Senate panel approves package of vets benefits - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

Senate panel approves package of vets benefits

The Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee approved five bills Wednesday, including an omnibus health and benefits bill, a fix to the GI Bill and a measure aimed at helping veterans find good jobs.

They also approved legislation requiring the Veterans Affairs Department to provide medical and nursing care for any veterans or family members who are ill because of contaminated water at Camp Lejeune, N.C., and a bill to allow collective bargaining by VA employees.

Four measures passed by voice vote. The collective bargaining bill, S 572, passed by an 8-7 party line vote.

The employment bill, the Hiring Heroes Act of 2011, results from a push by Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., the committee chairwoman, for a comprehensive overhaul of programs that are supposed to help separating service members find jobs.

The bill, S 951, fine-tunes current programs, orders that military transition assistance classes be mandatory for everyone leaving service, and requires follow-up after people get out to see if they have landed jobs or need more help.

Murray said the Defense Department, Labor Department and VA have myriad programs that are supposed to be helping, yet the unemployment rate for young veterans hovers around 24 percent. “I don’t want to have programs just to have programs,” she said. “I want this to really work.”

One of the key features of the bill is follow-up. For people receiving transition help in the military, or from VA or the Labor Department after getting out of the military, the bill requires follow-up six months to a year afterward. For those who do not have jobs, especially disabled veterans who have used vocational rehabilitation programs, the bill would allow them to attend the classes again for another shot at earning a marketable skill.

The omnibus bill, the Veterans Programs Improvement Act of 2011, includes provisions related to health, homeless veterans, housing, compensation, burial and construction, including some high-profile initiatives.

For example, the bill takes another stab at preventing military and veterans’ funerals from being disrupted by protesters by expanding the zone, in terms of both time and space, when disruption or disturbance is illegal. This effort results from a Supreme Court ruling that held funeral protests are constitutionally protected, even if they are offensive to the family of the deceased.

One provision of the bill, S 914, would authorize VA to provide an extra year of disability compensation for veterans who submit a fully developed claim rather than a claim that needs more work. Extra pay would result from backdating the effective day to one year before it was submitted.

Health care provisions include waiving co-payments for veterans using telehealth and telemedicine programs, prohibiting VA from preventing the use of service dogs at any VA or VA-funded facility, and expanding chiropractic services so there are at least two locations in every region offering the treatment.

Part of the bill is aimed at punishing businesses who falsely claim they are veteran-owned in order to get government contracts. A small business found to have misrepresented itself would be barred for no less than five years from contracting with VA, and debarment action must happen within 90 days if the misrepresentation was deliberate.

On housing, Servicemembers’ Civil Relief Act protections against foreclosure or seizure of property would be extended to 12 months after leaving active duty, three months longer than now provided.

The Caring for Camp Lejeune Veterans Act, S 277, is an effort by North Carolina lawmakers to get federal help for families experiencing adverse health effects from exposure to well water that was contaminated with human carcinogens. This is the latest of many bills involving a situation discovered in the mid-1980s as a result of fuel tanks that leaked into the ground water.

Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, ranking Republican on the veterans’ committee and chief sponsor of the bill, said the measure is “another shot at doing the right thing for the thousands of Navy and Marine veterans and their families who were harmed during their service to our country.”

Burr estimates 750,000 people may have been exposed to the tainted water.

The GI Bill legislation passed by the committee is aimed at protecting current private school students in seven states from a drop in tuition payments beginning Aug. 1, when VA switches to a new method of calculating payments.

The bill, S 754, would protect anyone enrolled in a private college or university Jan. 4, 2011, from receiving less in tuition and fee payments from VA for the next three years. This is similar to a House-passed bill aimed at the same issue involving students in Arizona, Michigan, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Texas.

It remains unclear whether a compromise bill will pass Congress and be signed into law before the Aug. 1 change in benefits, which could cost up to 30,000 veterans up to $9,000 a year in GI Bill help.