Mike Levin

Trust is the life blood of community-oriented policing, and it is especially essential among marginalized groups.

The devil is always in the details on these things, but I think there is a reasonable possibility that in this Congress, next Congress, who knows.

In January 2022, the House passed with a broad bipartisan vote the G.I. Bill parity legislation for Guard and Reserve.

Can I get your commitment that you will give us a date certain or at least an estimated date certain of when we can get to hit 70, 80, 90, 100 percent?

I would like to associate myself with the chairman's request for specific timeline.

It is so important that we get this right.

Seeing systems that are decades old barely being held together, really was deeply frustrating.

I am grateful for the opportunity to work with you guys on important legislation to help our veterans.

We have to unite all these legacy systems, scores of legacy systems, bringing together activities like payments, enrollments, oversight.

This dysfunction has been really hard on VA staff, but also on student veterans, on educators, on school certifying officials.

This February, I led a letter with Senators Feinstein and Padilla urging Reclamation to further incentivize regional desalination projects by lifting the $30 million per project administrative cap.

As I think you know, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law included historic funding for Reclamation, including $250 million for desal projects similar to the provisions in my Desalination Development Act.

It is not an agreement that is going to be all that long-lived--through the end of 2026--but it is a great start.

It is a consensus-based approach, and I think that is really important.

I want to echo Ranking Member Huffman's congratulations on the Colorado River negotiations.

Let us continue that progress. Let us continue that momentum as we try to achieve functional zero veteran homelessness.

Eliminating veteran homelessness is a key objective of mine.

I just want to thank everybody for the work they do each and every day that is often overlooked. It is incredibly important, and we are grateful for it.

I would just end by saying that, as the chairman mentioned, his top priority, ending veteran suicide. Mine ending veteran homelessness.

Make no mistake, we are truly grateful for the work that you do for our veterans, our transitioning service members.

Just to be clear, we have no data to understand the effectiveness of TAP?

It is fair to say it is all over the place. Some may have consequences, some may not. Is that a fair statement?

What is the consequence for a commander that does not ensure service members under their command start TAP on time, or that all tier three service members take the two-day class?

VA's mission is to fulfill President Lincoln's promise to care for those who have served in our Nation's military.

It is key to recruitment and retention in that my service was based on my father's experience in the United States Marine Corps.