Webb: Delay Agent Orange Claims, Stop Bigger Pay Raises

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Webb: Delay Agent Orange Claims, Stop Bigger Pay Raises

June 5, 2010 posted by Bob Higgins

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* By Tom Philpott Kitsap Sun *

Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.), chief architect of the pricey Post-9/11 GI Bill education benefit for veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan war era, could become a new champion, for taxpayers, against what he perceives as excess spending on military pay and on a new wave of Agent Orange claims.

Webb, a former Navy secretary and decorated Vietnam War veteran, risked the anger of thousands of veterans from that war when he won Senate approval last week of an amendment to block, at least temporarily, the Department of Veterans Affairs from paying new disability claims on three prominent diseases presumed linked to wartime herbicide exposure.

As many as 86,000 Vietnam veterans with ischemic heart disease, Parkinson’s disease or B-cell leukemia are awaiting a final VA regulation to receive disability compensation based on a decision last fall by VA Secretary Eric Shinseki of evidence linking these diseases with exposure to deadly defoliant used during the war. Many more vets could file first-time claims.

VA officials not only have published interim regulations already but, for months, have been encouraging veterans stricken with these diseases, or their surviving spouses, to file new claims or re-file claims as soon as possible because benefits would be paid back to claim filing dates.

But Webb proposed, and senators accepted May 27, an amendment to the fiscal 2010 war supplemental funding bill (HR 4899) to limit spending on claims filed for these new presumptive Agent Orange diseases for 60 days. That will allow Congress time to study the VA decision and examine more closely the link found between these diseases and herbicide exposure.

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/06...er-pay-raises/

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Immediately after the vote, Webb began a trip to Asia and could not be reached for comment. He told Congressional Quarterly, however, that he wants Shinseki to explain his reasons for expanding last October the list of presumptive diseases tied to Agent Orange. Congress, he said, needs to hold VA to “an accountable standard” for such claims.

The VA draft regulation, published in March, projected costs for Agent Orange claims will jump by $13.6 billion in a year and by $42.2 billion over 10 years. By comparison, the projected 10-year cost of new Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits that Webb pushed into law is $52 billion.

Webb first became involved in Agent Orange issues while staff director of the House Armed Services Committee in the late 1970s. He has expressed concern to staff and fellow senators over the expanding list of diseases presumed caused by defoliants in Vietnam. The Agent Orange Act of 1991 makes veterans who suffer from these presumptive diseases eligible for compensation even if they spent only a day in country.

What worries Webb, said one Capitol Hill source, is that, based on modest scientific evidence, VA could be paying claims on diseases that a large proportion of any population will contract through normal aging.

Webb noted last week that a decision in 2001 making Type 2 diabetes a presumptive disease of Agent Orange exposure now allows 263,000 veterans to draw disability compensation. He said projected estimates of heart disease alone among Vietnam veterans are much higher.

Webb’s amendment language, if agreed to by the House, would invoke the Congressional Review Act which allows a funding freeze on any major government regulation or initiative so Congress can review the proposed changes. If in 60 days opposition strengthens and a majority of lawmakers will risk the wrath of expectant veterans with these ailments, Congress could pass a joint resolution to prevent a final regulation from taking effect.

Webb serves on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee and chairs the personnel subcommittee of the armed services committee. A spokesman for Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii), chairman of the veterans committee, said Akaka “is seeking more information from Secretary Shinseki about this, because of the potential impact of the ischemic heart disease presumption on the quality and timeliness” of services for all veterans.

VA officials earlier had projected publication of final regulations on the new presumptive diseases by the late April or early May. Shinseki even reduced the public comment period to only 30 days to speed up start of claim payments. A VA spokeswoman now has no comment on publication date.

Webb last week also pushed for fiscal discipline versus a more popular political path regarding next January’s military pay raise. In the closed-door mark up of the fiscal 2010 defense authorization bill by the armed services committee, Webb summarized for colleagues April testimony by four military pay experts before his personnel subcommittee. Unanimously, they had criticized continuing extra-sized, across-the-board pay hikes, saying military pay already stacks up very well against the pay of civilian peers.

Webb agrees with them that targeting extra compensation to hard-to fill specialties is more efficient. So he urged colleagues to support a 1.4 percent basic pay raise for Jan. 1, the same size increase sought by the Obama administration to match wage growth in the private sector, and to reject a 1.9 percent increase approved by the House.

Rather than spend that extra $300 million on basic pay, Webb will offer an amendment on the Senate floor to provide $100 million or so in a special pay to lower ranking members who serve in Iraq and Afghanistan. The final design of Webb’s special pay amendment was still being worked.

The Senate defense authorization bill also calls for repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law of 1993 so that homosexuals can serve openly and not be forced from service if their lifestyle becomes known.

Repeal of the law ban, under the Senate bill’s language, will not take effect unless the president, secretary of defense and chairman of the joint chiefs, with benefit of an internal study on the ban’s repeal that is due in December, certify that force readiness will not be impacted.

Another controversial provision in the Senate bill would allow military members and dependents to have abortions in military hospitals if they pay for the procedure themselves. It is aimed at facilitating abortions overseas areas where pregnant service women now rely on foreign staffs and facilities.

To comment, send e-mail to milupdate@aol.com or write to Military Update, P.O. Box 231111, Centreville, VA, 20120-1111.


Read more: http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2010/j...#ixzz0qSpMvvOo

[MSP39]

Webb has and always will be a piece of crap.