Today is historic, it really is.

It fully funds the rehabilitation of the Milk River Project which is the lifeblood for our farmers and ranchers.

The bipartisan settlement we are looking at today is the result of years of negotiations between the tribe, local elected officials, irrigators, State legislators, Federal agencies, and other stakeholders to hammer out a fair compromise.

The bill before us is a compromise for the State, the tribe, the Federal Government, dozens of local areas and groups.

As Senator Tester noted, water is life, not only for our communities, it is the lifeblood of our number one industry, agriculture.

AWP supports Making Community Care Work legislation, which is similar to the HEALTH Act in many ways.

Look, Senator Moran and myself come from places where health care is hard to find if you are in the VA.

How many veterans do we not have in the VA system that has earned that right, just because of a bad experience with a bad employee.

Senator Boozman and I have the Not Just a Number Act, to require the VA to make a more comprehensive look at veteran suicide.

The St. Mary's canal system, and we call it the Milk River Project, is critical for the Hi-Line communities and agriculture.

Right now the VA is prevented from paying veterans to receive assisted living services. This bill would help address that.

We encourage the Committee to work in a bipartisan manner to take the best parts of both bills and combine them into a comprehensive community care bill.

The federal government must honor its commitments to tribal nations.

VA's focus should remain on how veterans can receive the care they need, whether it is inside or outside of its facilities.

The simple mandates that have been placed on our electricity producers so that they have to fill their portfolios with a certain amount of renewable energy has made it difficult for them to continue to rely on the dependable baseload…

AWP is supportive of the intent of the legislation.

In your experience, have you seen that if you have got a bad employee that it does not just impact the productivity of that individual, that it actually impacts the productivity of the individuals that are working with or around that…

I think we should all agree on that--and regardless, we should be doing everything we possibly can to make sure we have a VA where veterans can get the highest quality of care they deserve.