Political Quotes

“Mr. President, today, I am pleased to be joined by my colleague from West Virginia, Senator Joe Manchin, in introducing the Advancing Uniform Transportation Opportunities for Veterans Act. Our bill, known as the AUTO Act, would lessen the financial burden for severely disabled veterans who require special adaptive equipment to drive a motor vehicle by increasing the access to the Department of Veterans Affairs automobile grant program. The VA is currently authorized to provide eligible veterans with a one-time grant of approximately $21,400 to be used to purchase a new or used automobile and necessary adaptive equipment, such as specialized pedals or switches. This grant is often used together with the VA special adaptive equipment grants, which help veterans purchase adaptive equipment, such as powered lifts, for an existing automobile or van to make it safe for a veteran's use. Although veterans can receive multiple special adaptive equipment grants over the course of their lives, they are, for some reason, limited to a single grant for the vehicle. The current limitation fails to take into account that a disabled veteran will need more than one vehicle in his or her lifetime. In fact, the Department of Transportation reports that the average useful life of a vehicle is 11.5 years, and a vehicle that has been modified structurally tends to have a shorter useful life.…”