Blumenthal Calls on Senate to Pass Comprehensive Relief for Veterans Exposed to Dangerous Toxins

[WASHINGTON, D.C.] – U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), a member of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, spoke on the Senate Floor ahead of a vote to begin consideration of bipartisan, comprehensive legislation to deliver multiple generations of veterans exposed to dangerous toxins access to healthcare and benefits under the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for the first time in the nation’s history.

The Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson Honoring Our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics (PACT) Act includes legislation championed by Blumenthal to expand benefits, healthcare, and compensation to veteran populations that are not currently able to access services: veterans who responded to the nuclear disaster in Palomares, Spain, those who were deployed to the K2 Air Base, and veterans and families exposed to toxins in the water supply at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. The legislation also prioritizes bringing relief to post-9/11 veterans exposed to burn pits for decades, primarily while serving overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan.  

“The PACT Act is a profoundly significant measure. It is a milestone in our dealing with the health and benefits our veterans deserve,” said Blumenthal on the Senate Floor. “This legislation is so significant because it will begin to right the inaction of the government in helping veterans afflicted by toxic exposure.”

For years, veterans have faced barriers when seeking treatment, benefits, and recognition for illnesses and injuries caused by exposure to burn pits, toxins, and poisons during their service. The PACT Act would remove obstacles for veterans suffering from these hidden wounds of war, including cancer, hypertension, skin disease, and other conditions.

“The PACT Act essentially regards these kinds of illnesses and inflictions as part of the cost of war, and it puts the presumption of service-connected cause on the side of veterans, because many of them are making claims after the fact, indeed, well after they have left the battlefield. The proof is much more difficult for them to make and much easier for the VA to resist,” Blumenthal said describing the obstacles faced by veterans.

“This measure is not only an important milestone as legislation, but it also represents an opportunity to educate our country about invisible wounds, about brave men and women who serve in combat and come home without necessarily a visible wound but experience a different kind of hardship and burden,” Blumenthal continued. “Their sacrifice must be recognized. They need healthcare and they deserve it. And the benefits that they are receiving as a result of this measure are extraordinarily and deeply well-deserved and should be available promptly.”

Ahead of the vote, the daughter of the late Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson, whom the bill is named after, wrote Blumenthal a note asking him to vote yes on, “my dad’s bill.” Blumenthal responded, saying:

“Let there be no mistake, I am going to be voting yes on this bill and I hope that my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will overwhelmingly join me in voting yes.”    

Video of Blumenthal’s remarks is available here. The full text of Blumenthal’s remarks is copied below.

U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT): I want to thank my colleagues who have worked with us on a bipartisan basis to bring the Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson Honoring Our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics (PACT) Act of 2022 to the floor for a vote. That’s a mouthful, PACT Act is the way it’s known more colloquially. The PACT Act is a profoundly significant measure. It is a milestone in our dealing with the health and benefits our veterans deserve.

We know that the modern battlefield is filled with toxin and poisons that can cause grave injury. And many of the afflictions that are from those toxins or chemicals are manifested only years after a veteran leaves active duty service. In fact, cancer, hypertension, skin disease, the list is long and so are the number of years when the illnesses can arrive. They are late, they are hidden like many wounds of war. They are invisible at the time.

But these brave men and women who serve us on the modern battlefield experience them at higher rates because there are more of those toxins and chemicals. And we've seen them, for example, in the burn pits. One of my sons, a Marine Corps officer in Afghanistan, saw them firsthand, described them to me and worried about the effects on him. So far he is fine, but the years ahead are an unknown for him and for countless other men and women who may have been exposed. In fact, they may not even know that they've been exposed to these chemicals and toxins.

And the fact of the matter is that the VA has resisted taking responsibility for these illnesses. It has erected thresholds of proof and barriers of evidence for veterans who suffer the effects of the burn pits, the other sources of toxic chemicals, that can inflict such grievous pain and worry on so many of them. And that's why this legislation is so significant because it will begin to right the inaction of the government in helping veterans afflicted by toxic exposure.

We have been here before. We have fought year after year after year for veterans who were afflicted with the results of Agent Orange over the resistance and opposition of the VA. And even after we passed the measure righting those wrongs, the VA resisted implementing the law, not under this administration, fortunately, but the previous one.

And I am immensely grateful to this VA for its seeming support of this measure, but I am most grateful to the veterans themselves. The veteran’s service organizations that have been at our side and had our back, including the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans, their organization, the IAVA, has played an important role, likewise, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the American Legion, Disabled American Veterans, and others. They are among the main movers who deserve predominant thanks.

But Chairman Tester and Ranking Member Moran and our counterparts in the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs have been instrumental in this measure. In fact, I worked with Senator Moran on this issue when I was the ranking member on the Veterans’ Affairs Committee, and he saw, along with me, the importance of moving forward on this issue.

This inaction has affected countless families, like Sergeant First Class Robinson's family. I received a handwritten note from his young daughter yesterday urging me to vote yes on, “my dad's bill.” Let there be no mistake, I am going to be voting yes on this bill and I hope that my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will overwhelmingly join me in voting yes.

And I want to say in particular how proud I've been to lead legislation, along with colleagues like Senator Tillis, to advance particular causes of groups of veterans who have been specifically affected. For example, the Palomares nuclear accident in 1966 caused huge suffering and pain to men and women in uniform who were sent to clean up a crash or a release of bombs, they didn't explode, but they were nuclear weapons and they had to be cleaned up. It exposed those veterans to radiation and the PACT Act will provide them with much-needed relief.

Similarly, there are an estimated 16,000 -- that's right, 16,000 United States service members deployed to a base in Uzbekistan known as K-2. It was an old Soviet base which became a dumping ground for all kinds of toxic substances, and they were exposed to those substances when they served there. Now the old Soviet Union didn't care much about its people, Russia not much more about its people in uniform, but we should and we do and that's why the PACT Act would provide care to them.

In the United States at Camp Lejeune, many of our veterans and their families were exposed to toxins in the water supply. They've been left without any real recourse. My friend and colleague Senator Tillis and I worked together on legislation to help these thousands of veterans and their families impacted by those toxins at Camp Lejeune. It was an uphill battle. We had to overcome a lot of resistance. Again, some of our VA friends didn't see it our way, but my feeling is that we had to fight as tenaciously for those Camp Lejeune families as Marines do for us.

The PACT Act essentially regards these kinds of illnesses and inflictions as part of the cost of war, and it puts the presumption of service-connected cause on the side of veterans, because many of them are making claims after the fact, indeed, well after they have left the battlefield. The proof is much more difficult for them to make and much easier for the VA to resist.

So the burden should be on the VA to prove that these illnesses are not service connected, not the other way around. The presumption has to be in favor of the veteran. That's the basic fairness here. And it levels the playing field so that veterans have a fair chance at making sure that they receive the healthcare and the benefits that they deserve and need.

I'm proud that this measure is bipartisan. It is long overdue, but it moves us in the right direction and maybe it helps to prove that we can continue to work productively together. Certainly as to veterans we need to do the right thing in recognizing these costs of war. This measure is not only an important milestone as legislation, but it also represents an opportunity to educate our country about invisible wounds, about brave men and women who serve in combat and come home without necessarily a visible wound but experience a different kind of hardship and burden. Their sacrifice must be recognized. They need healthcare and they deserve it. And the benefits that they are receiving as a result of this measure are extraordinarily and deeply well-deserved and should be available promptly.

I thank you, Madam President, and I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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