Browsing: Veterans Affairs

Sen. Daniel Akaka and Rep. Bob Filner plan to introduce bills Thursday to provide advanced appropriations for the Department of Veterans Affairs. Akaka, chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, and Filner, chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, have long argued that advanced appropriations will help the VA provide better health care, make needed hires and operate more efficiently. The Veterans Health Care Budget Reform and Transparency Act of 2009 would provide the VA with funding one year in advance of the regular appropriations process, according to an Akaka news release. Akaka, D-Hawaii, and Filner, D-Calif., will announce details…

Illinois’ veterans affairs director Tammy Duckworth has been selected as the nominee for assistant secretary of public and intergovernmental affairs for the VA, the White House announced Tuesday morning. Duckworth is a well-known major in the Illinois National Guard who lost both of her legs in 2004 when a rocket-propelled grenade hit the helicopter she was piloting in Iraq. As assistant secretary, Duckworth will oversee the public affairs department, internal communications and intergovernmental relations. She will also oversee programs for homeless veterans, special rehabilitation events and consumer affairs. Duckworth has testified before congressional hearings about the need to transform the…

President Barack Obama’s Cabinet now has eight official members. The Senate voted by voice vote just before 4 p.m. today to confirm the following seven nominees: Steven Chu for Energy, Arne Duncan for Education, Janet Napolitano for Homeland Security, Peter Orszag for director of the Office of Management and Budget, Ken Salazar for Interior, Eric Shinseki for Veterans Affairs and Tom Vilsak for Agriculture. His Cabinet already included Robert Gates, whom Obama asked to stay on as Defense secretary. But things aren’t moving so quickly for Sen. Hillary Clinton’s secretary of state nomination. After her smooth hearing before the Senate…