Jon Tester

One of your top priorities is adding hypertension to, you know, this list, Agent Orange.

We hold these hearings for two reasons: to gather information for the Committee members and to help educate the VA that they might take action before Congress does.

When we promise to train and equip our servicemembers so that they are ready for war we also promised to care for them as veterans after they return home.

I want to thank you for your service. I want to thank you for your testimony.

When our service men and women are subjected to toxins and environmental hazard, our sense of duty to them must be heightened.

As a government, we did not learn our lesson after Vietnam.

But the bottom line is this is a big issue, and it costs a lot of money, but the fact is that taking care of our veterans is a cost of war.

Although Congress established a presumptive process and diseases for Vietnam veterans exposed to Agent Orange in 1991, it is now over 40 years... and they are still fighting for inclusion of presumptive diseases.

The DoD has a moral imperative as well as a military one.

We have wasted literally decades deliberating over science and wrestling with bureaucratic red tape.

The Palomares nuclear accident caused untold suffering and pain to men and women in uniform sent to the clean-up without proper protection and guidance.

Our promise remains the same--fight for us and we will fight for you.

I don't think we are going to have the economy that is going to work for all parts of this country.

Agriculture got pounded because of the trade wars of the previous Administration.

Our system should work for everybody that is trying to invest in their future.

I do not feel bad for those who have lost money trying to game the market.

Investing in companies in the stock market should not be something that can only be gamed by the wealthy.

I think that is a dangerous ideology as we think about the future for our country.

I cannot think of a worse, quite frankly, inappropriate transaction to take place, when you are taking advantage of the people who have sacrificed and served this country.

I appreciate that conversation.

Very good. Well, thank you.

I could not agree with you more. Tailoring it to local market needs is the key here, and then I think it is really what makes this program so really effective.

Our staffs are going to get together and we are going to figure out what kind of language it needs to give them the temporary authority in this particular case of a pandemic.

We have to get this right.

All veterans must have equitable access to getting this vaccine.