WASHINGTON — Pennsylvania’s U.S. senators split on a “once in a generation” Veteran’s Administration spending bill aimed at armed services members who have developed various diseases after exposure to hazardous conditions, including toxic fumes from open burn pits in Afghanistan and Iraq and radiation in the Pacific.



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Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., joined a handful of fellow party members in opposing the legislation that overwhelmingly passed the upper chamber Thursday in an 84-14 vote. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., voted in favor.

The legislation, which would increase VA spending by hundreds of billions, aims to expand eligibility to veterans diagnosed with certain cancers, respiratory diseases and other conditions after serving in various locations and operations from Iraq to Vietnam to the Enewetak Atoll.

The proposal, titled the Honoring Our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics, or PACT Act, is a “seismic shift” in the way potentially exposed veterans can seek health care, said Shane Liermann, deputy legislative director for the Disabled Veterans of America.


John C. Burns, a retired Army colonel, is a Waynesburg native who served nearly 28 years in the Army, 25 as a helicopter pilot. He was seriously injured in Iraq in 2004 and suffered injuries both physical and emotional. He recently spoke at the annual dinner of the Mental Health of America of Southwestern Pennsylvania in Greensburg.
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The bill also establishes requirements for the agency to study a number of other exposures and trends. These include toxic exposures and mental health outcomes, veteran health trends since 9/11, and possible exposures to jet fuel and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, a class of thousands of manmade so-called “forever chemicals” such as chemicals found in fire fighting foam.

In addition to also requiring updates to the VA’s burn pit information, the bill also would require health registries and studies for veterans exposed to herbicide agents, like Agent Orange, in the Panama Canal Zone, for those exposed to radiation and airborne toxins at Fort McClellan, Ala., and for those who cleaned up radioactive sites related to the Manhattan Project.

“This is often referred to as a once in a generation kind of bill,” Mr. Liermann said. “It really is because it's even larger than the Agent Orange Act of 1991, which at that time, was one of the largest pieces of toxic exposure legislation that was being considered.”

The act, which was amended by the Senate and will need final U.S. House approval before heading to President Joe Biden’s desk, will cost hundreds of billions of dollars, according to the Congressional Budget Office estimate.

An analysis by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget projects that the proposal will add between $277 billion to $667 billion to the federal deficit, depending on a few factors.

One of the sticking points for Mr. Toomey is that the bill reclassifies up to $390 billion in VA discretionary spending as mandatory spending, “which would put it on autopilot and allow it to escape scrutiny during the annual appropriations process,” according to the committee.

Mr. Toomey also points to the agency’s existing process for veterans to receive benefits after serving in hazardous conditions.


Rep. Mark Takano, D-Calif., is joined by fellow lawmakers and veterans advocates on Wednesday for a news conference on the Honoring our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics (PACT) Act of 2021, at the U.S. Capitol.
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“America’s veterans suffering from illness and disability due to burn pit exposure and other toxins should receive health care and benefits,” he said in a statement Thursday. “The Department of Veterans Affairs already has the authority to ensure veterans receive this care where the evidence has established a connection to their service. Instead, the PACT Act goes far beyond, substituting Congress’ political judgment in place of available evidence and including unnecessary changes to longstanding budget rules to enable hundreds of billions in additional spending on unrelated purposes.”

Last August, the VA began to process claims for veterans suffering from asthma, rhinitis and sinusitis who served beginning in 1990 and in 2001 in various Middle East, Southwest Asia and African locations. This was based on the presumption that they could have been affected by open burn pits where any number of substances including paint, chemicals, human waste, plastics and munitions were burned.

In April, the agency added nine rare respiratory cancers to the list of illnesses presumed to be caused by air pollution exposure, namely fine particulate matter.

The VA has run a burn pit registry since 2014 to track the health of those who served in operations Desert Storm/Desert Shield, New Dawn, or Iraqi Freedom/Enduring Freedom.

The Disabled American Veterans organization estimates that 3.5 million service members were exposed to burn pits. The organization does not have an estimate for how many have been affected by disease after the fact.

Mr. Liermann said the current eligibility requirements are not enough.

“Those nine rare cancers that were added earlier this year are exceptionally rare cancers and [are] probably not going to impact the largest amount of veterans,” Mr. Liermann said.

The bill will expand qualifying diseases and conditions across generations of veterans, including adding hypertension for those who served in Vietnam.

“We should consider any conditions that are related to toxic exposures, whether it's healthcare eligibility or presumptive diseases, as a cost of war,” Mr. Liermann said. “Nobody was concerned about the cost of sending us to war and put us in harm's way. So why is there concern now about cost and funding?”

The White House released a statement Thursday from Mr. Biden, whose son, an Iraq war veteran, died of brain cancer in 2015.

“This bill will provide expanded access to health care and disability benefits for veterans harmed by certain toxic exposures, whether in the jungles of Vietnam or the mountains of Afghanistan,” Mr. Biden said. “It will also let the Department of Veterans Affairs move more quickly and comprehensively in the future to determine if illnesses are related to military service, and it will offer critical support to survivors who were harmed by exposures, including from water contamination at Camp LeJeune. ... Above all, this legislation makes good on our sacred obligation to care for veterans, their families, caregivers, and survivors.”

Mr. Biden urged the House to quickly act. House members initially passed a version in March.

Mr. Casey praised the bill as “historic.”

““We will never be able to fully repay our servicemembers and their families for their sacrifice, but we can, and we must, take care of them now,” he said.

Among the Senate Republicans who voted no: Richard Burr, of N.C., Mike Crapo, of Idaho, James Lankford, of Okla., Mike Lee, of Utah, Cynthia Lummis, of Wyo., Rand Paul, of Ky., James Risch, of Idaho, Mitt Romeny, of Utah, Mike Rounds, of S.D., Richard Shelby, of Ala., John Thune, of S.D., Thom Tillis, of N.C., and Tommy Tuberville, of Ala.

Mr. Tillis, a member of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, expressed in comments last month to Kaiser Health News that expanding eligibility would increase a backlog of veteran care from 220,000 to 2.5 million.

link: https://www.post-gazette.com/n...ct-act-senate-casey-

The VA makes sense for battlefield injuries/prosthetics, etc.

Otherwise, normal healthcare providers and insurance makes sense.

Not saying the military shouldn’t pay for it, but there’s no reason for dedicated facilities for veteran respiratory issues, etc.

Much of the work at least on the compensatory side will be contracted out to the community. The VA is the largest health care system in the country and has quite a few outpatient clinics in addition to hospitals.

Good for Toomey. Let's not throw more good money after bad at one of the biggest wastes of taxpayer dollars in this country that is VA Healthcare.

All of the hospitals and clinics should be turned into psychiatric facilities and every retiree and those with service connected disabilities should receive a card that they can use at any healthcare provider.

We'd save a ton of money and the vets would get better care. Win win.