Neal Dunn

I hope that is a good thing; I hope the reason for that is it is all good news.

The overarching goal of the MISSION Act is to increase access to care in the VA medical centers and clinics.

The MISSION Act is a landmark piece of legislation, as the chairwoman pointed out.

The VFW supports requiring VA to enforce compliance with VHA Directive 1330.01.

The VA Committee was the single most productive bill-wise Committee in the congress, in the last session of congress.

Working with Ms. Brownley on a bipartisan basis, we should be able to get something accomplished.

I think you see the interest level in veterans' affairs, you know, throughout the congress and the administration.

We have cured 100,000 veterans of Hepatitis-C. That is amazing. That is just amazing.

100,000 veterans cured of Hepatitis C. Never did I think I would see that in my lifetime.

One concrete way for this Committee to follow that call would be debating the Improve Act without any unnecessary delay.

I certainly hope that your staff provided you copies of those letters.

It would save lives, and it is worthy of this Subcommittee's time and attention.

The Improve Act is bipartisan legislation, it is sponsored by Congressman Bergman and Congresswoman Houlahan.

I think it runs somewhat counter to the past practices of this Subcommittee.

I would like to say I have three areas of regret and a little disappointment here, and that is this is the second legislative hearing that this Subcommittee has held in Congress and both of the agendas of those hearings were set entirely…

This bill is cosponsored by 21 of our colleagues, including Committee members Kathleen Rice, Chris Pappas, Greg Steube and Elaine Luria.

I challenge and plead with my colleagues on this great bipartisan Committee to accomplish what is now possible: efficiently ensuring that every veteran in America has access to a peer to peer support model that works to save their lives…

This has been my first ever Members Hearing like this. It is a--I know it is not a common forum, but it is a great forum for us to actually hear from our Members.

We do need to bring it back up and see if we can push it over to the Senate.

I promise to work with you to address that as rapidly as possible.

It is amazing that we have to do that sometimes, but, you know, that is exactly what we are here for.

You are shining a light on a large problem, and you are also helping fix the problem, and I thank you for that.

We do have more drugs floating around in the VA system than should be. It is partly over-prescribing, but it is also partly our fault in the system.

I know USDA has made good progress in implementing these provisions. I look forward to hearing about that progress from Under Secretary Ibach today.

And as we know, over the last several years, we have continued to hear reports of fraudulent imports of organic products coming to the U.S. undercutting our domestic producers and creating some distrust.