Blindsided veterans erupt in fury after Senate Republicans suddenly tank PACT Act

The widely supported bipartisan measure looked to expand medical coverage for millions of combatants exposed to toxic burn pits during their service.

July 28, 2022

Blindsided veterans erupted in anger and indignation Thursday after Senate Republicans suddenly tanked a widely supported bipartisan measure that would have expanded medical coverage for millions of combatants exposed to toxic burn pits during their service.

Supporters of the Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson Honoring Our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act — or PACT Act — overwhelmingly expected the House-passed bill to sail through to the president's desk for signature.

But in a move that shocked and confused veteran groups Wednesday night, 41 Senate Republicans blocked the bill's passage, including 25 who had supported it a month ago.

"We really expected yesterday to be a procedural vote that would go with easy passage," said Jeremy Butler, CEO of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, a nonprofit veterans' organization. "That was the absolute expectation."

The PACT Act would have expanded VA health care eligibility to more than 3.5 million post-9/11 combat veterans who were exposed to toxins while serving in the military.

The Senate passed the original legislation 84-14 in June. It underwent minor changes when it moved to the House, where it passed 342-88. When the bill returned to the Senate, the bill had not changed much but the view — and vote — of 25 senators did.

While it's unclear what prompted the flip, veterans believe the move was political.

"We've seen partisanship and games within Congress for years," Butler said. "But what is shocking is that so many senators would literally be willing to play with veterans' lives so openly like this."

"They're manufacturing reasons to vote against legislation that they literally voted for just last month," Butler added. "And so it's really a new level of low."

Veterans who were exposed to toxins during deployments said the lives of sick and dying people who served the nation are on the line.

"It's angering. It's frustrating," said Tom Porter, 54, who developed asthma after spending a year in Afghanistan with the U.S. Navy Reserve from 2010 to 2011.

In the first week of his deployment, Porter said he suffered a serious reaction with his lungs and could not breathe.

Le Roy Torres, 49, who was diagnosed with a lung disease and a toxic brain injury after he was deployed to Iraq with the U.S. Army, said he was devastated about the failure of the bill and urged lawmakers to reconvene immediately.

"I know these senators are getting ready for a break. But I didn't get a break when I was deployed," he said. "They should not be allowed to go home until they figure this out."

"I was taught in the Army not to accept defeat and never quit," he added. "I'm going to keep pressing on this issue."

Torres' wife, Rosie, the co-founder and executive director of the nonprofit Burn Pits 360, said the 25 senators who flipped their votes "should be ashamed of themselves."

In protest, she and other advocates plan to camp on the steps of the U.S. Capitol Thursday night.

"These veterans fought for our freedom during the war," she said. "It's partisan tactics on the backs of veterans that are sick and dying."

The PACT Act was named after Heath Robinson, a sergeant with the Ohio National Guard who was deployed to Kosovo and Iraq. He died in 2020 from lung cancer, which he blamed on burn pit exposure.

Open-air burn pits were common at U.S. military bases during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Dangerous materials, from electronics and vehicles to human waste, were regularly doused in jet fuel and set ablaze, spewing toxic fumes and carcinogens into the air.

Many others have developed cancers, respiratory illnesses and other serious conditions as a direct result of exposure to toxins, veteran groups say.

President Joe Biden, who has championed the PACT Act, said he believes his late son Beau Biden's brain cancer was linked to exposure to burn pits while he was deployed in Iraq in 2008.

Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Penn., who voted against the legislation in June, has remained vocally critical of the bill. Yesterday, after the vote, he said that the bill included a "budget gimmick" that moved $400 billion over 10 years from "discretionary to the mandatory spending category," which he considered unreasonable. His view did not change in Wednesday's vote.

The views of Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., certainly did, however.

Johnson voted for the bill in June, but voted against it on Wednesday. He said in a statement that the bill "opens the door for more reckless government spending."

Why Republicans, like Johnson, changed their minds a month after passing the legislation remains unclear, and it was confounding and unclear to veterans and advocates who shared their ire in Washington, D.C., on Thursday.

The comedian Jon Stewart, who has advocated for 9/11 first responders and military veterans for years, excoriated Republican lawmakers outside the Capitol Thursday, angrily describing their opposition to the bill as "an embarrassment to the Senate, to the country, to the Founders."

"Their constituents are dying and they're gonna get it done in recess," Stewart said in fiery and expletive-laden remarks. "You know, tell their cancer to take a recess, tell their cancer to stay home and go visit their families. This is disgrace. If this is America first, America is [expletive]."

spookiesmom,

See page 1450 of this thread for my response to this tragedy for public education in FL. I may be retired but I’m a passionate advocate for quality public education. I find this scary and completely unacceptable.

Gosh, by that logic, my years of teaching should automatically earn me a job in the military. Sniper? Helicopter pilot? Tank Commander? Navy Seal? Hmmmm.....which shall I choose? I probably would look best in the Air Force uniforms......

It is part of their plot to destroy public education, IMO. Also, with an inferior education; along with diminished academic skills, people have poorer critical thinking skills. Both of those deficits will make them much more vulnerable to propaganda and mind control. Donald Trump didn't say that he loved the poorly educated because he wants to play golf with them at Mar-la-go.

Just sayin'

My DD is currently a teacher. Spent time, and a lot of $$ getting a Masters She just got her LPN license last month She is getting out. For a lot of reasons. Fear of getting shot. The lousy pay. The lousy government. You name it.

I worked for the same district for 23+ years. I had to get out 12 years ago. Couldn’t take the bs any longer.

I don’t know who to point a finger at, but at least in FloriDuh is awful.

What an idiot

Not having done all that well in school myself ( regrets for what I could have done and didn't ) I still can recognize how many ( and it is mainly on the right ) would prefer to 'dumb' down as many as possible and doing it by roadblocking the nation's teachers. Were I a teacher I think I'd be almost happy to go find another profession. Sad because having great teachers is the best opportunity to help our children and grandchildren learn how to grow and compete in a very changable society -- one right now more interested in making sheep of children. That is a crime.

I hope there are enough 'good' minds left to keep steering in the right direction and if we can get the 'roadblockers' out of our hair, get it all back in a far better direction for teachers who can then help students find and use their potential.

I have taken a little mini-vacation from most of the tv politics. It is very repetitive and so no matter which side you are on sort of numbs you a bit toward seeing ALL sides somewhat equally. Hopefully I will be able to keep up enough to offer my ideas and feelings here.

I am back to being disgusted that the Loon walks around as he does, and hoping that DOJ/Garland is heavy into investigations. If anyone ever saw anyting useful in the Loon, it was I'm sure, their ability to use him. Then again I've often said -- only people like him, narcissist and sociopath together as he is, seem to be able to get away with so much, if only from the standpoint that it is un-believable to us that people would behave as those people do, right in our face.

So Garland, I hope you really are keeping most of what you are doing under some wraps and that soon we all get the 'surrpise' we hope is awaiting for the Loon.

For some, being criminal is a natural event. Their whole nature

and noticing where the little asterisk is in the top number.

Love this meme! Ignoring history doesn’t change it. It just makes the future more dangerous without a foundation in understanding the past.