Lee Terry: “The Terry amendment requests that none of the funds made available by this act, including the funds made available for…”

“The Terry amendment requests that none of the funds made available by this act, including the funds made available for the Construction and Major Projects account, be used to increase funding for any major medical facility project that is under construction as of the date of enactment of this act. A major medical facility project, as defined by section 8104 of Title 38 in the U.S. Code, is a project that involves a total expenditure of more than $10 million. This includes the cost overruns of new VA hospitals. Take the new VA Hospital in New Orleans that was originally supposed to cost $625 million, but a new GAO report shows that the cost overruns at this particular facility is $370 million, pushing that to a near- billion-dollar hospital. The Navy Times recently reported about a GAO report that clearly illustrates this problem and should greatly disturb everyone. The Government Accountability Office found that the VA Hospital construction projects in Denver, Las Vegas, New Orleans, and Orlando are, on average, experiencing delays of 35 months and cost overruns of around $366 million. This comes out to about, with the expected costs and the overruns, almost a billion dollars per hospital. My amendment is designed to stop these cost overruns.…”