan cooperation within the subcommittee.
“I am proud of the non-partisan work this Subcommittee continues to do and I believe the bills that we are considering, and the manner in which we are considering them today truly reflect that process,” he said.
Van Orden concluded by recognizing Ranking Member Pappas for opening remarks.
