Legislative Priorities 2012-2015: It is up to us

December 2011/January 2012 - Navy
By CAPT Ike Puzon, USN (Ret)

The following are the legislative priorities that I believe that AUSN should pursue for the next few years. These are based on different inputs: AUSN members and veterans, serving members, and Congressional Members and staff. It has been a rough road to establish the NRA/AUSN advocacy program as something that matters. It has been an honor to serve as your Legislative Director and build a new Government Affairs position for AUSN. I consider it most worthy to defend your earned benefits. One factor that should be clear, you need to oppose deficit-driven political decisions. At this writing, the Joint Committee on the Deficit has released recommendations that may well destroy our military and veterans systems.

Operational Readiness

The US Navy/Navy Reserve is a deployed force in defense of our national interest. AUSN opposes deficit-driven political decisions on equipment, manpower, and readiness.

• Navy Equipment – Maintain ten carrier groups and associated air wings and current Virginia class program. We support funding for aircraft to sustain at least ten carrier air wings through multiyear procurement of F/A-18E/F, E-2C/D, P-8, C-130J, HH-60, and F-35. We support the continuous buy of F/A-18E/F to relieve shortages.
• NGREA – Reserve Components are 40+% of deployed forces in OIF/OEF, AFRICOM and worldwide operations. To maintain training and readiness, we support C-40A, EF/A-18 (Growler), C-130J, and P-8A for Reserve Component assignment as well as full funding for Navy Expeditionary Forces equipment. 

Manpower – Navy and Navy Reserve

• Active Duty and Reserve Component – Track manpower/ end-strength of Active Duty and Reserve Component to meet the demands of operational requirements and contingency operations and sustain adequate recruiting and retention resources.

Health Care

• Health Care Reform– Monitor health care reform and ensure that TRICARE and VA health care programs are not adversely impacted.
• TRICARE Enrollment Fees Increases – Oppose increases by finding efficiencies as alternatives to shifting costs to TRICARE beneficiaries.
• Defense Health Programs – Support full funding for Department of Defense (DoD) and Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) health care.
• Military Retirees – Allow military retirees to pay for health care with pretax dollars.
• Remote Access – Ensure AD in remote areas and Reserve members have adequate access and treatment in the DoD and VA health systems.

Protect Earned Veterans’ Benefits

Promote public and political recognition that veterans’ benefits are earned through service and sacrifice in defense of the nation and are not “entitlement” or “social welfare” programs. Oppose deficit-driven political decisions that would lump earned veterans’ benefits with unrelated civilian entitlement programs.

Veterans’ Employment, Education and Training

• Support final passage of Hiring Heroes Act, S. 951 and H.R. 2433, to upgrade transition support services, employment assistance, and employment training.
• Support meaningful incentives for employers to recruit, hire and retain veterans, including returning veterans.
• Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment (VRE) benefits.
• Survivors and Dependents Educational Assistance. Authorize Survivors of OIF / OEF Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits.

VA Health Care System

• Sustain VA advance health care appropriations.
• Increase behavioral health staff and resources for PTSD/ TBI.
• Oppose fee hikes for currently enrolled veterans in all categories.
• Support further collaboration between DoD and VA health systems.
• Support passage of OIF / OEF “burn pit” registry and other toxic exposure registries as necessary to track long-term health effects of deployments.

Improve VA Claims Processing

• Promote distribution of “brown” and “blue” water Navy ship logs as they become available for AUSN members to apply for Agent Orange-related diseases. Support passage of S. 1629, the Agent Orange Equity Act of 2011, to establish eligibility for presumptive service-connection for “blue water” Navy Vietnam-era Sailors.
• Endorse coordinated, comprehensive approach to improve quality of claims decisions, and use new automated technologies.  Monitor ongoing DoD disability review process.

Strengthen Legal/Financial Protections for Military and Families

• Ensure implementation of upgrades to Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA) protections regarding service contracts, residential and lease termination fees.
• Monitor Congressionally-directed three-year reemployment rights pilot project.
• Strengthen SCRA coverage for military spouses and families and strengthen USERRA.

Safeguard Retiree Benefits

• Military Retired Pay – Fight efforts to change or reduce military retired or retainer pay and ensure equitable COLAs for all military retirees, and oppose efforts to civilianize the military retirement system.
• Concurrent Receipt – Support legislation authorizing concurrent receipt of full military retired pay and veterans’ disability compensation for all disabled retirees.
• SBP/DIC Offset – Support legislation to repeal the Survivors’ Benefit Plan/Dependency Indemnity Compensation (SBP/DIC) offset for surviving spouses of personnel who die of service-connected causes.
• SBP Minimum Age –Work to change the minimum age for paid-up SBP from 70 to 67; and served 20 years only to be required to pay SBP premiums for 30 years; and for Reserve members to pay into the RSBP for 30 years.

Reserve-Specific Issues

Operational Reserve Policy

• Correct the early retirement credit to include all Reserve members who have served on active duty tours of at least 90 days retroactive to September 11, 2001.
• Modernize the Reserve retirement system to reflect the increased service and sacrifice of operational Reservists.
• Allow full-retirement credits for all inactive duty training points earned annually.

Reserve Readiness

• Maintain and increase Reserve Force end-strengths and provide proper funding for their training.
• Properly fund National Guard Reserve Equipment Accounts to ensure that an Operational Reserve Component can maintain training and deployment cycles. Expand Incentives Credits for Employers of the Reserve
• The Operational Reserve Policy makes employer support more important than ever.
• Expand employer tax credits as a means to help offset costs associated with employees’ Reserve activities and reinforce employer support.
• Allow civilian employers to offer and pay the Selected Reserve employee’s TRS premiums as an option under the employer’s health coverage.

Veteran Issues for Reserve Retirees

• Support final passage of legislation (S.491 / H.R. 1025), Honor America’s Guard-Reserve Retirees Act, to establish that career members of the Reserve who are entitled to a Reserve pension, TRICARE and earned veterans’ benefits, but never served on Title 10 Federal active duty, are “veterans of the Armed Forces” under the law.
• Support meaningful incentives for employers to recruit, hire and retain Reserve veterans. GI Bill – Selected Reservists Left Behind
• Restore basic Reserve MGIB benefits for initially joining the Selected Reserve to the historic benchmark of 47-50% of Active Duty benefits.
• Integrate Reserve and Active Duty MGIB laws in Title 38.  Urge proportional upgrades to Title 10 Reserve GI Bill program.

Reserve Health Care Readiness

• Expand DoD responsibility for medical and dental care to Reservists, beginning with the issuance of an alert order and 180 days post mobilization, to meet readiness standards when DoD facilities are not available within a 50-mile radius.
• Ensure Reserve members have adequate access and treatment in the DoD and VA health systems for PTSD and TBI.
• Allow eligibility in Continued Health Care Benefits Program (CHCBP) for Selected Reservists who are voluntarily separating and subject to disenrollment from TRS.
• Permit members of the IRR in Tricare Retired Reserve as an incentive for their continued service.

TRICARE Retired Reserve (TRR) Program

• Require a GAO audit of the cost of coverage of TRR.
• Increase access to health and dental care for those residing in rural areas through the use of innovative technologies.
• Lower TRR premiums.

Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA)

• Extension of USERRA protections to service members working in domestic response.
• Amend USERRA to require documentation, confirming military service.
• Make a single entity accountable for overseeing USERRA complaint resolution process. Preclude exclusion for reinstatement of employer health care.
• Extend reemployment rights to military spouses who must suspend employment to care for dependent children due to a military sponsor’s deployment.

Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA) Protections

• Require institutions of higher education to refund to activated members of the Reserve tuition/fees paid for the program of education the member did not receive academic credit for as a result of a mobilization.
• Permit employers and employees to contribute to defined contribution retirement plans [401(k) – 403(b)] during a period of active duty service performed by service members.
• Forbid discrimination based on a member’s being in the Reserve Component. Reserve Compensation System under Operational Reserve
• Provide parity in special incentive pay.
• Career enlisted/officer special incentive pays.
• Eliminate BAH II and provide full BAH for any active duty service.
• Upgrade Space-A travel access for Reserve members and their spouses.
• Restore full tax-deductibility of nonreimbursable military travel expenses of at least 100 miles round trip. Support Senate Finance Committee concept to eliminate a minimal distance requirement.
• Oppose recommendations to convert the Active Duty and Reserve retirement systems to a civilian-style vesting system.

Families

• Provide preventive and follow-up counseling and behavioral health services for individual augmentees or mobilized members and families.
• Seek hearing on status of GAO recommendations (GAO Rpt. 08-901) for the Benefits Delivery at Discharge (BDD) program.
• Ensure that programs are in place to meet the special information and support needs of members and their families of individual augmentees including Reserve members.
• Protect and upgrade “yellow ribbon” programs.  Ensure transition services are available for service members and families to make a successful readjustment to civilian status.
• Authorize travel and transportation allowances for a family member for yellow ribbon programs.

And, Farewell

By the time you read this, I may be gone as your Director of Government Affairs, and your Director of Legislation, two distinctively different positions. I hope you will continue to serve your country at the grassroots level. I will.

There are no words to describe the honor and pride I feel for you the members––the veterans, the family members–– for the overwhelming support you have provided in embracing the issues that I proposed to you at the grassroots level. We accomplished a lot of legislation and improved government relations because you responded to the calls. Going forward–– remember you are the most important part of the equation in legislation. “Leaders” in the Pentagon are told what to say. Congress does not embrace the issues. The White House (OMB) will not have you, the military, above political concerns. “It is up to us.”

Fair Winds and Following Seas. — Ike Puzon