Press Releases

Today, Chairman Mike Bost, (R-Ill.), the Chairman of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, delivered the following opening remarks, as prepared, at the start of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations' legislative hearing on pending legislation, including Chairman Bost's H.R. 4278, the Restore Department of Veterans Affairs Accountability Act: 

Thank you, Chairwoman Kiggans.

 

I appreciate you holding this legislative hearing and including my bill, the Restore V.A. Accountability Act.

 

Now, I have not been in Congress for as long as some folks have.

 

But I have been here long enough to know that this town has a short memory.

 

In 2017, Congress made a powerful statement when we passed the V.A. Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act.

 

Back then, Republicans had control of the House, Senate, and White House.

 

Before President Trump signed it into law, we passed that bill by unanimous consent in the Senate and with 368 yes votes in the House.

 

Congress was united on this because veterans, and the American people, were FED UP with bad employees not being held accountable at V.A.

 

They demanded that Congress act, and we did.

 

We gave the V.A. Secretary more power to remove, demote, or suspend any V.A. employee, including Senior Executive Service employees, for performance or misconduct.

 

And you know what, the law started moving the needle.

 

The 2017 Accountability Act led to a 50% increase in removal actions, which in part led to veterans’ V.A.-wide trust scores increasing from 59 percent in 2016, to 80 percent in 2020.

     

Veterans were at the core of V.A.’s mission, not bureaucrats. However, starting in 2018, administrative courts began chipping away at the law’s effectiveness, ruling contrary to Congress’s intent.

 

Congress’s intent was clear. I remember, I was there.

 

V.A. agreed and appealed a number of these decisions, but the time that V.A. was spending in court to justify their use of the disciplinary authorities in the 2017 Accountability Act was unworkable.

 

Earlier this year, V.A. announced that because of these legal headaches they would stop using the authorities in the 2017 Accountability Act altogether.  

 

Remember when I said this town has a short memory?

 

Now we are right back where we were six years ago.

 

We cannot afford to backslide and wait for the same tragedies that drove the popular, bipartisan support behind the 2017 Accountability Act to repeat themselves before we act.

 

Congress needs to RESTORE accountability at V.A.

 

My bill will make changes and improvements to the 2017 law to make Congress’s intent even clearer.

 

This will allow the Secretary to be able to remove the small percentage of employees who are hurting veterans in weeks or months, rather than years.

 

We owe it to V.A. employees and our veterans.

 

I look forward to discussing my bill with the witnesses here today.

 

With that, I yield back.