That's US House Rep Jeff Miller is the Chair of the House Veterans Affairs Committee and this is US Senator Johnny Isakson.
They issued the following joint-statement:
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
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Thursday, May 14, 2015
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Isakson, Miller Statement on Replacement Denver VA Medical Center
WASHINGTON
– U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., and U.S. Representative Jeff
Miller, chairman of the Senate and House Committees
on Veterans’ Affairs, respectively, released the following statement
regarding the replacement Denver Department of Veterans Affairs Medical
Center construction project:
“The
Department of Veterans Affairs replacement Denver VA Medical Center is
the biggest construction failure in VA history. Since the project’s
inception, the cost of the hospital has ballooned
from $328 million to $1.73 billion. Yet as the project spiraled out of
control, VA ignored congressional pleas to get things back on track at
almost every turn. Because of a near complete and total lack of focus on
the project at the highest levels of VA and
the department’s disregard for congressional oversight, the future of
the Denver replacement hospital is unclear.
“For
its part, VA to this day has refused to take this project seriously.
Instead of putting forth a realistic plan for covering the enormous cost
overruns in Denver by finding efficiencies in its
existing budget and eliminating waste, VA has essentially demanded that
taxpayers subsidize the department’s incompetence with an $830 million
bailout. Incredibly, VA is asking for this bailout in the absence of any
accountability whatsoever for the problems
in Denver while just today the public learned the department is
improperly spending as much as $6 billion on procurements per year. VA’s
top leaders may have been ushered into their positions based on their
business sense, but their response to the Denver
debacle, which has been devoid of accountability and practical
cost-savings initiatives, would not fly at any business.
“We’ve
been down this road before. Last year, VA promised to fire those
responsible for manipulating wait times, stop its longstanding pattern
of whistleblower retaliation and fix the department’s
corrosive culture. That hasn’t happened yet, and Congress will not
tolerate any more empty VA promises. So if the department is serious
about getting the Denver project back on track, it needs to show us
rather than tell us.”
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The Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs is chaired by U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., in the 114th Congress.
Isakson
is a veteran himself – having served in the Georgia Air National Guard
from 1966-1972 – and has been a member of the Senate VA Committee since
he joined the Senate in 2005. Isakson’s home
state of Georgia is home to more than a dozen military installations
representing each branch of the military as well as more than 750,000
veterans.
veterans