WC Georgia News

WASHINGTON, DC – On May 17, 2023, Congressman Sanford D. Bishop, Jr. opposed the markup of the Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 Military Construction and Veterans Affairs (MilCon-VA) House Appropriations bill. It now moves to the full House Appropriations Committee for consideration.

“The bill that House Republicans approved out of subcommittee is disturbing and fails to honor the Subcommittee’s responsibility to support our veterans, servicemembers and military families. It betrays the trust of our veterans by slashing their healthcare funding and gutting billions from the Toxic Exposures Fund created by the bipartisan Honoring Our PACT Act of 2022,” said Congressman Bishop. “The bill also makes crippling cuts to military construction, family housing, and toxic chemical cleanups that will harm the quality of life of our military families. We cannot have our troops operating on bases in disrepair or worrying about their family’s wellbeing when we rely on them to defend our country.”

The FY 2024 MilCon-VA appropriations bill, as approved, would:

• renege on our commitment to veterans, only appropriating $5.5 billion for the Toxic Exposures Fund – a small fraction of the $20 billion requested by the Department of Veterans Affairs to serve veterans who have been exposed to harmful chemicals like Agent Orange, burn pits, and other toxic substances
• cut $1.3 billion from the Military Construction budget, negatively affecting recruitment, retention, and quality of life for Service Members
• slash $30 million in funding dedicated to the oversight of privatized housing, which could place military families in homes not up to standards
• eliminate $35 million from the Department of Defense Base Realignment and Closure account (BRAC) – the account dedicated to the remediation and clean-up of toxic forever chemicals, like PFAS, which can pollute groundwater and harm military installations and their surrounding communities
• transfers $4.5 billion from the Medical Facilities account to military construction outside of Medical Care, potentially stalling new VA healthcare clinics and services

Every Spring, the House Appropriations Committee’s twelve subcommittees begin preliminary markup of discretionary spending for the following fiscal year budget. After subcommittee markups, the bills move to full Committee markup, before being brought to the full U.S. House of Representatives for consideration.

Full text of the Fiscal Year 2024 Agriculture appropriations bill for the Subcommittee can be found at: https://docs.house.gov/meetings/AP/AP18/20230517/115985/BILLS-118--AP--MilCon-FY24MilconAppropriation.pdf.

Original source can be found here.