John Mica: “This is a simple amendment. I get to chair a subcommittee called Transportation and Public Assets. We get to oversee, in…”

“This is a simple amendment. I get to chair a subcommittee called Transportation and Public Assets. We get to oversee, in the public assets portion, all of the various properties around the United States that are public assets that are sitting idle. For example, in some States we have many VA properties that are medical--some hospitals, some nursing homes--that are sitting idle. Some of them are vacant, and some of them are closed. In order to put them into productive use for our veterans, I have tried to craft an amendment that, of course, doesn't apply to all of the facilities. I would like to do that, but this is fairly limited. It says that we have a nursing home that has been vacated or a nursing home that is not being used, and some of them, for several years, have sat vacant. This allows the Secretary discretion, and it also sets aside a small number of funds to help bring that property into a condition so that it can be transferred to the State. You have these in Pennsylvania, Mr. Chair. You have these across the Rust Belt. We have them even in Florida. What we don't have is the authority for the VA to move forward with these properties in their transferring and get the properties into condition and make the little bits of changes in the properties to transfer them to the States. This will apply to 49 States. There are 49 States that have State VAs. Many of them run nursing homes. In my State, for example, we run seven nursing homes now.…”