 Hi everyone, I'm Joy Elam, DAB's National Legislative Director and I'm here today to talk about legislative advocacy and DAB's critical policy goals for the 117th Congress. Well, we can't be together in person this year for a midwinter conference. We can continue our advocacy work on behalf of our nation's ill and injured veterans and be just as successful using virtual formats for communicating with our members of Congress and their staffs. In that regard, I hope you will join DAB Commander Whitehead for his testimony before a joint session of the House and Senate Veterans Affairs Committees on Wednesday, March 3 at 10am. A link to join the live presentation will be available on our midwinter resource page at DAB.org slash 2021 midwinter. But before looking at the year ahead and discussing our legislative priorities for 2021, I want to take a moment to recap some of the highlights from the second session of the 116th Congress that just wrapped up. It was a very productive period for the legislative staff, despite the onset of the pandemic which required some adjustment for navigating in the virtual advocacy environment. But despite those initial challenges, Congress continued its work and DAB provided testimony at 36 congressional hearings or formal presentations. We also had a number of notable legislative victories in 2020 with the enactment of four key veterans laws at the end of the session that address several of DAB's longstanding legislative priorities. There were two comprehensive legislative measures enacted aimed at improving and expanding mental health services and suicide prevention efforts for veterans. Legislation that included provisions to improve survivors benefits and enhance and expand programs and services for women veterans. And finally, there was the addition of three new presumptive diseases associated with Agent Orange included in the fiscal year 2021 National Defense Authorization Act. I want to thank all of our supporters for your advocacy efforts throughout the year. Your advocacy was key to DAB success in achieving these very important legislative goals. Moving forward. In the new year, we have a new Congress that convened on January 3, a new president and administration and a new VA secretary was confirmed Dennis McDonough, who is the former Chief of Staff for President Obama. Following the election last November, the Democrats gained control of the Senate, they are now in the majority. The first one, Tester of Montana was selected to serve as chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee and Senator Jerry Moran of Kansas is now the ranking member. On the House side, we have Congressman Mark Tocano from California returning as chairman and Representative Mike Boss of Illinois was selected as ranking member, following the retirement of Representative Phil Grom. From your state serving on one of these important committees, be sure to reach out to them as soon as possible to introduce yourself, educate them about DAV and share legislative priorities. A listing of these congressional committee assignments will be posted on DAV's webpage for midwinter events. I'm a legislative friend grassroots advocacy is critical component of DAV success and achieving legislative victories for nation service disabled veterans. I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their hard work and advocacy efforts in support of DAV's legislative program in our key legislative priorities. While it's important to take time to celebrate successes and those who've helped us achieve our goals. There's always more work to do. So it's time to turn our attention and focus on achieving DAV's critical policy goals for 2021 in the 117th Congress. Full legislative program made up of a vast array of healthcare and benefits related resolutions approved by DAV members that are last national convention. We select a few of the most depressing issues to focus on each Congress. Our critical policy goals for this year include ensuring veterans who are exposed to toxic substances received full and timely benefits, protecting veterans rights and the claims and appeals process, improving and expanding survivor benefits, ensuring equity and health services and benefits for women veterans and other minority and underserved veteran populations, improving mental health and suicide prevention effort services for veterans and building a veterans healthcare system for the future. To learn more about each of these legislative priorities you can just continue watching or visit dav.org slash 2021 midwinter for a copy of these legislative goals, as well as other important advocacy information and materials. Thanks for joining me today and I hope you remain safe and well and I look forward to working together to achieve more legislative victories for veterans in 2021. Thank you.