Sanford Bishop

I was just quite surprised that the President recognized that he supports these communities that don't have the technical capacity maybe to write these competitive grants.

And we also continue to invite Congresswoman Sanford Bishop, who is running for re-election in Georgia, who has also been caught giving out scholarships inappropriately.

He, too, has behaved outrageously in response to these scholarships that were awarded to people who worked with his wife.

Jack Murtha was a great man, and he, indeed, left indelible footprints. He left footprints on his beloved district in Pennsylvania with all of the projects and all of the things that he did for his constituents there over the 36 years of…

Yes. VA and DoD are on target to meet the September 30, 2009, 'full interoperability' target mandated by the FY 2008 National Defense Authorization Act, Section 1635.

And I hope that you will remember always the importance of this legislative prerogative. And it is not just a prerogative. It is a requirement.

I think we need to be real careful here, but I also think we need to use this as an incentive with the leadership to remind them, relative to these most important Americans, the men and women who put themselves in harm's way on our behalf…

So you make a great point, but just because the Congress has not done its job funding programs in a timely manner doesn't mean you have to go and change the constitutional process of annual oversight and appropriations from the legislative…

Regarding utilization of small and disadvantaged businesses, I would be interested in hearing what is happening at Moody and what is happening overall in the Air Force there.

We are so badly undercapitalized, in terms of hospital modernization, in DoD.

If we were to work closely and cooperatively with the department, I am sure that we could formulate some workable criteria.

Yes. I understand from the local folks that there are local contractors participating as subs.

Thank you very much. Welcome, Generals. I am particularly interested in Moody Air Force Base.

Mr. Chairman, the particular law that was cited does have some parameters in terms of the number of personnel that are added to extend the size of the bases.

It seems to me that the Pentagon's approach is then, you know what? That is the community's responsibility.

But (b)(2) says community impact assistance or special impact assistance is not otherwise available, meaning they can't pay.

This is a big problem not just for our area, but for a number of areas across the country.

I believe the law is found at 10 U.S.C. 2391(b)(2) for community impact assistance.

We will revisit that, sir, because there are a number of communities across the country that are impacted.

The authority is there. In fact, it has been done in, with respect to Kings Bay in the fiscal year 1991.

I am still concerned about BRAC and the impact that it has on our communities living at Fort Sill, Fort Bliss, Fort Bragg, Fort Lewis, and, of course, Fort Benning that I represent.

He thinks that something should be done about the fact that there is a quota on these case workers.

I promised him, if I ran into you all, I was going to talk to you about this, so I will.

I would like to, again, thank all the members of this subcommittee on both sides of the aisle for our work over the past 2 years.

It will mean fewer veterans will be homeless, and I know we all long for the day where there is not one homeless veteran on any street of any city in America.