Teresa Morris, Director, Advocacy & Government Relations

Greetings NOVA Members –

Welcome to 2021 and the 117th Congress – now that the Georgia runoffs are in the books, both the Senate and the House will be controlled by the Democrats. As you may recall the House was democratically controlled in the 116th and the Senate held a Republican majority.

What this means is that all of the chairmanships of Senate committees will change along with other leadership.  For NOVA, it means that Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) will take the gavel for the VA Committee. Some of the issues likely to be taken up include VA’s electronic health record overhaul, implementation of community care programs and expansion of the newly expanded caregiver benefits. I also believe it is likely that Chairman Tester will spend more time delving into VA’s collaboration with community doctors and hospitals than his Republican predecessors, given the Democrats’ concerns over privatization.

On the House side, the VA Committee will again see Mark Takano (D-CA) as Chairman, with new Ranking Member Mike Bost (R-IL) taking over as Ranking Member since Representative Phil Roe retired at the end of last year. Look for oversight on MISSION, the pandemic, more legislation to combat suicide among Veterans as well as VA’s caregiver program rollout and most likely VA infrastructure with the AIR Act Commission beginning its work this year.

*At the time of this publication a list of members for either committee has not been made available -keep watch as I will have more on HVAC and SVAC committee structure later.

Some fun facts, the new Congress will include over 91 Veterans, 50 who served in the military after 2000; 15 that are first-time lawmakers and 6 that are women. There are 2 nurses (RNs) – Lauren Underwood was reelected to the 14th district of Illinois, and Cori Bush (MO-1) is a newly elected member and hails from the St. Louis area.

Finally, I wanted to provide a quick look back with thoughts on funding for VA which was wrapped into a COVID-19 relief package and signed by the President on December 27.

Congress reached a deal and cleared a $1.4 trillion FY 2021 spending package, along with nearly $900 in coronavirus relief.  The funding package keeps the government running through September 20, 2021. VA received $243.2 billion in both discretionary and mandatory funding with $90 billion for medical care accounts. Notably, $10.3 billion was provided for mental healthcare services, of which $313 million is for suicide prevention outreach activities, $815 million for VA medical and prosthetic research, $661 million for women veterans’ health care, and $2.6 billion to modernize the VA’s electronic health record system.

For more on final 116th legislation and a list of bills and all VA Committee legislative activity check out the HVAC and SVAC websites:

https://veterans.house.gov/

https://www.veterans.senate.gov/

NOVA posted our Advocacy Year in Review which relays all of the activity we had in 2020. Thanks to Legislative Committee Chairs Michelle Salazar and Cecilia McVey along with the entire legislative committee for making it a terrific year for VA nurses and advocacy.

As always, I look forward to working with all of you and our new Legislative Team as we educate and mobilize to find the best way to advocate for the VA Nursing community.

Stay Tuned!