Comment The Senate overwhelmingly gave final approval Tuesday to legislation designed to help veterans fight illnesses they believe are linked to toxic exposure, particularly those who served in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. In an 86-11 roll call, the vote served as a political surrender by Senate Republicans, a week after they blocked consideration of ostensibly non-political popular legislation because Democrats cut a cross-party deal on an unrelated massive domestic policy bill which could be considered later this week. Republicans tried for several days to argue that last Wednesday’s blocking of the PACT Act was down to a technical argument over which part of the federal budget would fund $280 billion in new funds for veterans health programs. But 25 Republicans who had recently supported the exact same bill changed their votes last Wednesday, less than an hour after Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (DN.Y.) and Sen. Joe Manchin III (DW. Va.) announced their agreement on ambitious legislation unrelated to the PACT Act. Republicans have absorbed a series of political blows, led by comedian Jon Stewart and several prominent veterans groups, that, by midday Tuesday, left many ready to settle the issue and vote to quickly send the legislation to President Biden’s desk. . “It just blew the daylights out of them,” Schumer said Wednesday in a celebratory visit to a few dozen veterans who have staged a vigil on the North Lawn of the Capitol after last week’s failed vote. Democratic leaders allowed Stewart and dozens of veterans, their families and other supporters into the chamber’s public gallery for the latest round of votes — something that has happened less than a few times since the global pandemic began in March 2020, prompting officials not to allow the general public to enter the House and Senate galleries. In the end, 37 Republicans joined a 49-member Democratic caucus to vote in favor of the legislation, which forces the Department of Veterans Affairs to presume that certain illnesses came from exposure to incineration of hazardous waste, focusing mainly on the issue of burns from recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This would remove the burden of proof from wounded veterans. Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) missed the vote because of recent hip replacement surgery. In the final moments of the debate, activists became emotional. Stewart, who took over the case after a similar effort, helped lead first responders suffering lingering effects from the 9/11 site, put his head in his right hand and began to cry as the roll call began. The crowd lit up with brief cheers when the gavel fell, quickly receiving a warning from the officials for a breach of decorum requiring silence. Asked to explain the GOP reversal, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) did not give a broad explanation and acknowledged that the legislation will pass with broad support. “These things happen all the time with the legislative process,” McConnell told reporters at his weekly press conference, conceding defeat. “I think in the end the veterans service organizations will be happy with the end result.” Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, credited veterans groups and Stewart with taking what was previously a relatively obscure health issue and turning it into a national issue. “He really did it, he elevated it,” Tester said as he met Schumer at the impromptu celebration outside the Capitol. Biden also highlighted the issue in his State of the Union address in March, followed by a trip to a Texas community the following week to highlight its importance. “We’re following the science either way, but we’re also not going to make veterans suffer in a vacuum for decades,” Biden said during a March visit to Texas. In his remarks, the president noted that Beau’s son served in and around Baghdad as an attorney general in the Delaware Army National Guard, on bases where waste was burned in open air. The state’s attorney general, Beau Biden, died in 2015 of brain cancer, although no diagnosis ever linked the cancer to his service in Iraq or other overseas deployments. “While we can never fully repay the enormous debt we owe to those who wore the uniform, today, the United States Congress took important action to fulfill this sacred obligation,” the president said in a statement after Tuesday’s vote. “Congress scored a decisive and bipartisan victory for America’s veterans.” In a sign of his commitment to the cause, the president planned to surprise veterans holding a vigil outside the Capitol over the weekend with a pizza delivery, but he tested positive for a case of the coronavirus and continued his self-quarantine. Instead, Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough arrived with the pizza. Experts are often unsure of a direct link between specific cancers or diseases and the burns in Afghanistan and Iraq, where the military often burned large amounts of waste — including plastics, batteries or vehicle parts — that released plumes of dangerous chemicals into the air. Veterans must then prove that there is a direct link between their cancer and the burn chemicals, a threshold that can sometimes be difficult to meet, particularly if the condition doesn’t develop until years after deployment. Studies have shown that Veterans Affairs rejects the vast majority of claims. “You could talk to any of these people and they’d say we’d rather not be here,” Tester said. Schumer took a similar approach, happy that the legislation finally passed. “All’s well that ends well.”
