Guiding us with your powerful providence and showering us with undeserved mercies. You hear our prayers and speedily supply our needs. Bless today the work of our lawmakers, empowering them with unceasing awareness and openness of heart. Give them wisdom and courage to glorify you through their work. May their thoughts, words and actions be acceptable to you, for you are our rock and our redeemer. Amen. The president pro tempore please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance to the flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of america, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. The president pro tempore the democratic leader. Mr. Reid i move to proceed to calendar number 297. The president pro tempore the clerk will report. The clerk motion to proceed to calendar number 297, s. 1950, a bill to improve the provision of medical services and benefits to veterans, and for other purposes. Mr. Reid mr. Pr
Very necessary in that process. We have stopped paying the private attorneys since september for their service. We have cut their hourly rates 15 for the present. And with that, the volunteer services of those attorneys and their willingness to take the cases we would be in a terrible pitch. Weve done that to protect the public defenders that we are not able to protect them as we should. And we may be in the process of taking good attorneys out of the appointment last and even putting more pressure for representation. Some victims lives may be in jeopardy without services. I absolutely agree with you that it is a matter of lifeanddeath particularly with the suicide of the victims after Sexual Assault is catastrophic. So we are not fooling around here. We owe this to the dictum of trauma. We need to get this done. I think the witness is very much in the testimony. Thank you. Sheila jackson lee. I am pleased to recognize a distinguished member of the committee from memphis tennessee firs
James walter green, who has been nominated by the president to serve as u. S. Attorney for the middle district in louisiana. I was very pleased to recommend mr. Green to the president for his consideration. I strongly urge my colleagues to vote with me to confirm him today. He has served our country in a variety of capacities, most notably 20 years in military service. He has been involved in multiple deployments as the recipient of numerous military awards, including Defense Meritorious Service award, navymarine corps commendation medal, and the Iraq Campaign medal. Not only is he a strong patriot and Extraordinary Service to our country, but in addition, he has also served for 15 years in a variety of capacities in this office, supporting their work through republican and democratic administrations. He comes highly recommended by a broad Cross Section of individuals in my state, and im just really pleased the caliber of person that i was able to recommend, this kind of caliber, highc
Always taking advantage of that. Thanks and thanks for the opportunity to speak about the amazing young people that, as the president and ceo of student veterans of america, that i get to represent. And so to start with a little bit of background on student veterans of america or sva, started six years ago on 20 campuses because when student vets were transitioning they saw that the College Environment or higher ed was not prepared for student vets. We were older, we were much more mature. We had a different world view than just coming out of high school than say the traditional student. And so these vets met in chicago and we started on 20 campuses six years ago and today we are on more than is,000 campuses representing those 1,000 chapters with more than 400,000 student vets being serviced by our policy, our advocacy and the work we do in delivering programs. I was very fortunate to be helped by general pace and katy who is here with wall street war fighters and i had a personal sitd
Now, the chairmans opening remarks, he was correct. We are not here to analyze a poll that was taken about the va. But we are here rather to look at the investigations that have already taken place, and addressed certain deficiencies within the veterans system that no action was taken on, or at least not corrective action. In fiscal year 2013, the reported 93 of specialty primarycare appointments and 95 of Mental Health appointments were made within 14 days of the patients or providers desired date. At first glance, these numbers appear to demonstrate that veterans are receiving the care they want and when they want it. However, we know this is not the case. I think if va had asked hard questions regarding these statistics, we would not be here today discussing recent allegations surrounding many va facilities. More specifically, we are here to discuss when Senior Leadership in the department became aware that local va employees were manipulating wait times to show that veterans do not