Honolulu-- Congressman Neil Abercrombie submitted the following statement today to the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, which is conducting hearings in Hawaii:

Senator Craig and Senator Akaka, thank you for this opportunity to discuss with you and the other distinguished members of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee my thoughts on both the current status and future of federal veterans’ programs in Hawaii.

Before going into specifics, I want to thank all of America’s veterans, and especially those in Hawaii, for their service to the nation.  When the nation called, they answered “send me.”  We all appreciate the courage and sacrifice of those who leave their friends and families behind and go to fight on our behalf.

Of course, when they get home, the Department of Veterans Affairs is responsible for providing our veterans assistance and healthcare.  As members of this Senate committee, you know how important a mission that is.  Caring for our veterans is a sacred duty, but it can also be a challenge given the size and diversity of needs within the veteran population. 

On that note, I’d like to also publicly thank the men and women of the Department of Veterans Affairs.  They work hard every day with limited resources to meet the needs of the nation’s veterans, and I don’t think they always get the credit they deserve.

I also want to commend both Senators Craig and Akaka for running the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee in a bipartisan manner.  We could use some of that spirit of working together to help our veterans in the House Veterans Affairs Committee, but seeing the two of you work so well together reminds me that accommodation and compromise are possible, and in the end, our veterans will get better service as a result.

As you know, Hawaii has more than 100,000 veterans.  In many aspects, this large population of veterans shares the same concerns that veterans around the country have about VA operations.  These concerns include improving access to VA healthcare, better and more efficient delivery of veterans’ benefits, and an overall shortfall in VA funding, particularly for VA healthcare.

I share all of those concerns.  Over the past five years I have been especially troubled by the tone the Bush Administration has unfortunately taken regarding veterans’ benefits and healthcare.  The general goal of the Department of Veterans Affairs under its current Washington leadership sometimes seems to be to minimize the amount of money spent on our veterans, and exclude as many veterans as possible from using the VA system created to take care of them.

This general trend has manifested itself in many ways, as you know as members of this committee, but let me give a few examples that have troubled me.  The first is how the Bush Administration chose to deal with the long waiting times that many veterans are experiencing trying to use or get into the VA healthcare system.  Rather than trying to improve or expand services to accommodate the increased demand, the solutions provided to Congress consisted of both shutting out certain veterans and increasing co-payments on veterans already in the system.  Of course, both of these proposals have met serious opposition in Congress, but the very fact that they were offered up as solution says a great deal.

A second example is this past year’s controversy regarding a multi-billion dollar shortfall in VA healthcare funding.  While I’m glad that the Administration finally owned up to the fact that they needed $ 1 billion more healthcare funding in 2005 and $2 billion more in 2006, it would have been better for our veterans if the Administration had simply been honest in the first place.  I just cannot understand why these shortfalls were not identified earlier in the budget process.

I am especially troubled by this trend in under-funding because of what it says for the future. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are producing thousands more future veterans every day.  Many of these troops are coming back with serious wounds, both physical and mental.  If the current VA system cannot provide a consistent level of service to today’s veteran population, how is it going to be able to handle the hundreds of thousands of new veterans entering the system over the next decade?

Overall, I would like to see a change in direction from the Bush Administration, one that lets our veterans know that they are not viewed as “wards of the state” who are simply seeking additional entitlement spending, but instead that they are valued and honored for their service.

Will improving veterans care be expensive?  Of course it will.  However, I think most Americans would be willing to provide the resources if they knew that it would help make sure that our veterans get the care and benefits they deserve and have earned.  Unfortunately, over the past

five years the Bush Administration has not even asked the American people – outside of our military – for any level of sacrifice to fund the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan, let alone the increased burden on our veterans care system caused by these conflicts.  I sincerely hope that changes, and soon.  We owe our veterans more.

Looking more at local concerns, it is clear that Hawaii faces many issues when it comes to veteran’s care, and I’m sure you have heard about these at great length during your series of hearings.  The unique characteristics of Hawaii’s geography and population distribution make delivering veterans benefits and care here especially challenging.

Rather than reiterate those same concerns, all of which are very important and need serious attention, I want to focus my testimony today on two groups of veterans with whom I have had the privilege of working with over the past few years, and on whose behalf I support legislation in the House.

The first group of veterans – many of whom live in Hawaii – are known as “Atomic Veterans” because of their participation in nuclear weapons testing and other nuclear weapon activities. 

These veterans, while small in number, are paying a large price for doing their duty and not asking questions when ordered to participate in nuclear weapons testing between 1945 and 1965.  In short, they did what they were told, and while at the time of these tests the military did not understand all of the health dangers involved, that does not absolve the military, the Congress, or the nation from providing these veterans with the appropriate care and compensation.

Today, the major barrier faced by veterans seeking care for health problems associated with their participation in these atomic activities is the “dose reconstruction” system.  This system, while well-intentioned, is simply not working.  The primary reason for that is that it relies upon service records that are either not detailed enough or not in existence to “reconstruct” how much radiation a veteran was exposed to and thus how likely it is that their health problems resulted from this service.  This is not just my opinion.  Both the Government Accountability Office and the National Academy of Sciences have studied this issue and have concluded that the current dose reconstruction methodology does not work due to a lack of appropriate records. 

The result of this dysfunctional system is that very few atomic veterans are able to get access to the VA healthcare system.  The National Academy of Sciences 2003 study showed that just 2% of veterans who went through the “dose reconstruction” review had their medical conditions validated as “service connected.”  The other 98% of the approximately 2,500 veterans who had applied for service-connected status were told “too bad.”  While not all claims will have merit, I think this approval rating is disgraceful.  It is clear to me that the current approach to evaluating

the service of atomic veterans is skewed toward denying them service-related status.  This must

change.  These “Atomic Veterans” are dying every day from diseases caused at least in part by their service in atomic tests and other nuclear-weapon related activities.  

To fix this problem I have introduced legislation to eliminate the ineffective dose-reconstruction system.  My bill, HR 2962 – The Atomic Veterans Relief Act, would still require veterans to prove that they participated in an atomic test or served in an atomic occupation area, such as Nagasaki, and that they suffer from a radiogenic disease.  That is, a disease related to exposure to ionizing radiation.  This legislation would also expand the definition of “radiation risk-activity” to include those veterans who were exposed to ionizing radiation from residual contamination at nuclear test sites, which is now widely understood to be a serious health risk.  This legislation now has 40 cosponsors, including Congressman Evans, the senior democrat on the House Veterans Affairs Committee.

I ask for your support for this much-needed legislation.  I think it is a basic issue of fairness that the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Congress must address.  I look forward to working with the committee on this issue in the future, and I will do anything you ask of me to help move this legislation forward.

The second group of veterans whose cause I strongly support is the Filipino veterans of World War II that served alongside US military forces as members of the Commonwealth Army of the Philippines and the Philippine Scouts.  As you know, thousands of these veterans who fought under our flag in World War II were denied veterans benefits and healthcare for decades.  While I appreciate the progress in 2003 toward getting this group the benefits and care it deserves, I do not believe that those incremental steps are where Congress should stop. 

I am a cosponsor of House legislation, The Filipino Veterans Equity Act, which would finally erase all the inequities that this group of brave veterans has endured.  This bill has 67 bi-partisan cosponsors in the House.  The goal of this legislation is full equity for Filipino veterans. They fought shoulder to shoulder with their American comrades in arms, suffered the same hardships, and sacrificed in the same cause.  Simple justice demands that we recognize their equal contributions with equal veterans’ benefits. 

As a member of Congress from Hawaii, I represent a large number of these veterans.  Many are now in their 70s or 80s, so time is running out for the United States government to finally fulfill the promises it made to these veterans during World War II.  I look forward to working with your committee in the future to make this legislation a reality.

I want to again thank you for coming to Hawaii and holding these hearings.  I know that you have many demands on your time, as all members of Congress do, so your willingness to take the time to come and hear from Hawaii’s veterans is greatly appreciated.

-30-