Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2023

Floor Speech

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Mr. RYAN. Mr. Chair, I rise in support of this amendment.

I represent Ohio, and we have a number of VA clinics and facilities in rural areas across this country. One of ours is in Chillicothe, the Chillicothe VA Medical Center that this commission recommended for closure. They were saying it was not optimally located.

This is in the southern part of the State, by the Ohio River, serving all of the veterans in the southern part of Ohio. And 1,400 Ohioans are employed. The facility is over 100 years old. It serves 20,000 veterans in 17 counties.

This is insane that we think that that is a good idea; that of all the waste and abuse in the United States Government, we are going to target a rural VA facility in southern Ohio with a State that has 865,000 veterans.

I think this is a wise amendment. I support the McGovern amendment, and I urge my colleagues to support it as well.

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