[WASHINGTON, D.C.] – At a spotlight forum held by Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee Ranking Member Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) today, former VA employees, toxic exposure experts, and advocates detailed their concerns with the Trump Administration’s cuts to Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) care and benefits, and the negative impact it will have on the implementation of the PACT Act—a bipartisan law signed in August 2022 to deliver generations of toxic-exposed veterans and survivors their earned health care and benefits.

“The PACT Act has been an extraordinary gift to so many veterans, and I hesitate to use the word gift because it's what they deserve. It's what they've earned. It's not a handout. It's what we owe them,” said Blumenthal. “But…it works best when there's outreach. It works best when there is a team caring for them. It cannot work if the Secretary of the VA says, ‘We’ll fire everyone who's not a frontline worker.’ The VA is composed of frontline workers—the janitor who makes sure that VA health care facilities are clean and heated, the supply officer who makes sure that there are enough sterilizing equipment, the physicians, nurses, counselors, psychiatrists, psychologists, schedulers. It's a team effort, and the PACT Act can't work if we don't have a team.”

During the forum, the witnesses underscored the harm the Trump Administration’s cancellation of contracts and plans to cut 83,000 employees will have on the implementation of the PACT Act and toxic-exposed veterans, survivors, and caregivers. Among the Trump Administration’s cancellation of hundreds of VA contracts earlier this year, the Administration targeted contracts that helped carry out PACT Act implementation, oversight, and outreach to eligible toxic-exposed veterans and survivors, screen applicants, and process PACT Act claims.

Toxic exposure expert Dr. Robert Miller expressed his concerns with VA Secretary Collins’ reckless cancellation of contracts helping implement the PACT Act, and the long-term impact it will have on toxic-exposed servicemember and veterans for years to come: “One of my concerns has been one of the contracts cancelled was for cancer registry. You know Heath Robinson died of a lung cancer, which at the time he died was not considered a presumptive service-connected disability or disorder. We have a lot of veterans who have had exposures, many of whom who won’t know the effect of those exposures, potentially for decades. It’s important for us to have data on who might have a malignancy, what type of malignancy, and how many types of malignancies are there. And if we don’t have a reporting structure for that, we won’t know what our veterans have been dealing with.” Miller is a Professor of Medicine at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center who has spent decades working with VA and the private sector to explore the health impact of airborne toxins.

Last week, ProPublica reported on the Trump Administration’s cancellation of the cancer registry contract.

Blumenthal also highlighted the gravity of VA Secretary Collins’ plans to cut 83,000 VA employees—deliberately returning VA to pre-PACT Act staffing levels and ignoring a law that represents the largest expansion of VA health care and benefits in decades: “There’s just no way—none—that the VA can provide [adequate] care and benefits with 83,000 fewer staff. Many of those staff were hired because they were needed to implement the PACT Act. There’s simply no way VA can meet the needs of veterans who are entitled to benefits and care if we slash 83,000 people from the workforce.” At last week’s Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee oversight hearing on the Trump Administration’s vision for the future of VA, Secretary Collins made no explicit mention of the PACT Act in his testimony, sending “volumes about this Administration’s non-commitment to implementing the PACT Act in the bipartisan way it was passed.”

In response, Disabled American Veterans (DAV) Assistant National Legislative Director Marquis Barefield emphasized the Trump Administration’s lack of transparency with Veterans Service Organizations (VSOs) around their plans to cut 83,000 employees: “The VSO community, along with others, the major point for us is – we don’t know. We’re not receiving any information…We simply don’t know what’s going on. And we would like to know the plan before VA finalizes it. VSOs are critical to this conversation and we want to be included in the planning process to get an understanding of where VA is going with the plan, what the plan is, that way we can be proactive and engage.”

Rosie Torres, co-founder of Burn Pits 360 and former 23 year employee of VA, stressed the negative impact the Administration’s Reduction in Force Plan will have on PACT Act implementation and toxic-exposed veterans and their families: “…I don’t know who’s advising the Secretary or this Administration…but I truly don’t think they understand the impact of the war that has followed us home. And in order to receive that veteran-centric care, we need to be fully staffed. Everything from the service worker, the person cleaning the floors…Like DAV said just now, I worked there 23 years, and to see this lack of transparency, I can’t wrap my brain around it. It’s unfortunate…there’s no way they can effectively delivering care to the caregiver, to the survivor, to the veteran in an effective way without having the staffing that takes place to deliver that care.”

Former VA outreach specialist at Hines VA Medical Center in Illinois and ophthalmic technician Sara Gavin concluded: “You cannot have just the physicians running the facilities. Because every piece that plays into the veterans’ health starts at the folks that are the administrators, that can give the advice and take the VA feedback and make it functional…There’s a lot [VA] offers that the administrators and background staff help facilitate and educate veterans on.”

Since being signed into law in 2022, more than 214,000 veterans have enrolled in VA health care under PACT Act enrollment authorities. VA has also received more than 2.5 million PACT Act-related claims and more than 1.7 million veterans and survivors are receiving PACT Act-related benefits.

The full text of Blumenthal’s opening is copied below and a video link is available here.

U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT): I want to welcome everyone to this spotlight forum of the Veterans Affairs Committee. I'm Richard Blumenthal, the Ranking Member on the Committee, and very pleased to be joined by some really excellent witnesses, whom I'll introduce shortly. We're anticipating that Speaker Schumer will be joining us—Leader Schumer—very shortly. And in the meantime, I'm going to begin with an opening statement. And then we can also turn it over to the witnesses, depending on when Leader Schumer arrives.

Let me just reaffirm to everybody who is listening and watching that we are determined as Senate Democrats to use every tool and instrument that we have at our disposal to hold this VA accountable. Last week, we held a hearing with Secretary Collins, and frankly, it left most of us with more questions than answers. He was either unable or unwilling to tell us the facts we need to know to do proper oversight and accountability. And he dismissed our concerns as innuendos and rumors. During the hearing, I noted that he cherry picked certain statistics in an attempt to create, in effect, a false narrative that justifies his extreme proposals to decimate the VA’s workforce and the services they provide. His goal, as he stated very clearly, is to terminate 83,000 employees. His plan is to fire 83,000 workers from the VA—one third of them are likely be veterans, that's the percentage of the VA workforce who are veterans. And the victims are not only the workers, but veterans themselves across the country who will have unavailable and inaccessible the kinds of health care and benefits that they need and deserve, including benefits under the PACT Act—and care.

He failed to mention in his opening statement the PACT Act. Not once did he mention the PACT Act in his opening statement, which I think says volumes about this Administration's non-commitment to implementing the PACT Act in the bipartisan way that it was passed. It's a bipartisan measure, and it deserves to be passed and now to be implemented in a bipartisan way. That's why we're here today, to make sure that the PACT Act is implemented thoroughly, carefully, proactively, and with the kind of energy that it really deserves.

The Secretary asserts that the claims backlog increased despite more staffing resources, but he ignored the fact that the PACT Act led to a 40% increase in claims submissions, which VVA employees processed without forcing veterans to wait longer. So the wait for processing remain the same, even though the number of claimants vastly increased, which is to say we need to improve those numbers on the wait times, we need to make sure that every veteran receives the benefits they deserve as quickly as possible. And there's room for improvement here, but not for condemnation of the PACT Act or the people who implement it.

He claims that the number of veterans enrolled in VA health care has remained the same but ignores their reliance on VA provided services—and ignores that that reliance has increased. This fiscal year, the VA is expected to provide 20 million additional outpatient visits, 20 million more than it did in FY2019. That is an absolutely astounding number. Toxic exposed veterans are depending on VA health care and benefits more than ever before, but services to veterans through the PACT Act at VA hospitals around the country and the crisis lines and in programs to keep toxic exposed veterans in their homes have all been cut.

The fight to pass the PACT Act took much longer and was more difficult than it should have been, but more than 1.3 million veterans and survivors are now receiving life-changing benefits—veterans like Andrew Cao, Andrew Gao is from Wallingford, Connecticut, who was exposed to Agent Orange in Thailand during the Vietnam War. The VA denied him disability compensation because his service didn't qualify for Agent Orange Related Benefits. The PACT Act has made him eligible—long overdue, but real. We've heard countless other stories all across the country, and it's critical to keep our promise to improve VA health care and benefits for toxic exposed veterans.

I'm very happy we're going to have witnesses today that will share with us their experiences as to how recent actions by the Trump Administration are impacting veterans, service members and their families. There's just no way, none, that the VA can provide care and benefits with 83,000 fewer staff. Many of those staff were hired because they were needed to implement the PACT Act. There's simply no way the VA can meet the needs of veterans who are entitled to benefits and care if we slash 83,000 people from the workforce.

We need to continue to fight against indiscriminate cuts in the workforce, but also cuts in contracts. And I want to cite a number of contracts, and we will make them available—specific contracts for PACT Act implementation and oversight, which include contracts with Ability LLC in Maryland for assessments of implementation involving the specific numbers of veterans served; the Avery Group, LLC in Georgia to keep track of training; the RBCI Consulting Firm in Maryland to get veterans feedback on how the PACT Act is being implemented; the CPS professional services firm in Virginia, involving three canceled contracts providing independent validation and verification and user acceptance training essential to monitoring other contractors in their implementation of the PACT Act. Those are just a few of the contracts we have found that are being canceled, and they are important to implementing the PACT Act. I believe that the VA can be reformed.

It can be improved, made more efficient, waste can be eliminated, but not with a chainsaw. As the Commander of the VFW told us, chainsaw should be discarded. Scalpel perhaps, but not a chainsaw. And the reform can take place without compromising health care and benefits for our nation's heroes. They deserve it.