Is it not true that you have justified the closing of this facility based on more veterans seeking services in Rapid City?

I told you I would come back with the whole delegation and we did.

I wanted to follow up with President Brewer. I wanted you to speak a little bit about the veterans that we have currently living on Pine Ridge.

I have been very troubled by the VA's disregard of stakeholder grievances.

But I will tell you that I have been going through this for the last 2 and a half years with the Hot Springs community and with you, and the entire time the Pine Ridge reservation and the Oglala Tribe have told us that they believe they…

And you followed that process here in Hot Springs at this facility within the last several years.

But you talked about----

I am concerned specifically about how you evaluated that the Hot Springs facility was the highest cost operating facility within VISN 23.

However, no single law by itself will create the large scale cultural and structural reform that is truly needed in our nation's second largest bureaucracy.

So at this point, I do not care if you are wrong. I really do not care if you are wrong.

You cannot remember what your original proposal of moving the facility to Rapid City was, how much that would cost moving care services to Rapid City, putting clinics in.

I was very disappointed to see that the Black Hills Health Care System had considerably lower marks than other hospitals that were in the area and the national average.

I believe that the true potential of this hospital has not been reached and that the services that our veterans deserve must return to Hot Springs immediately.

So ensuring that this facility is able to continue serving the men and women who have worn America's uniform is on my top priorities.

So who has been fired?

How many veterans do you say you service on Pine Ridge?

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander), the Senator from Mississippi (Mr. Cochran), the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cornyn), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Roberts), the Senator from South…

[r]eplacing NTIA's role with another governmental organization would be disastrous and we would vigorously oppose such a plan.