 Then we're going to be looking at midwinter, we'd like our BBTs to be there at midwinter. We know you're probably instrumental in hoping to prepare the department for midwinter, scheduling appointments with elected officials, scheduling meetings with elected officials while you're there. And then we want you, also one of the duties of the BBTL is to help coordinate the department regular meetings with your folks back home, your members of Congress back when you're there in the district. And then our BBTs are also, we're hoping that you're going to be our educators and our mentors for new BBTs that are coming on board that are, you know, appointed by your department and that you're out there maybe meeting with chapter members and others that are interested. I think we can really improve our advocacy efforts, you know, tenfold if we've got everybody participating. So we're hoping you take the lead in that regard. And finally, one of the most critical things we're looking at for the Judgment, Judging Me Awards is resolutions that are submitted for consideration at National Convention, so related to federal or national issues. This is one of the most important things for the legislative department because we need those resolutions to make up our legislative program, which allows us to advocate on your behalf on Capitol Hill when we testify. So we need those resolutions to be able to support or oppose different positions. And then we really want to see your participation in the convention committees, on the various committees. I think because you're so involved in the legislative issues, it's familiar with the resolutions process. And we've tried to do webinars and many of you have joined in on those webinars or hopefully watched them if you weren't able to join in on the day that we were doing them. But we've really tried to model based on what the legislative advocacy efforts we want you to be doing. And one of them is preparing your department for the resolutions process during your department conventions, getting them submitted to national. And your hard work has paid off. A lot of you have really come through and we've seen it. So we look every year how many resolutions in 2017. We had 12 departments that participated that submitted resolutions. And for 208 total resolutions submitted. And we just said, we just, you know, why is it so low? We really want to have our benefit protection team members really try and help with the engagement. We saw that payoff in 2018 where we had double the number of departments submitting resolutions, which we were really pleased about. And we increased the number of resolutions. And are you ready for 2019? Thirty-three departments, this is a record, thirty-three departments submitted resolutions for over a hundred more than we received last year or nearly. So give yourself a round of applause. That was because of you and your efforts. The memo has went out to departments and BBTLs outlining the OPA award. The award form was sent as well. You've got to complete that form by September 2nd to be in the running. It's a required, you know, to be in for the running for the award. Really now, the form electronically sending it back to the BBTA awards at DAV.org. We've got an instruction sheet memo to go with the award form. But if there's any questions, just call one of the staff and we're happy to help you through that. But we want to make sure that you put in everything in there that you've done and there's an opportunity to include things that you've done that might be unique. And the prize, the real prize will be that bringing the BBT, that BBT award winners will be authorized travel to attend the midwinter conference in 2020 and will be providing our award to both the department and the BBT at the 2020 conference. I just want to remind you that our service and legislative seminar is on Saturday tomorrow. We want you to arrive by 1.45 p.m. We're going to start sharp on time 2 p.m. So we don't want people drifting in at the last minute. We have some very special guests. Representative Mark Tocano, House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman, newly appointed in the 116th Congress, and Dr. Paul Lawrence, our Undersecretary for Benefits. And Mr. Larry Connell from the Veterans Health Administration, he's the Chief of Staff. So we should have a good discussion. I am missing some slides. So I'm sorry? Sure. Forward. Okay. Yep. So today you're going to hear from the staff one of the, we want to give you an update on where we are with our critical policy goals for 2016. So Peter's going to go over the implementation of the VA Mission Act. Adrienne, we'll give you an update on where we are with caregiver benefit expansion that was passed within the Mission Act and a little update on the budget for 2020. Shane will be covering Blue Water Navy claims update, which I'm sure you're all interested in hearing about where we are and when claims can be submitted and will start being to be processed. He's also going to talk about the concession of exposure concept for burn pits. I'll be talking about just a short brief update on our women veterans initiatives and Jeremy will wrap up with improving survivors' benefits. So without further ado, I'm going to go ahead and get started on that. Peter? Here you go. Morning everyone. Morning. So it's great to be here in Florida. It's been a while since I've been back here. I actually spent a lot of time here as a kid and we came a week early, my wife and I, but the one thing of course I forgot was how hot and humid it was. It just didn't seem like that when you're younger and you had all the great time. But I asked Andy Marshall, I said, Andy, are there ever periods of time where it's just like cool and dry and you can really enjoy yourself and Andy looked at me and thought for a second and said, yeah, last year it was on a Wednesday. So we'll get used to it. So let's jump right into it. So as most of you know, the VA Mission Act was a critical piece of legislation that we worked on quite extensively to make sure this achieved the right balance of trying to take care of our veterans and take care of the VA health care system. It essentially replaced the Choice Act which operated for the past four years. It was a long process of pulling this together. We worked closely with our VSO colleagues, with members of the House and the Senate, with the VA, with the administration. And we were able to achieve something that had bicameral, bipartisan support and it was backed by almost every veteran service organization. In fact, there was a coalition, we left one time of 38 of them. So the law was passed a little over a year ago on June 6th and it took effect this June 6th on D-Day. So what I'm going to do is give you an overview of the four main parts of the law which you can see here, creates a new community care program. It also expands VA's internal capacity. There will be a new process to review a realign and strengthen VA's infrastructure and the caregiver program, which I won't talk about because Adrienne will be going through that. So I'll skip the caregiver, jump right into the reverse order. Briefly, the asset and infrastructure review is set up to take a look at all of the VA healthcare infrastructure. It will take a look at each market individually and make an assessment of what the veterans needs are currently, what they're projected to be, what VA's capacity is, and what there could be in the community and come up with a plan. And key to this was that we actually worked closely with the sponsors in the House, particularly at that time, Chairman Phil Rowe. To make certain that we wrote right into the law, veteran service organizations, be involved at every step of the process. So this won't start for another couple of years, but we've got that on our radar. I will mention there was a bill introduced to try to move that up, to start that process earlier. We didn't oppose that. Adrienne testified against this before the House Veterans Affairs Committee. Because it's important that the Mission Act and the new community care network get set up first before we decide which VA facilities may need to be realigned and which ones really need to be beefed up. So that's down the road. We'll talk more about this at midwinter and at next year's summer convention. As I mentioned, when we look at replacing choice and even with choice, it was equally important to us that we not only made sure that veterans who couldn't find care at VA got the ability, but that we beefed up VA's internal capacity. So with the Mission Act, it wasn't just about the community care program. We wanted to address one of the critical factors was the vacancies many of you heard about. I think the number's about 45,000 now. 40,000 of those or so are in the VHA. So this law provided new recruitment tools, new scholarships, loan repayments, relocation bonuses, ways to make sure VA could hire the best and the brightest, particularly in difficult areas. It also put money in to expand VA's treatment space. And a key provision is telehealth. Some of you may have used telehealth, even telemental health. But previously, they could only have a VA facility, say in Florida, say at Bay Pines, could only do telehealth for people who lived in Florida. This allows them, since it is, after all, being done through new IT, to do it across state lines. So if you need to have services through telehealth, they can connect you with someone across state lines who might be available more quickly or might have more specialty, more experience in what you need to be given help with. So that was a critical new provision that we fought to include. So the main portion of the part that people focus on is the new veterans community care program, which is how you get care in the community when VA can't provide it on time or they're too far away. It consolidates a number of existing programs, including choice into this single program. It looks at a different model of really making sure that they're creating integrated networks. And that is to make sure that the VA and the community providers are working seamlessly hand in hand, so that you're getting really quality care and that you are being carefully coordinated in that care. VA does remain the primary provider and holds the responsibility for coordinating that care, which is absolutely critical. What if you saw any about this? There are new eligibility rules that I'll go through in a second, and there is a new urgent care benefit that I'll go through in a second. And remember, we are putting all these slides on the website. You'll be able to download them in the next couple of days as soon as we get it up there. So the new eligibility criteria, some of it, this is for the community care network. Some of it is similar and familiar as it was in choice. Of course, if there's not a service available at the VA facility, then of course, you're able to use the community. If there's not a VA full service medical facility within the state, then you have an eligibility to use community care. Under choice, if you lived more than 40 miles, you were eligible to use the choice program. They'll continue this as a legacy in the five most rural states for two years. So there'll be a little bit of a transition available there. One of the new criteria on which you can elect to use the Veterans Community Care Program is best medical interest. And this is something that is a little different, which is when the doctor, the provider, whoever your provider is, the VA, and you determine that it's in your best medical interest, that can be authorization to go into the community care program and choose one of the providers who are part of VA's new network. There's also a provision that will come online next year. It's not there yet, which is VA is really going to take a look at all of the service lines in each facility. So a facility might have any number of service lines, cardiology, orthopedics, mental health. If they look at any of them and they see that they are falling below VA's quality standards, they're gonna pick them out and on a systematic basis try to remediate them and bring them up to a higher standard. During that time of remediation, you would be able to elect to use a community provider for those services. This again is one we'll talk about more midwinter and you'll see more again on the Commander's Action Network as it comes online. And of course the one that people get most focused on and we'll talk a little bit more about this is they set new access standards. And these new access standards will really be driving a lot of the debate that's been going on. So taking a look at the new access standards. Under choice, what they did was they said if there is a 30 day or greater weight, then you could use the choice providers. Under the new mission act, what they do is they set up a little adjustments on this for primary and mental health care. It's greater than 20 days. So if you have to wait greater than 20 days when you seek a primary or mental health care, then they would offer you the option to use the community care network. All right, and I should actually say as well that includes long term care. And I really shouldn't have forgotten that. In fact, I spent a day at the St. Augustine State Nursing Home on the way down. So long term care should have been on my mind. In fact, if you haven't been there, I was in there with really a great facility and there was a number of veterans sitting around. And I went over to them and they were talking. As I started to listen, they were actually talking about a lot of their aches and pains and what they had. And one of the men said, of course, he said, my arms are so weak, I can even hardly lift this cup of coffee. And this is sort of what happens with aging. And another one said, well, my cataracts are so bad, I can't even see this cup of coffee. And another one said, I can't even turn my head, my arthritis is so bad. And another one said, pills make me so dizzy, I can't even stand up. And another one looked over and said, well, I guess that's the price we pay for getting old. And after a moment, they looked at each other and one of them said, yeah, but thank God we can still drive. So long term care, so that's the primary mental health care. For specialty care, it's 28 days. If the facility can't get you specialty care within 28 days, you're eligible for the network. For distance, as I mentioned, it was 40 miles is how they measured distance, now they do it differently. They do it by travel times. So what they've said is, if the average travel time from your location to the VA facility is greater than 30 minutes, then you're eligible for care in the new Veterans Community Care Program for primary and mental health care. If the average travel time from your residence is greater than 60 minutes for specialty care, then you'll be eligible for the new Community Care Network. And the way this is going to work is VA has set up mapping software, like Google Maps, but they've got their own. And they've created an algorithm to try to set an average time from every address of every enrolled veteran. And they've got this in a database. And they will tell you when you reach out to them and say, I need an appointment again for my knee. And they'll say, well, I'm looking at it here where you live. I've pulled up our decision support tool. And the average travel time from your location is greater than 60 minutes, let's say. So you're eligible, if you want, to choose one of the network providers. Now, this is a brand new standard. It's one we have some concerns about, about how exactly they're going to measure it. How will they calculate traffic, for instance? And so one of the things we're going to be interested is to get more and more reports from people of how it's been working, because it's important that this work clearly and effectively and transparently for people going through it. In general, these access standards, we had some concerns and we submitted comments to the federal register. For the wait times, we're concerned that VA is lowering the wait times even below what they're capable of doing and therefore creating a much larger group of people who may choose to leave the VA and go in the community. And they may not have the proper funding to pay for it and they're not even considering the impact on the VA facility. For the distance, the same thing we're questioning when, under the choice program, it was about 8% of people were eligible. Under this new eligibility, it could be as high as 40%. So the impact of changing access standards has downstream implications that we don't believe they've thought through. We hope it works out. We're going to follow it. We're going to make sure that if anything we can do that we're going to work with them to adjust it. As I mentioned, the other new feature is one that we're very pleased they did. And we've fought for a long time, DAV has, to get an urgent care benefit. And this again is for the non-emergency care. It's the non-continuing care in something. Again, you've got a cold, you've got the flu, you need to see someone. Most people have the ability to go into an urgent care clinic and their private insurance will pay for it. VA has now set up a plan that you can also use a series of community providers that they're continuing to add to the program to get these kind of routine care done. You don't need to get prior VA authorization if you are enrolled in VA already, but you do need to be certain that the provider's part of the network. And what you see this logo up here, they've distributed to all of their providers. Hopefully this will be a sign you'll see there so that you'll know that it's something that you can do. Co-payments were something we also opposed that they put on for priority groups one through five, so that's gonna cover service-connected disabled veterans. The first three visits would be free, but on the fourth visit, so after three visits, it's gonna cost you $30. So three times, no pre-authorization using urgent care. The fourth visit or more $30, we oppose that. We're gonna continue to work to try to have that taken out. So if you were here, if you were in DC, I should say at the midwinter, as we were looking ahead, we said, how are we gonna judge how well implementation's going? One was, has VA accurately estimated the cost of what this community care program will take and will Congress give them the funds? We think they underestimated it. It's not yet clear, until the end of the first year, we won't know, but we'll be tracking that closely and making sure that they don't have to take money out of the VA hospitals in order to pay for care in the community. A second way was whether the IT systems would be ready on time and whether they would be capable of running the new program, really to coordinate care. Well, they did get the program off on June 6th, but in the long term, how well they can manage as the number of people increases is just an open question. Will the eligibility, these new access standards I talked about, the new distance changing to waiting time, will that be clear both to veterans and will VA administer it clearly? We don't have enough experience, it's really just starting. And will the community providers be able to meet the needs? Again, it's still too early to see that. And the other set of questions we looked at is the long term, which is, if they really wanna be successful, they need to be working closely with our organization and other veterans groups who represent veterans. Up to this point on this law, we've been very disappointed. We also look at, will they continue to fund not just the community care, but the VA program? Again, that is an open question, but for the long term, that's critical. And will the coordination of care when you're going between the community and the VA, will they really have a very comprehensive program so that there's not fragmentation of people falling through the cracks? Right now we're disappointed in what they've put forward for this new program. We continue to work with them on that. Will they meet the same standards require community providers as the VA meets? They do not. We're concerned about that and we're still pushing. And for the long term, we need them to maintain the full continuum of care, all the services at VA facilities that they can. At the moment, they are still doing that. There's been no changes, but this again, for the long term, is an open question. So finally, I'll just mention that we are looking to get feedback. We will be coming out the next couple of months with an online survey to get your experiences so we can hear from you how the admission act if you've used the community care program, how it's worked. So we'll be looking for that in the future. So with that, as I mentioned, I'll turn it over to Adrian. Okay, so I'm here to give you a little bit of update on the caregiver support program. Peter mentioned there's a little bit of a change in the program with regards to the mission act. But I actually want to talk to you about this update based on the resolutions that we have, the resolution that we have pending. And hopefully we'll get this convention to adopt it again before we leave Florida. So our current resolution on the caregiver program is Resolution 017, and it calls for not only congressional oversight to implement the Expansion in the Mission Act, also has a requirement that we seek improvement in the existing program, and both in the benefits and the services that's available through it. So the first thing I'd like to go over is oversight of how VA is implementing the expansion. So the first thing that Mission Act required VA to do was to install an IT solution that will help support the expansion. Now as many of you know, when the caregiver support program was first implemented back in 2011, a lot of problems with trying to track applications, they didn't have enough staff to process the applications on time, they were having trouble trying to track family caregivers and veterans, making sure they get all the services they need at home. So they're hopeful that the IT system that the law requires to be put in place will mitigate all of that. Now the law says that this IT system is supposed to be deployed, tested, October 1st, last year, following that, the VA is supposed to certify to Congress by October of this year that it actually works, that it's gonna be able to manage the expansion. Well, what we heard is that there were some problems. And so we talked to Congress and he said, hey, you know, we're hearing a little bit of concern about the IT program and you know how any delay in that is gonna affect the expansion. So Congress decided to schedule a hearing, May 22nd. So when that news hit the streets, we were starting to hear some rumors that VA may not appear at this hearing. So we worked with our crack communication team, there's a few of them around behind you here at DC and they use social media to put pressure on VA to actually appear and answer and let the public know what they're doing, if there's any problems to let the Congress know in case they may be able to do something about it. So they did and at this hearing, it's a joint hearing. I did something, I do. So at this hearing, Chairwoman Brownlee, who is a chair for the Subcommittee on Health and the House Veteran's Ferris Committee, she asked when the program is gonna start, when they're gonna start expanding the program to VA's, there's something that must be said for VA both appearing and being quite candid at this hearing. The VA witness did say that they didn't have an definitive date. Now remember, this is back in May. They didn't have definitive date. Now Chairman Banks, Representative Banks, who is a chair of the Subcommittee for Technology and Modernization, he wanted to clarify, let me get this right. So this new IT solution that you're working on, it has to be revised and it has to go under three revisions and by the third revision, that last and third revision will make the IT solution be able to help VA expand the program. He says yes, that's it. And let me get this right. Phase three, we don't know when that's gonna happen and the VA witness clarified, verified and said yes. In fact, we don't have a date at this time. Now this is back in May. The Senate, of course they were paying attention to the hearing and they were quite dismayed about that. So they wrote a letter in July and the letter said that it is unfortunately regrettable that VA is delayed but they noted that they believe that the VA can get this done by as late as the third quarter of 2020, third quarter of 2020. So let me remind you again how this is gonna, supposed to work out by the law. IT system in place, tested October 1st last year, October of this year, certified for expansion but instead we are now looking at an extra year delay and we are not even sure if this is gonna happen. So this I think is completely unacceptable. I hope that all of you when you go back home after this convention, all your members of Congress, both in the House and the Senate, they're all back home right now and they're gonna be there through the first week of September. I hope all of you get back, let your member of Congress know how unacceptable the situation is. All our pre-911 veterans have been waiting for years, for decades for this kind of support and it's unfortunate that VA's taking its time and trying to expand this program for them. The last thing I'd like to quickly go over about our caregiver resolution is improving the current program. Now as many of you know, about in 2017 there was widespread media reporting about caregivers and veterans being booted out of the program unceremoniously or caregivers and veterans being reduced in tier because there are three tiers based on how hard or how much support the caregiver gives the veterans. So because of that, the IG reviewed the program in 2018 and they verified all these inconsistencies. Now in the meantime, then Secretary Schell can put in a suspension and said okay, we'll stop, stop all the reduction, stop all the discharging out of the program and let's do an internal review and that internal review had three recommendations. One is to give better discharge notification letters, telling veterans and caregivers why they're being discharged out of the program. Second thing is a description of roles and responsibilities and the last one is standard operating procedure for the program, believe it or not, for many, many years that program had been operating without operating procedures. So when the Mission Act was passed earlier in 2018, VA had to issue a request for comments from the public. That was done in November 18 and we provided quite a few comments to that request. And in December of 2018, because discharges were continuing, Secretary Wilkie put the second moratorium on discharges and revocations and we are still waiting for internal review based on that moratorium. So we've kind of headed, we've kind of been playing along with the VA, trying to get them to move, to improve the program, but that's not our only option, right? Our other option is Congress and with Congress getting involved, the Senate stepped up, Senator Casey, Tesser and Murray introduced this bill, S-1648, supporting Veterans Caregiver Act of 2018 and this addresses all those discharges and reductions. The bill says, if it's enacted, that they have to review all of them and they must reinstate all those that were wrongfully denied. Another bill that was just recently introduced, S-2216 was introduced by Senator Peters and Blackburn. Now this is a bipartisan bill. It requires a standard explanation on VA's decision, whether it's to discharge or reduce or even to increase them in tier. See, this is one of the biggest problem we hear from our NSOs that are helping Veterans and caregivers appeal their discharges. The letter that Veterans and caregivers get, all it says is, we're just gonna discharge you. Thank you very much. Not a whole lot of explanation there. The other thing the bill does is it will require VA when they discharge a Veteran and caregiver out of the program to extend benefits for 90 days. It's transitional benefit. We think that's reasonable and they actually included it in their bill and the last thing we ask them to include that's in this bill is to require VA to not only identify but recognize all primary caregivers, whether they're in the comprehensive program or not. And what this will do is make VA change its culture in recognizing not only the Veteran but their caregiver as part of the clinical team. So that's what this bill hopes to do and hopefully we'll get a hearing on it and get it passed because clearly this program not only needs to expand but it also has to improve its operations. Now, the last thing I'd like to talk to you about is give you an update on VA's budget and I just wanna let you know everything is just fine. Yeah, no, not really. So just to recap, the federal budget cycle starts with the President submitting his budget request, his or her budget request in February. It was a little bit late this year. I think the President actually submitted to Congress I think in March and after the President submits his budget to Congress, Congress then proceeds to conduct hearings. How much of a, how big a budget are they gonna have and spend? And then each Appropriations Committee then starts allocating a certain amount of money to different agencies such as the VA. So what we've done is, whoops, we've actually as part of the independent budget provided what our recommendation would be for the Department of Veterans Affairs. And so what we recommended was an increase of about 1.5 billion more than what the President asked for fiscal year 2020. And this is just for the VA medical care accounts. We also asked for an additional 3 billion for community care because of the expansion of the Mission Act for the other accounts that we have concerns about, whether it's the Veterans Benefits Administration, Construction, or IT. We actually asked and recommended an increase of over 2.3 billion over what they're spending this year. And it's actually 2.9 billion more than what the President requested. So all said and done to fully fund the VA, we believe that VA should be funded an extra 15 billion next year. It's a substantial increase. And this is 6.4 billion more than what the President requested. Now the House is attempting to meet that need, but the Senate still hasn't come out with their numbers. Now there have been concerns since May that there wouldn't be an overall budget agreement. I think you've been hearing talks in the media about possibly going into a federal shutdown, defaulting on our loan, things like that. Well, earlier this week, they did come to an agreement. The House passed this budget deal. The Senate, in fact, just passed theirs, the same deal yesterday, so that's going into the President now for his signature, which is really becoming, unfortunately, are for the course. We keep dodging the train as if nothing's really happening. So, now that we have a budget deal, now that the appropriators are doing their thing, trying to figure out how much money should be going to VA, we did send a letter to Congress. We sent it to the leadership in the House and the Senate, the appropriators in the House and the Senate, and the authorizing VA committees in the House and the Senate. And we were basically asking that they fund VA at a level that will both provide and execute VA's requirements under the Mission Act, so that's a new community care program, the urgent care benefit that Peter had mentioned, as well as the Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Act of 2019. And that's actually gonna ask for roughly about a billion dollars more than was expected before we made our recommendations and before the President submitted his budget request. So, speaking of Blue Water Navy, and I'll turn it over to Shane. Give you a little bit of update about what's going on with that, okay? Everybody strapped in and ready to rock? Yeah, all right, because we are about to embark on what I call Shane's Fun Ride. Are you ready? What's going on with Blue Water Navy? This is gonna be our update from what we talked about earlier this year at midwinter. So, where did we start? We're gonna be talking about our critical policy goal, then we're gonna talk about what has happened since then, and as many of you know, HR 299 did become law, and then we're gonna talk about where are we now? Yes, the VA has put a stay on all Blue Water Navy cases, period. And we'll talk about that in a minute as well. So, let's go ahead and set the stage or the table and get ready to feast, and that is, let's talk about where we started the beginning of the year. Procopio v. Wilkie and our policy goal. In January of this year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held that service in the Republic of Vietnam includes the territorial waters within 12 nautical miles of the baseline or shoreline. Our policy goal, as we stated, is that Congress should enact legislation to protect and codify Procopio. In other words, make sure we have that 12 nautical miles at the very least put into a statute so it's protected for all our veterans who served in the waters offshore. So, then that brought us to HR 299. It was introduced in January of this year by Chairman Mark DiConno, who will be here tomorrow with us, and it was actually the first piece of legislation he introduced. So, they introduced it in January, and lo and behold, it passed, in May, quickly 410 to zero. 435, 410 to zero. That's amazing. What was even more amazing is that past the Senate without a vote, they did it by unanimous consent, and not one person objected, unlike the year before. That was amazing. And then what was even more amazing than that, you might be thinking to yourself, Joe, well, I'll tell you. What was even more amazing than that was the President signed HR 299 into law on June 25th. That's right, our little bill on Capitol Hill became a law. And how did it become a law? Because of you. I wanna thank each of you for being a chapter and department leader, being part of your benefits protection team, and using DAB's commander's action network. How many people in this room talked to an elected official in the last two years about Blue Water Navy at some point? There you go. Thank you very much. Give yourselves a round of applause. Thank you for all the hard work you've been putting in. So my wife, God bless her, isn't here. Well, God bless her. I love her to death, but the one thing she always wishes I would stop talking about is Blue Water Navy. Yeah, I've been talking about it just a little bit over the last few years, but I'm not done not by a long shot. So now that it's been passed into law, it's now public law 116-23. And what it does, it'll establish 12 nautical miles from the line created by specific grid coordinates. So what does that mean? That means that some locations, it's actually over 90 nautical miles from the coast. So originally the 12 nautical miles of Procopio was expected to cover between 90 and 130,000 people, potential veterans who were exposed. And this additional amount is looking at between 13 and 20,000 additional veterans who were exposed. If you're wondering what it looks like, there is a very old map of Vietnam. This came right from several studies and things that were being done in the State Department. So you see my yellow line there? It's 12 miles seaward from that. That is the catchment area for the public law. So as you can see, some of those points are right on the coastline. So it's 12 miles from there. Some of those points are 80 miles from the coastline. So this is a huge area that is gonna be covered by those who were exposed in the waters offshore. So what else does public law 116-23 do? Well, it establishes effective date of January 1st, 2020 for the law to go into effect. And for those of you who are savvy enough, my NSOs and CSOs and DSOs out there in the audience, you may understand that NAMR may apply. However, NAMR does not apply. But guess what they did? They snuck this in. And the earliest possible effective date for a claim under HR or Public Law 116-23 is September 25th, 1985, which just coincidentally happens to be the same date as NAMR. So yeah, funny how that worked. So that means that the possible, earliest effective date for a claim is September of 85. Now let's talk about really what we're up against. That's right, stop, slow down. Let's not do anything for six months because that always works out well. The VA decided on July 1st to issue a stay on all Bluewater Navy cases, including all of the cases that would have fell into Procopio that happened before the law even passed. Now I'm just gonna go ahead and give you the spoiler. We don't agree with that. DAV strongly disagrees with VA's decision to state all claims and we call on the VA now to begin processing and gratting claims immediately to ensure veterans are provided access to the healthcare and benefits they have been denied for decades. So their plan is not to do anything until January 1st. How many veterans out there have no other access to healthcare? But they would if they got their benefits service connected for age and orange exposure. How many veterans are suffering from severe diseases and disabilities and cancers related to that exposure? We need them to act now because we don't wanna be talking on January 1st. How many we lost because they chose? They chose not to process these claims. And on July 24th, DAV and other VSOs addressed the secretary stay requesting that they remove it or at least modify it and address those who need the help now. Those who are suffering from terminal illnesses as well as those who are over the age of 85. So I know you've helped us out a lot in the last few years on this but we're gonna need your help again. That's right, another call to action. What we need you to do if the opportunity arises in the next few weeks or months and as Peter and Adrian both touched on contact your congressional officials when you get home. They're gonna be home. Let them know how we feel about the secretary stay on these claims. And also be ready for an upcoming action. We have some things planned that are gonna be coming out through DAV's Commanders Action Network very soon. So please stand by, be ready and we're gonna ask you to mobilize your networks within your departments and chapters to help us get more action done. And then the last thing is if you know anybody that falls under those criteria that believe they may have a claim, tell them to file now. Whether it's a fellow veteran or a surviving spouse of a veteran, make sure we file those claims when? When was that? That's right, now. So I wanna thank you. That's our update on Bluewater Navy and I know what you're thinking. Shane, we wanna hear you some more. Guess what? Now we're gonna talk about concession of exposure to burn pits. This also is one of our critical policy goals that we established earlier this year and talked about at our national midwinter conference. We're gonna give you a little update on what's going on. So we're gonna talk about the current claims process for diseases related to burn pits. We're gonna talk about our DAV's unique idea that nobody else has and that's part of our critical policy goal and then we're gonna talk about where we are now and forthcoming actions in reference to this issue. So the current claims process for disabilities related to burn pit exposure, the VA does not provide presumption of service connection for diseases related to burn pit exposure. They do not. They also do not have any existing statutes that can see exposure to toxins for burn pits. In April of this year, the National Academy of Medicine started a comprehensive study of long-term healthcare effects due to burn pit exposure. The VA contracted with them in April to get a study to see if there are any diseases or disabilities related to burn pit exposure. The study is expected to end in early 2021. So we're still a couple of years away. And again, this may lead to presumptive diseases and it may not. Just because they're doing the study doesn't guarantee we're gonna have disabilities and diseases related. So right now, if you have a disability related to burn pit exposure, what do you have to do? Well, the basic three things for service connection and those three things are, Jim Shuey, I know you got it right on the tip of your tongue, but I'll give them for you. It's a current medical evidence of a disability, evidence of exposure to toxins, and evidence of a link or a medical opinion saying your current disability is related to that exposure. Well, you might be thinking to yourself, self, how well has that been happening in the VA system? Well, the VA's tracked claims that have been specifically claimed due to burn pit exposure from June of 2007 through November of last year. 11,500 claims were filed, 20% were granted, 20%. Of the 9,000 that were denied, 44% were denied for not having a diagnosis, and more importantly, 54% were denied for no link to service or no medical opinion. So I think it's safe to say 80% of these claims that are being denied, it's not working so well. So our current situation is we have no presumptive diseases or disabilities related to burn pit exposure, and 80% of the claims that are being filed for that are being denied. So let's talk about the current legislation that's out there for burn pit exposure. Most of the legislation that is out there is focusing just on a few things. One, it's focusing on the VA Airborne Hazards and Open Burn Pit Registry and Research. So the Oath Act or HR2617 and S1680 are both out there and they address DOD and VA information sharing, location sharing, exposure sharing to be updated to the Airborne Hazards and Burn Pit Registry. The National Defense Authorization Act that is currently pending also adds information for sharing of information and for DOD to track exposures. The Burn Pit Accountability Act improves the VA Burn Pit Registry. And just recently introduced, and we're familiar with this bill it was introduced last year. They're trying to address for the first time service connection, and this is based on a presumptive basis. They wanna set up a new presumptive law based on no current diseases or disabilities because there are none. And they wanna set up an outside committee, outside of the VA by a group of scientists to determine what's gonna be related. The text is not available on this, this is brand new. So what did you hear from all of this legislation? None of it is actually doing what? Addressing benefits for service connection now. None of them are, right? Because enhancing the Burn Pit Registry while we support those bills, they don't actually prove anything. If they can't use that for service connection. So you might be thinking Shane, well, do we have a plan? I'm glad you thought that because yes, yes we do. Our critical policy goal is Congress should enact legislation to conceive Burn Pit exposure for all veterans eligible to join the VA airborne hazards and open Burn Pit Registry and should include the same chemicals and toxins noted in VA's manual. Guess what, VA's manual already recognizes toxins and chemicals from Burn Pits. So we think Congress should concede Burn Pit exposure and apply that to all of those exposed to Burn Pits to include veterans currently eligible to join the Burn Pit Registry and this would eliminate the need for each veteran to prove exposure to Burn Pits. So if we get Congress to say, hey, if you were in Iraq between this time and this time, you were exposed to Burn Pits, period. And guess what, here's a whole list of chemicals you were exposed to. If you knew that information to file a claim, would that be a little easier? Because if you try to get a disability medical opinion now but you don't know what you were exposed to, how is your doctor gonna give you an opinion, right? Exactly, that's why we're pushing this idea of a concession of exposure. This is not presumptive service connection. That's not what this is. It's still gonna be direct service connection but you no longer as a veteran have to prove what you were exposed to and where they're conceding it. So that means when we start talking about direct service connection again, you're gonna still need to come to the table with a diagnosis of a current disability but when it comes to number two up there, evidence of exposure to toxins, that's gonna be conceded. They're gonna say you were exposed and what you were exposed to. Now if you get a medical opinion from a VA examiner or a private opinion from a doctor, it's gonna be much easier to establish that. So where is our current goal status? It's going very well. We've created a coalition of VSO support. We've been talking about this idea of a concession exposure for the last several months. We have several VSOs already in support of the idea on board. We're currently working with the Senate office to establish language. That's right, we have two senators both on the Veterans Affairs Committee that like this bill. Not do only do they like this bill, they love this bill. Guess what they wanna do? They wanna introduce DAB's idea of a concession exposure into Congress as a bill. So we're working with them, we've got a bipartisan approach and Peter and I are currently working with the House Veterans Affairs Committee to establish their support so that when this is introduced, it'll be bipartisan and in the House and the Senate at the same time. So we're getting a lot of support for this idea and with any luck, this is gonna be introduced in September. That's right, DAB's very own idea is gonna be introduced as a bill hopefully in September. So when that happens, we're gonna send out an alert through the DAB's Commander Action Network and we're gonna need your help. We're gonna need you to use your networks, contact your people and more importantly, have the conversations with your elected officials in your districts and your offices because this is gonna be big. This is gonna be a game changer. There are no presumptive diseases for burn pit exposure. There aren't any right now. Even though that study's pending and expected to be done in 2021, it's still gonna be potentially three to five years before we get legislation to introduce those. So veterans in the meantime should not suffer and no 80% of their claims are gonna be denied. We need to do this now and we need your help. So I wanna thank you all for your time this morning on Blue Water Navy and the concession of exposure to burn pits. If you have any specific questions, I'll be available after the seminar is over. And now it's time to get ready, get excited. That's right, the newest member of the team. Ladies and gentlemen, Jeremy Villanueva. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. Pleasure to be here talking in front of all these smiling and mostly awake faces. Like Shane said, I'm the newest member of team. The team, my name is Jeremy Villanueva. I am the, oh, hold on, let me first. You gonna take that one again now? Cause I wanna see a good one this time. Hold on. Hopefully I get to see a good one. Okay. I am the associate legislative director and I make by foot five look good. Anyway, so what we're gonna be talking about today is survivor's benefits. Okay. And what we're gonna be talking about really is diving into is what the situation is, what we've been doing and what we need from you to help get these benefits for those who have been there from the beginning for service disabled veterans. Now before we get started, it's a little cold in here, isn't it? Yeah, but people fall asleep between going outside in the humidity and coming back in, I think I shrunk. I was six feet tall when this started. Anyway, so what's the situation right now? Well, currently we have survivors, caregivers, you know, who are losing significant info, significant financial income once if and if, that's a big if, their veteran passes away and receives DIC. Now this can potentially put them into a financial crisis. You have surviving spouses who cannot remarry prior to the age of 57 for fear of losing their benefits, which for the veteran community, we have a lot of surviving spouses who are widowed at a very young age. And to put that on them to say that you have to wait all of these years to be able to be remarried is something that no one should be asked to do. We have survivors and dependents of severely disabled veterans that only have a 10 year period to utilize and complete a program of education through chapter 35. That's regardless of age, health, caregiver status, none of those things are taken into consideration. It's 10 years and it's over and that's it. We also have a law that offsets DOD survivor benefits or SDP against DIC benefits. Now this is despite the fact that SDP was a paid for benefit for retirees that they paid through throughout their life and many, many of the surviving spouses don't even realize that there will be an offset until after the veteran passes away and it's done to them. And then we have veterans who have been rated 100% disabled that still have to wait 10 years before the loved ones are eligible for DIC. Why? Why put that on a severely disabled veteran and tell them, by the way, if you want to leave anything for your loved ones, try to survive for 10 years to a severely disabled veteran. All of these things are things that we are going and advocating about and trying to bring recognition on the hill to say these are things that need to be addressed. And I probably should have pressed the button before I talked about it. I was a spoiler and I'm sorry. So let's talk about increasing the DIC of benefit. So DIC is a monthly benefit paid to eligible survivors and their dependents. Essentially, this is what is left over when a veteran passes away and Congress came up with something to be able to provide that financial stability to the spouse or the loved one or the dependents that are left behind. This was supposed to be able to bridge that gap once the compensation has been taken away. However, since it was introduced, it hasn't really been touched and it hasn't really been increased. Right now the monetary value is less than 50% of what a veteran who is 100% receives. We're talking about a veteran who has a dependent is receiving roughly about $3,000. The DIC benefit is about $1,200. And this is if you receive DIC. To tell a veteran, especially to add on to that, if they're a caregiver or a severely disabled veteran who is receiving more than 100%, it will still drop down to that 1,200. So to tell a dependent, I understand, I'm sorry that your spouse, your loved one has just passed away, but most of this compensation is gone and you're gonna have to live underneath this budget. That is something that no one should have to explain to that caregiver or to that dependent who's spent the majority of their life in some cases taking care of that service disabled veteran. To try to financially figure out how you just lost 24,000, imagine you were at your job and your pay got cut by $24,000 a year and that's your new budget now. We have been asking Congress to index the DIC benefits to 55% of what 100% disabled veterans make. Now why that isn't a great increase? It is something and it will get that ball rolling and get that conversation started. So is the legislation right now? Well, thank you for asking that. It's an oddly specific question to ask, but we have Senate Bill 1047, the Dependency and Density Compensation Improvement Act. A similar bill was introduced into Congress last year. This one is from Senator John Tester and it only has three co-sponsors, three co-sponsors. Now this would increase the DIC amount to 55% for someone whose disability was rated as total. Now we all understand the passion that we feel about issues like this and when we look at our spouses and our loved ones the ones who have been there supported us and kept us sane and alive in a lot of cases, helped us from day to day to help us with our disabilities. Why this doesn't have more co-sponsors as a travesty? I mean, everybody always says some of the things that you can never take away from are widows and orphans. Well, this is specifically what this is talking about. There's also HR 3221, the Dependency and Density Compensation. This is what we tend to call the sister or the related bill in the house and it only has eight co-sponsors, eight. So what do we need? We want you to call your representatives. Tell your friends, tell anybody who you explain this to and if they say, oh, that's a travesty. I don't care if they're a veteran, if they're a member of DAV or what they are, you sign them up to the Commander's Action Network and you point them to their nearest elected representative and tell them that they should co-sponsor this and get this fixed. So let's talk about lowering the DIC Remarriage Age. So currently, the surviving spouse, if they were married before the age of 57, they lose their benefits. Now, federal employees, survivors who have a similar benefit, that age is 55. The more ridiculous thing is that if you signed up for SPP that we had talked about, the Survivors Benefit Plan, that age is 55. DICs is 57. 57, we believe, is an arbitrary age and causes an unnecessary burden. And again, like I said, in a lot of cases, when these veterans pass away, the spouse is 30s, 20s in the case of some of the people who were losing overseas. Congress should lower the remarriage age and is there legislation that deals with that? I'm glad you asked. No, there is not. And we want you to call your elected representatives and tell them this is a travesty and this is why. If a federal employee who is not going through the same thing that the veteran is going through or that the service member is going through has this benefit, at 55, then this should at least be looked at for veterans. The delimiting date for Chapter 35. So currently, a spouse or dependent is eligible for Chapter 35 benefits and they have a 10 years from eligibility to apply for the program. Chapter 35 is essentially if you are a service-assabled veteran or you pass away during your time of service, your dependents will be able to have essentially benefits that amount to the Montgomery GI Bill and they can go and get their education done. However, if you're a caregiver or you have family obligations or extenuating circumstances, a lot of times taking care of that service-assabled veteran, you still have only 10 years from the eligibility that the veteran receives. Once they get that letter saying, you are eligible or your dependents are eligible for Chapter 35 benefits, you have 10 years to complete that program. And if there's one thing the VA is strict about, it's timelines. That 10 years is done, that funding is done. We've been asking Congress to remove the 10 year delimiting date for spouses and surviving spouses to use their educational benefits provided under Chapter 35. And is there legislation? Unfortunately not. Again, this is something that we need, the elected representatives are there to represent us. We need to make our voices heard. The reason why these things are not being pushed and advocated is because we have to make our voices heard. We have to remind them that they represent us and this, the service-assabled community is looking at these issues. So the SDP-DIC offset, like I said, today a veteran who is eligible for both DIC and SDP would have their SDP payments reduced by the amount of DIC they receive. Now this is ridiculous because these are two separate benefits. One of which we received because of our service-connected disabilities. The other one we received because we paid for it. We opted into it and this is just like a commercial insurance paid for throughout the time spent that they have had a lot of it. So why does one have to be reduced through the other one? We have been asking Congress to repeal this offset as there is no duplication of benefits. There is no unjust enrichment in any of this. So is there legislation? Well, as a matter of fact, thank you because there actually is. So you have HR 553, the Military Surviving Spouses Equity Act, which was introduced by Representative Joe Wilson out of South Carolina. That has 371 co-sponsors, more than enough for it to get fast tracked. We also have a clicker that is not working. There we go. Senate Bill 622, the Military Widows Tax Elimination Act of 2019 that was introduced by Senator Doug Jones and it has 75 co-sponsors. Again, enough to assure if it was brought up for a vote that it would get passed. However, unfortunately, as is the sign of the times, both of those bills have kind of gotten bogged down in bipartisan fighting. But let not your hearts be troubled because HR 2500, which is the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act or the NDAA for fiscal year 2020, they put that as an amendment to it and it's still in there. As of this morning when I'm watching this every day, it is still an amendment in the NDAA which passed the House and is currently being brokered by the Senate. If this gets passed, the SBP DIC offset is no more. So let's talk about reducing the 10-year rule for DIC and one of the reasons I put this last is we're getting a lot of feedback from membership and rightly so. This is something that we should be passionate about. As of right now, a veteran would have to be rated 100% for 10 years for DIC eligibility. Now, as an NSO when you first got started off, one of the first thing a veteran would ask, especially either when they got their initial rating or they became 100%, is what about my spouse? What happens to my loved ones when I pass away? Will they still get this benefit? To have to explain to someone that you're gonna have to hold on for 10 years, sometimes for a lot of these veterans that seems to be an insurmountable, when they've already gone through how many more years before that? 10 years seems like a little bit of a challenge and in most cases, unfortunately, an impossible one. And again, just like I explained earlier, with the VA, time limits are time limits to them. There is no negotiating, regardless of the spouses who gave up their careers to become caregivers to give up all that they had to ensure that they're serving their country by taking care of that veteran. It doesn't matter if there's dependent children and it doesn't matter, again, like I said, they're caregiver status. And we have asked and as one of our critical policy goals this year, that Congress should pass legislation that reduces the 10 year rule. But unfortunately, there's no legislation yet. We've worked with different houses, we've worked with different legislators and there is light at the end of the tunnel, but just not yet. So what can you do? Well, just like we always ask for the PPTLs and just for the membership just in general, what can you do? You can contact your representatives. You can visit district offices. You can write letters. You can visit DC for mid-winter and go and talk to them there. With the help of the legislative staff, you can contact your local media, write off of it. And of course, you can sign people up to the DAV commander's action network because who can, DAV can and together we all can to ensure that this gets done in this Congress. Thank you very much, my name is Jeremy Villanueva. Please tip your waitresses. Okay, we're getting to the end of the program and I'm gonna have to go really quickly through the next set of slides. One of our critical policy goals is improving healthcare and benefits for women veterans. And I'm gonna do this quickly because we have a special ending to our program today. So everybody hold fast, we'll make this short. DAV did release our newest women veterans report, The Journey Ahead, and that was last year right after National Convention, really looking at a number of critical issues to make sure that women veterans have access to comprehensive healthcare and services. The programs are tailored to their needs. The environment of care issues are dealt with in terms of privacy, safety and culture and barriers that they experience, as well as recognition of contributions in military service. I am going to show this short video from DAV, or maybe not because of the way this is lined up. Here we go. Well, it's not gonna play. So moving on, DAV does have a great video though our comms team did on women veterans. I hope you've seen it. I think they were showing them at the department conventions, but if not, we'll try and they'll probably squeeze in at one of the main sessions. 116 Congress, we've got a lot of interest in women veterans issues. Chairman Takano of the House Veterans Affairs Committee has started a congressional task force which is chaired by Representative Julia Brownlee from California. They kicked off their first meeting in May and they've had meetings since that time. We've had a flurry of healthcare bills, including the Debra Sampson Act in the Senate, but about 17 bills in the House. Homeless issues, childcare, newborn, transition issues, military sexual trauma, transition issues, all on women veterans and many of them are straight out from DAV's report. So a number of great bills. We hope that you will join us if you wanna learn more and hear more about women veterans issues. Get a copy of the newest report. Please join us on Monday for the Women Veterans Seminar. We have three great speakers. Jacqueline Hayes-Bird is the newly appointed director of the Center for Women Veterans. We have Dr. Linda Davis and Dr. Lisa Kearney talking about suicide prevention and the special challenges for women veterans with regard to suicide. And the Veterans Experience Office has a new focus on women veterans that they've done which is really interesting to hear about in terms of focus groups with women and improving services in VA. So I hope you'll join us at 2 p.m. As a real quick wrap up, we've made, as you've heard from all of the staff, we've made a lot of progress on our critical policy goals, thanks to all of you, being active, being active on our Commander's Action Network. As you've noticed, election season is beginning early already. Just be careful in your do's and don'ts. When you do things, make sure that you're bipartisan, inviting both sides of the aisle to your roundtables, town hall discussions, get involved, be informed, stay active throughout the process. Make sure that DAB's policy goals are represented. And again, we thank you all for your support. We're just a phone call away in DC. Any of the staff is always happy to help you with the legislative matter. The slides are gonna be posted with all of our contact information, so please don't hesitate to call. Now for a little bit of fun. But wait, there's more. That's right, ladies and gentlemen, it's time for the...