Providing for Concurrence by House with Amendments in Senate Amendment to H.R. 797, Dr. James Allen Veteran Vision Equity Act of 2007

PROVIDING FOR CONCURRENCE BY HOUSE WITH AMENDMENTS IN SENATE AMENDMENT TO H.R. 797, DR. JAMES ALLEN VETERAN VISION EQUITY ACT OF 2007 -- (House of Representatives - December 11, 2007)

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Mr. BOOZMAN. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 797 is a very, very good bill, and I appreciate Ms. Baldwin working so hard. I think we could actually use the adjective tirelessly on this one, in order to bring it forward.

It really has two provisions that I'm especially pleased to support. First, I'm pleased that this bill will help veterans with visual disabilities. To put this in perspective, VA compensates about 13,000 veterans for blindness in one eye.

DOD statistics show that about 1,169 servicemembers have experienced eye injuries in Iraq, and VA states about 111 of those are now receiving compensation. And let us not forget that with the number of traumatic brain injury casualties, and those that have gone undiagnosed, many of them will experience visual impairment as a result of those injuries. Thanks to Ms. Baldwin's work in bringing this forward, the change in this law will make sure that all of these individuals will be treated fairly.

I am also greatly pleased that we have been able to fund reinstatement of the GI Bill work-study provisions that expired last June. These additional work-study jobs will benefit both the veteran student and veterans at large by increasing the resources available to assist VA employees in accomplishing their mission.

Mr. Speaker, this is a very good bill and I urge my colleagues to support it. I also want to thank Mr. Filner and his staff for, again, bringing this forward, along with Mr. Buyer, the ranking member; and the staff over here. Again, this is a very good bill, and I urge support of its passage with my colleagues.

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