Political Quotes

“I want to thank Mr. Takano for yielding and for his hard work on the Veterans' Affairs Committee to bring this important milestone for Vietnam veterans to the floor today. And I also want to thank Chairman Roe for the hard work that obviously went in in terms of the markup process, the negotiations with all the different members, and to make all the pieces fit together; and your colleague, the ranking member, Mr. Walz, who, again, was a partner through that process; Mr. Valadao, who is, again, the lead sponsor as well. Again, this is a real team effort. There were 330 cosponsors to this bill, which, frankly, there are not a lot of bills that you can really say that about. Obviously, there were some impediments that we had to sort of work our way through. This was good, hard work, real legislating, that brought this measure to the floor. As has been said, back in 2001 the VA ruled against a Navy veteran, Mr. Jonathan Haas, who served on the ammunition ship USS Mount Katmai off the coast of Vietnam, in his attempt to get Agent Orange benefits using the presumption that, again, extended to folks who served on the ground forces. Again, the foot-on-the-ground rule was used by the VA to deny Mr. Haas his claim; and, again, it has acted as an obstacle ever since. In the 112th Congress, a Blue Water Vietnam Veterans Act was introduced in 2011. Didn't pass. In the 113th Congress, a similar bill was introduced, and it didn't pass.…”