Congress Passes Jobs for Veterans Act, Terrorism Preparedness, Disability Compensation, Cost of Living Adjustment

By Patrick Pellerin
Legislative Director

By the end of the 107th Congress, legislation was signed into law that enhances job-training programs for veterans, increases disability compensation, expands education and other benefits, closes the gap for a small number of veterans who lose disability pay when receiving retirement benefits, aids veterans disabled by acts of terrorism and helps homeless veterans. Still pending for next year are several key issues, including a tax-fairness bill and approval of the proposed educational center at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

As a result of the recent elections, Republicans gained seats in the House, widening their majority, and captured enough seats in the Senate to become the majority party in that legislative body. Later in this article we will take a quick look at the impact these changes will have on veterans as well as on every American.

Jobs for Veterans Act

This new law reforms an outdated system and enhances current job-training programs for veterans. The legislation provides priority of service to veterans in any job-training program funded in whole or part by the Department of Labor. The law also requires the Assistant Secretary of Labor for Veterans’ Employment and Training to establish and implement a comprehensive performance accountability system, measuring the performance of veterans’ employment and training staff that is funded through a $200 million grant to the states.

The sponsor of the bill, Congressman Mike Simpson of Idaho, who is Chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee on Benefits, said the bill “will help veterans infuse the labor market and use their skills to better America’s workforce.”

The new law requires the Secretary of Labor to establish a one-stop job-training and placement service for military personnel and veterans via the Internet. It will include a Job Service office with hyperlinks to each state, job and job-training listings, benefits information, access to apprenticeship information and case- management services. The new law also creates a program of financial and nonfinancial incentives to recognize exemplary work of Job Service staff members in placing veterans in employment.

Veterans Department Terrorism Preparedness Law

This new law is designed to help future veterans by authorizing $100 million in new federal funding, over five years, to develop means to protect and treat victims of biological, chemical, radiological and explosive weapons of mass destruction.

According to House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Chris Smith, R-N.J., as a result of the new law, VA will establish four national medical preparedness centers to research and develop new methods for detecting, diagnosing, vaccinating and treating potential victims injured by biological, chemical, radiological or other explosive weapons. The emergency preparedness centers also will create state-of-the-art laboratories to help local health authorities detect the presence of dangerous biological and chemical poisons.

Other provisions include requiring the new centers to provide education, training and advice to VA and community health care professionals about how to respond to chemical, biological and radiological emergencies, and requiring the centers to provide rapid-response laboratory assistance to local health care and law enforcement authorities in the event of a terrorist threat or other national emergency.

Veterans Compensation Rate Amendments

This law provides a 2.6 percent cost-of-living increase for disability compensation payments for 2.3 million disabled veterans and their families. For 100 percent disabled veterans, the average COLA increase would be $738 a year, according to House Rep. Smith.

Defense Authorization Bill

In an effort to find a compromise position, the President has signed the Defense Authorization Bill that authorizes both disability and retirement payments to military retirees whose disability resulted from a combat injury or wound for which they were awarded a Purple Heart. In addition, the bill authorized new payments to military retirees whose 60 percent or greater disability resulted from combat-related activities as determined by criteria set by the Secretary of Defense.

The payments the Department of Defense would be authorized to make could range from $103 to $2,160. In addition, there would be a special stipend ranging from $50 to $300 a month to approximately 33,000 severely disabled military retirees with a VA rating of 60 percent or higher.

VRNA is on record as supporting both disability and retirement pay for all disabled veterans, not just the ones approved under this bill. While the new law will help some 35,000 veterans, it falls far short of helping the nation’s 550,000 veterans who suffered service-connected disabilities. We expect this to be one of the issues that comes up again in the next Congress.

In addition to the disability payment section, the new law does a number of things for active duty personnel, including an across-the-board 4.1 percent pay increase, incentive pay for personnel serving in assignments involving difficult working conditions or undesirable overseas locations, and extending the benefits under the Montgomery GI Bill for Reserves from 10 years after becoming eligible, to 14 years. The law also reformed a number of areas in the TRICARE program, impacting dependents of service personnel in remote locations, improving the claims process and assisting those over age 65 by requiring that Medicare-approved health care providers be treated as approved TRICARE providers for new and existing TRICARE contracts.

Several personnel facts released when the bill was signed into law:

• The active-duty military includes about 1.4 million personnel, including 200,000 women, 270,000 African-Americans and nearly 110,000 Hispanics.

• More than half of active-duty enlisted personnel and 70 percent of active-duty officers are married.

• And, about 97 percent of the officer corps have college degrees; and about 45 percent hold advanced degrees.

Homeless Veterans Comprehensive Assistance Act

A bill actively supported by VRNA, this new law aids homeless veterans in a number of ways, including: adding 2,000 additional Section 8 HUD Low-Income Housing Vouchers for homeless veterans; creating 10 new centers for these veterans; earmarking $10 million for medical care for homeless veterans with special needs; and requiring the VA to provide mental health programs wherever primary care is provided.

This bill, which had strong bi-partisan support in both the House and Senate, was passed in good measure through the hard work of the late Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., who died in a plane crash during the campaign. Chairman Smith also was a strong advocate of the legislation, as was former Miss America Heather French Henry. VRNA was present at the kick-off press conference with Sen. Wellstone, Rep. Smith and Ms. Henry when the legislation was introduced.

Veterans Education and Benefits Expansion Act

This new law authorizes more than $ 3.1 billion over five years, to expand and increase educational, housing, burial and disability benefits. Among other things, this new law increases the Montgomery GI Bill (MGIB) College Education Benefit by a record 46 percent over two years, increasing the lifetime college benefit for qualified veterans from $24,192 to $35,460.

The new law also restores lost MGIB benefits for Reservists and National Guard members called to active duty, increases the home loan guaranty program to $60,000 and increases burial and funeral benefits.

Effective in March 2002, this law also expands and further clarifies the definition of undiagnosed illness under the current Gulf War undiagnosed illness law to include medically unexplained, chronic, multisymptom illness, such as fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome and irritable bowel syndrome. It also extends, until Sept. 30, 2011, the authority of the National Academy of Sciences to report Gulf War-related health concerns.

And, for Vietnam veterans, this law removes the 30-year limit for Agent Orange presumption for respiratory cancers (with a study to re-limit if medical and scientific evidence supports a delimited period), adds Diabetes mellitus (type 2) to the list of diseases presumed to be service-connected from exposure to herbicide agents and calls for continued review of scientific evidence about the effects of dioxin or herbicide exposure for 10 more years.

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