Steve Stivers: “I would like to thank the gentleman for yielding, and I would like to thank my colleague, Mr. Walz, for his help as…”

“I would like to thank the gentleman for yielding, and I would like to thank my colleague, Mr. Walz, for his help as we've tried to enact the Hire at Home Act, which has been rolled into this bill. The legislation came from a roundtable in my district of veterans last fall. And as veterans return home today with military training they've received, that training is not recognized by civilian authorities and States, and therefore they're forced to go through redundant training to do the job they were doing in the military. However, if somebody can do a job while serving in a war zone, they can certainly do that same job at home in a safe environment. With so many veterans returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan, we need to make sure we do everything we can to help get them back to work. It's shameful that the unemployment rate among post-9/11 veterans is 12.7 percent, according to a recent report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That's why we introduced the Hire at Home Act. It will help, as Representative Walz said, remove barriers in front of these soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines and get them the civilian certifications they need to get them to work as soon as they get home. It forces States to do this by ensuring that in order to receive certain workforce development grants, they have to streamline these certifications.…”