Elaine Luria

The need for bold action is now.

Subsequently, the Senate passed H.R. 299 unanimously and on June 25th, the entire veterans community celebrated after President Trump signed H.R. 299 (P.L. 116-23), into law.

We thank you, Ranking Member Bost and all members of the subcommittee for your collective efforts in getting H.R. 299, the Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Act of 2019, unanimously passed through the House in May.

I just wanted to make sure that if anybody is watching this hearing and they did serve on a submarine, it is not being excluded.

These veterans have waited for decades to get these benefits.

A requirement for a different form or a requirement for you to be tracking them differently so putting the tracking burden on the veteran rather than you to just say this goes in this pile rather than this pile?

I would like to see that as soon as possible.

Basically you are putting it back in the veteran's lap because they submitted the wrong form and they do not know any better?

Are you telling me that the Appeals Modernization Act (AMA) tells exactly which form, number, version, series, date?

They should be receiving a letter in the mail.

Disappointingly, the Under Secretary declined to attend and did not give a reason for his inability to attend.

Our Vietnam era veterans waited for too long for the VA and for Congress to provide the critical disability and health benefits that are due to them as a result of Agent Orange exposure.

Do we really need to quibble over whether they are using an old form or a new form or having them resubmit forms multiple times.

Because I certainly know that a ship navigating within 12 miles of land takes a position report more than 3 times a day.

A veteran will have to submit a new claim under----

Caring for veterans is a top priority of this subcommittee and today we are here to ensure that Blue Water veterans receive the benefits and care that they are entitled to under the law.

I introduced a bill, H.R. 2481 which was incorporated in the Secure Act which passed almost unanimously in the House

I just truly don't feel like this is a great investment as a taxpayer, $13 billion in a ship that is going to deploy 6 years past its original design timeline.

And my last question is, and maybe Admiral Moore since you have a lot of history with this program going back to 2011 as PEO Carriers, when was the ship originally planned to deploy when construction started?

So, in that 700 or so launches and recoveries, did we meet the operational design requirements for successful launches and recoveries, or I believe there was a higher than anticipated failure rate during that first set of testing, and what…

Okay, so it is going to deploy on time? What is on time? It should have already deployed by now, right?

Right, but that only goes from the flight deck to the hangar bay. You are still not putting anything in or out of the magazines.

So, is there an actual schedule?

Well, then why do we have six carriers sitting in Norfolk that can't deploy?

So, we were supposed to, by OFRP, develop a new surge capability, but that doesn't seem to be the case...