Lawmakers Question Veterans Affairs Secretary on Use of Toxic Exposures Fund

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs building is seen in Washington on July 22, 2019. Alastair Pike/AFP via Getty Images

At a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing on March 29, lawmakers continued to press Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Secretary Denis McDonough on a budget issue that is top of mind for many in Congress: how the VA plans to use a block of the money that was appropriated in the PACT Act, the landmark law passed last August that compensates veterans and their families for harm veterans incurred as a result of exposure to toxins.

The PACT Act, in which Congress wrapped the Cost of War Toxic Exposures Fund (TEF), includes $300 billion in financial compensation.

McDonough appeared at the Military Construction (MILCON) and VA subcommittee hearing, the focus of which was for the secretary to testify in support of the Biden administration’s proposed $325.1 billion budget for the VA for 2024.

Secretary of Veterans Affairs Denis McDonough speaks in Washington on Nov. 9, 2021. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Earlier in March, McDonough testified at a hearing of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs also for the purpose of arguing for and backing the White House’s VA budget. Use of PACT and TEF funds received considerable focus at this hearing as well.

As The Epoch Times reported in its coverage of the Veterans Affairs committee hearing, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle voiced concern that the VA “looked at the TEF fund as a new and massive resource from which money could be allocated to pay for broad VA medical and health care spending, rather than only for the specific purpose and group for which it’s intended—veterans harmed by exposure to toxic chemicals and their survivors.”

In comments he made at various points in the MILCON and VA subcommittee hearing, Rep. John Carter (R-Texas), acting chairman of the proceedings, said that the VA’s planned use of PACT and TEF money was inconsistent with the intent of the law.

“VA’s $20.3 billion request” from the “toxic exposure fund is not credible,” said Carter in his opening remarks. “It is contrary to VA’s promises during the consideration of the PACT Act. It shifts more than $14 billion from discretionary to mandatory spending. And this is not okay.”

“The administration is using veterans to increase spending not related to defense or the veterans programs,” he said.

Carter added, “We all want to care for veterans exposed to environmental toxins, but let’s be honest about it and its cost and its approach, and be transparent in that approach.”

Committee member Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) had a different view of the VA’s proposed use of PACT money.

“I’m pleased to see the administration using the full authority of the toxic exposures fund in its budget request, and that’s exactly how we intended the VA to use it,” said Wasserman Schultz. “Very specifically, in contrast to what the chairman just described, $20.3 billion in mandatory funding through the toxic exposures fund ensures our commitments to the PACT Act and to our veterans.”

Later in the hearing, McDonough said that the VA requests to use PACT/TEF only in a manner that “the statute allows us to do.”