Appropriations Committee Approves Military Construction, VA Spending Bill

On April 9, the House Appropriations Committee approved, by voice vote, the FY2015 Military Construction, Veterans’ Affairs, and Related Agencies appropriations bill (as-yet-unnumbered). The Military Construction, Veterans’ Affairs, and Related Agencies Subcommittee approved the legislation on April 3 (see The Source, 4/4/14).

According to the committee report, the bill would allocate $165.012 billion in overall funding for FY2015, $7.024 billion over FY2014 and $397.696 million below President Obama’s FY2015 budget request (see FY2015 Budget Summary). This amount includes $93.513 billion and $71.499 billion in mandatory and discretionary funding, respectively.

The following chart summarizes funding levels for programs within the spending bill that are important to women and their families.

The report contains language to address the needs of homeless women veterans (p. 32-33), and expand the definition of homeless veterans to include individuals or families impacted by domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking (p. 33).

With respect to military sexual trauma (MST), the committee strongly encourages “the VA to maximize the availability of mental health services available to veterans who were victims of MST” (p.33).

The committee also addressed the need for prosthetics for female veterans, saying, “The committee is disappointed in reports of VA providers ‘sanding down’ prosthetics that were made for men in order to fit female patients, and requests that the VA ensure that there is prosthetic equipment proportionate to the amount of female veterans in need” (p. 36). Additionally, the committee noted that “[s]ince three percent of military amputees are female, the committee feels that a proportionate amount of prosthetics research should be focused on prosthetics intended for females. The need for this type of research is acute, as most prostheses are designed to fit male veterans” (p. 39).