Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2024

Floor Speech

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Mr. TAKANO. Madam Chair, VA is required by law to transmit the names of the VA beneficiaries to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, which prevents them from buying a firearm, but let me make one thing abundantly clear. Under no circumstances has VA ever confiscated anyone's firearms.

Seeking mental health care from the Veterans Health Administration will not result in a veteran's firearms being taken away. VA does not have legal authority to do so. Only under a discrete set of circumstances for a very discrete population does the Veterans Health Administration report veterans to NICS.

Madam Chair, the stigma around seeking mental health care at VA is a real one. It is also a multifaceted problem we are trying to tackle. Partisan stunts like this amendment make that fight more difficult because it leads to misinformation about the fiduciary program, a program meant to protect vulnerable veterans and beneficiaries.

We had a legislative hearing on Representative Bost's bill on this topic, and it was abundantly clear that there were problems with that bill. My colleagues are attempting to go this route, through the appropriations process, which is harmful because it strips money from VA for political purposes.

Madam Chair, when we discussed this bill last week in the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, we also learned of a great deal of concern about due process, but let me be clear on this point. There are already six avenues for review and relief that beneficiaries can use to challenge VA's determinations and remove their names from the NICS list. However, those avenues are not widely used.

In fact, I would challenge the chairman to show me where there is any veteran with standing that would even take this case to the Federal court to challenge the whole process at VA.

There are six avenues of review and relief. There is due process. What is the problem that this amendment is really trying to address?

As I said in committee, Madam Chair, no one on our side of the aisle asserts that the fiduciary program is infallible. No policy or program is. However, any change to a program or policy must be evidence based and data driven.

In the case of VA's fiduciary program, a program designed to protect the most vulnerable veterans from both financial and physical harm, we must be especially careful not to put more veterans at risk.

Democrats are more than willing to have a debate on the merits of this program under those parameters, but this amendment is purely a political exercise that only seeks to put more veterans at risk by perpetuating stigma around mental health care, and it undermines the VA's efforts at suicide prevention.

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