Washington, D.C. — Today, because of her leadership on veterans issues as the Ranking Member of the House Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee on Health, Congresswoman Julia Brownley (D-Westlake Village) was named to the conference committee for the VA reform bill.

At the beginning of the 113th Congress, Congresswoman Brownley was elected by her colleagues to serve as the Ranking Member of the Health Subcommittee, where she has focused on many of the issues in the VA reform bill.

Below is the text of her House floor remarks as delivered:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you to the gentlelady from Arizona.

I rise to support the motion to instruct conferees.

I grew up in a military home.

I personally understand the sacrifices our service members and their families make in service to our nation.

My father was the proudest Marine. My brother was a P-3 pilot for 20 years in the Navy, and my uncles served in both World War II and Vietnam.

When I was elected to Congress, I asked to serve on the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee to represent our future veterans at Naval Base Ventura County and throughout our country, to represent our current veterans that live in Ventura County and throughout the country, and to represent our military families who also commit to serve our nation.

One of the greatest pleasures of working on the Veterans’ Affairs Committee is addressing the issues at hand in a bipartisan way, and I want to thank the chairman, Chairman Miller, for his leadership, and Ranking Member Michaud, because this committee has remained in a bipartisan mode to address these issues.

Every week, we discuss innovative ways to improve access to good-paying jobs, how to strengthen education opportunities for our veterans, to reduce wait times for critical and fundamental health care, and much, much more.

I was deeply honored when my colleagues elected me to serve as the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Health to ensure our veterans’ health needs are properly addressed, including improving access to traditional and mental health care.

As my colleagues know, there is a lot of improvement that needs to take place at the VA.

We have a sacred responsibility to those who serve our country in uniform.

Just as the military leaves no one behind on the battlefield, we must leave no veteran behind when they come home.

The motion to instruct is the best path to completing a conference agreement to fix the long-term problems at the VA.

Let’s ensure we are serving our veterans as well as they have served us.

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