I would like to thank Ranking Member John Boozman for inviting us here today as we conduct this official hearing in his home state.  Under the leadership of then Chairman Boozman, we conducted a field hearing in Rogers, Arkansas which provided the Subcommittee the opportunity to receive testimony from constituents affected by the Transition Assistance Program.  As we continue to work together to help our nation’s veterans, I would also like to thank Ranking Member Boozman for his continued strong bi-partisan support of our nations veterans.

I look forward to hearing from our guest panelists whose testimony will focus on employment and reemployment rights for service members and veterans.  As many of you know, the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) and Service Civil Relief Act (SCRA) were both enacted into law to provide our activated service members with protections while serving one’s country.

In the past, we have heard stories and anecdotal evidence from returning servicemembers and veterans as they have faced discrimination as a result of their service to our nation.  While violations of these rights by employers may at times be intentional, some of these violations have also been unintentional because there are many employers that do not understand USERRA and SCRA rights.  Regardless, whether these violations are intentional or unintentional veterans rights should be protected at all times.

The Subcommittee has held hearings on these important laws and recently passed H.R. 6225, the Improving SCRA and USERRA Protections Act of 2008 in the House of Representatives.  If signed into law, this legislation would:

• Ensure that equitable relief is available to all USERRA victims when appropriate,
• Protect the student servicemember by capping interest at six percent during deployments, require institutes of higher learning to refund tuition and fees for unearned credit, and in addition, guarantee our servicemembers a place when they return to school,
• Provide a servicemember 13 months to begin paying their student loans after an activation should they decide not to return to school immediately,
• Amend SCRA to cover service contracts to allow our men and women in uniform with deployment orders to more easily terminate or suspend their service contracts without fee or penalty, and
• Amend SCRA to allow a military spouse to claim the same state as the servicemember in regards to state and property taxes, and voter registration.

Furthermore, the Committee Chairman Bob Filner introduced H.R. 4883 to amend SCRA to provide for a limitation on the sale, foreclosure, or seizure of property owned by a servicemember during the one-year period following the servicemember's period of military service.

Unfortunately, for many of our servicemembers returning from deployments find themselves in a predicament where existing laws might not be sufficient to protect them, laws are not being properly enforced or existing laws need to be updated to meet the needs of today’s servicemembers.  I look upon today’s hearing as an opportunity to gather more insight into these concerns.

I look forward to working with Ranking Member Boozman and the other Members of the Subcommittee as we continue to work diligently to provide the necessary safeguards to protect our servicemembers and veterans to return to civilian life.