I want to first just mention the elephant in the room, which is the potential hurdles and obstacles to approval of this budget in the potential gridlock and paralysis in the budget process overall.

If we fail to act now, the magnitude of the problem will continue to compound.

I hope we can have your continuing oversight here.

This hearing is vitally important to Connecticut and our country, particularly so because the Magnuson-Stevens Act can be effective only if the latest science is brought to bear on decisions that are made and only if the people who are…

In addition to the other challenges that the VA has in recruiting more professionals, female professionals to deal with women's health care issues.

VA's consensus proposal was put forward as a discussion draft by Ranking Member Blumenthal.

I want to thank them for remaining here. It is not always the case, as you know, that the head of an agency stays to hear panels afterward.

Focusing for the moment on delivery of services to women veterans, there is a request for $515.4 million for gender-specific health care for women and nearly $5.3 million in total care for women, which recognizes the need to consider the…

And the fishing opportunities, to use your euphemism, which means to me there are fish to be caught, they are being thrown overboard, they are hitting the water dead, they are wasted, and fishermen are deprived of their livelihoods and…

That point about women's child care is very, very important.

the goals of conserving and rebuilding fish populations and promoting the growth of the fishing industry are two goals that should be and are compatible, not mutually exclusive.

the current VA appeals process is broken, and is providing Veterans a frustrating experience.

I think there has been progress, but you know, mental health care--the more we study it, the more we try and refine it, the more we find out about it.

Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Dan Coats (R-IN) introduced S. 2479, the Expanding Access to Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs Act.

I have sought to have those discharges reviewed.

I advocated for a uniform formulary for improved transition from DOD care to the VA as servicemembers transition out of Active service.

But you would agree with me that the system right now has really run amuck and needs to be set right.

These decisions ought to be fact-based and founded in good science, but clearly in the real world what is happening is unacceptable because fishermen are losing livelihoods and people are losing food that otherwise could be extraordinarily…

I am so honored to follow my great friend and very eloquent advocate from Massachusetts, Senator Markey, who said much more powerfully than I can our reasons for opposing Dr. Robert Califf as the nominee for the head of the FDA. To say it…

the system that gives primary say in determining the catch numbers permissible to the Mid-Atlantic Council and management organization is not only inequitable but ineffective.

As you know, Active Duty members of the military who may suffer emotional or mental diseases, some of them emanating from combat, post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injury, sometimes are given bad conduct discharges or less than…

In other words, increase the catch quotas.

these fishermen are throwing overboard tons of fish that are dead when they hit the water.

On the issue of prescription drugs, particularly pain killers and opioids, is there an ongoing danger in the military as, frankly, there is in the civilian world of over-prescription and over-reliance on pain killers?

I led a letter to President Obama, with a number of my colleagues, calling for immediate enforcement of sanctions against Iran.