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This Memorial Day weekend, our country honors its fallen heroes and remembers the cost of the freedoms we enjoy. Veterans know best the cost of our freedoms through the sacrifices they themselves have made, and one way we can honor those who have given their lives is by thanking and serving the veterans still with us. This week, the House passed a number of bills to serve our veterans, including three bills to help prevent veteran suicide.
H.R. 2333, the Support for Suicide Prevention Coordinator’s Act, mandates a study on the work of suicide prevention coordinators at the of Department of Veterans Affairs to assess what measures and resources could improve their effectiveness. H.R. 2340, the Fostering Intergovernmental Health Transparency in Veteran Suicide Act, requires the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to notify Congress of any suicide or attempted suicide by a veteran in a VA facility, increasing availability of the data that informs suicide prevention policy. Additionally, the House passed H.R. 2372, the Veterans’ Care Quality Transparency Act to shed light on shortcomings of current policies. This bill directs the GAO to study memoranda and agreements relating to suicide prevention and mental health services between the VA and non-Department of Veterans Affairs entities. These bipartisan bills all work toward preventing veteran suicide and providing the care that our veterans deserve.
| Strengthening Protections for Child Victims of Abuse |
In 2016, 676,000 children were determined to have been victims of abuse or neglect, and members of the House Committee on Education and Labor have been working to address the serious problem of child abuse. This week, the House passed H.R. 2480, the Stronger Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act, which strengthens and expands coordination among local agencies to help ensure families have access to physical and mental health services, domestic violence prevention programs, disability supports and substance abuse treatment when necessary. This legislation puts families and children before bureaucracies and paperwork and recognizes the important involvement of community stakeholders in the fight against child abuse and the critical work of treating victims. I’m proud of the members of the Education and Labor Committee on both sides of the aisle who worked together to bring this bill to the floor. Learn more here.
| Politicizing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) |
On Wednesday, the House passed H.R. 1500, the “Consumer First Act,” a Democrat-led proposal that attempts to reinstate the unnecessary and burdensome regulations promulgated by the CFPB before they were rolled back by the Trump Administration. When Democrats established the CFPB under the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, the bureau was given authority to regulate providers of an array of consumer financial products and services: deposit taking, mortgages, credit cards and other extensions of credit, loan servicing, collection of consumer reporting data and debt collection associated with consumer financial products.
An agency with such a wide range of authority should not be partisan and should be subject to congressional oversight, which it is not. That’s why under the Trump Administration’s purview, the agency adopted reforms of enforcement power and curtailed its supervisory abilities to scale back its unnecessary regulatory overreach. H.R. 1500 would roll back these reforms to once again prescribe specific mandates that advance the left’s political priorities and do nothing to increase accountability to the American people. Rather than working with Republicans to reform the agency and its authorities to avoid partisan policy shifts from director to director, the Majority voted to further politicize the agency by expanding the advisory board with activists.
Whitehead Community Center Country Breakfast
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Yadkin Valley Wine Festival |
Appalachian State University Summer Class, “Washington at Work: Women, Power, and Politics”
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Michael Davis, Student at Appalachian State University and Summer Intern for Senator Burr |
Next week, the House will hold a District Work Period. I look forward to traveling around North Carolina’s Fifth District and hearing from you! Have a blessed weekend and Memorial Day.
Sincerely,
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