Press ReleaseBipartisan2026-05-21

TRANSCRIPT: Congresswoman Escobar Speaks at MILCON-VA Subcommittee, Questions VA Secretary

HealthcareTaxesEnvironmentDefenseVeterans

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This press release from Representative Veronica Escobar (D-TX) was published on 2026-05-21 and titled "TRANSCRIPT: Congresswoman Escobar Speaks at MILCON-VA Subcommittee, Questions VA Secretary".

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TRANSCRIPT: Congresswoman Escobar Speaks at MILCON-VA Subcommittee, Questions VA Secretary

This morning, Congresswoman Veronica Escobar (TX-16) spoke twice during a House Appropriations Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies (MILCON-VA) Subcommittee hearing. Testifying at today’s subcommittee hearing were Doug Collins, Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and Richard Topping, Assistant Secretary of Management and Chief Financial Officer. The first part is regarding military construction, including the new VA medical center in El Paso. The second part is regarding VA Home Loans, veteran homeownership, and a preview of upcoming legislation the Congresswoman is working on. The videos can be found here and here , and a transcript of both parts can be found below: PART I Congresswoman Escobar: Thank you Mr. Chairman (Carter) and Ranking Member (Wasserman Schultz). And gentlemen, thank you so much for for being here this morning. Appreciate the opportunity. And I, too, am very proud of the fact that our subcommittee put together a bipartisan appropriations product that I wish could serve as a model for the other appropriations subcommittees. Secretary Collins, as you know, El Paso, Texas, the community I am privileged to represent, is home to more than 40,000 veterans. In fact, El Paso has a veteran population concentration roughly 40% higher than both the Texas and national averages. And because of Fort Bliss and the strong military community there, that number continues to grow, and we are proud of that. Veterans in our region are spread across a large area of West Texas and southern New Mexico. This creates real access and capacity challenges for the VA health care delivery in the region. So I think it's fair to say that ensuring reliable access to VA health care in the region is a significant priority for the department. Would you agree? Secretary Collins: As it is all over the country. Congresswoman Escobar: Thank you. I'm glad to hear that. That's why in 2022, I helped secure roughly $700 million for the construction of a new VA medical center in El Paso. This facility will serve not just El Paso, but the broader region. It will be a major anchor for care in West Texas and southern New Mexico. The facility is expected to open around 2029 or 2030, and even though that sounds like it's quite some time away, planning for the staffing, quality care and operations of a facility of this scale and scope needs to start early. William Beaumont, the VA hospital that will be adjacent to this new VA facility, was $400 million over budget and was three years delayed. Thankfully, that's not the case with this facility, but as you can imagine, veterans have apprehension about making sure that the new facility is opened on time, on budget, with adequate staffing. I am so proud that the Fiscal Year 2027 MILCON-VA bill included my provision that directs the VA to brief Congress on activation planning for the new medical center. Secretary Collins, will you commit that the department will work closely with my office and this subcommittee as activation planning for this facility moves forward? Secretary Collins: Of course. Congresswoman Escobar: Wonderful. Secretary Collins: Can I bring up something here, though? Congresswoman Escobar: Yes, absolutely. Secretary Collins: And I do appreciate you looking at this. And maybe something we could actually [unintelligible] because you've experienced it: Construction. I brought this up on - this is my 10th or 11th time on the Hill. I'm down - somebody told me that there's only, I think Scott Bessent and Pete Hegseth [are about] the only two that's been up here more than me, but I bring this up every time. And you - I appreciate you so much doing this. Construction at the VA is abysmal. It is awful. It's terrible. I can't come up - with my thesaurus runs out of words. And the reason is, is because over the years we have tried to piecemeal stuff, place it out, and we'd give 200 million here, 200 million here, 200 million here, 200 million here. And at the end of the day, we got a 15 year project that costs 1.6 billion. Example. You know - we're - so one of the things I did was change that. I said, let's look for a major like hospital construction, which yours is ongoing, which by the way is about 49% completed. And we're completing that out. But when we look at this, we're putting in the facilities to be built with all the money up front so that we're not coming in and giving the land one year, the paving one year, whatever else, one year. So that's one thing that we're changing. The other thing though, that we're also changing and we'd love to have help, is we're internally changing - [Undersecretary] Richard's over this. I don't know if y'all know this. Did y'all know that - everybody's heard of National Building Standards, right? We all know what national building standards are. Somewhere in the VA though a number of years ago we decided those wasn't good enough. So we added an entire VA on top of it, which makes stuff that's going on i

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TRANSCRIPT: Congresswoman Escobar Speaks at MILCON-VA Subcommittee, Questions VA Secretary This morning, Congresswoman Veronica Escobar (TX-16) spoke twice during a House Appropriations Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies (MILCON-VA) Subcommittee hearing. Testifying at today’s subcommittee hearing were Doug Collins, Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and Richard Topping, Assistant Secretary of Management and Chief Financial Officer. The first part is regarding military construction, including the new VA medical center in El Paso. The second part is regarding VA Home Loans, veteran homeownership, and a preview of upcoming legislation the Congresswoman is working on. The videos can be found here and here , and a transcript of both parts can be found below: PART I Congresswoman Escobar: Thank you Mr. Chairman (Carter) and Ranking Member (Wasserman Schultz). And gentlemen, thank you so much for for being here this morning. Appreciate the opportunity. And I, too, am very proud of the fact that our subcommittee put together a bipartisan appropriations product that I wish could serve as a model for the other appropriations subcommittees. Secretary Collins, as you know, El Paso, Texas, the community I am privileged to represent, is home to more than 40,000 veterans. In fact, El Paso has a veteran population concentration roughly 40% higher than both the Texas and national averages. And because of Fort Bliss and the strong military community there, that number continues to grow, and we are proud of that. Veterans in our region are spread across a large area of West Texas and southern New Mexico. This creates real access and capacity challenges for the VA health care delivery in the region. So I think it's fair to say that ensuring reliable access to VA health care in the region is a significant priority for the department. Would you agree? Secretary Collins: As it is all over the country. Congresswoman Escobar: Thank you. I'm glad to hear that. That's why in 2022, I helped secure roughly $700 million for the construction of a new VA medical center in El Paso. This facility will serve not just El Paso, but the broader region. It will be a major anchor for care in West Texas and southern New Mexico. The facility is expected to open around 2029 or 2030, and even though that sounds like it's quite some time away, planning for the staffing, quality care and operations of a facility of this scale and scope needs to start early. William Beaumont, the VA hospital that will be adjacent to this new VA facility, was $400 million over budget and was three years delayed. Thankfully, that's not the case with this facility, but as you can imagine, veterans have apprehension about making sure that the new facility is opened on time, on budget, with adequate staffing. I am so proud that the Fiscal Year 2027 MILCON-VA bill included my provision that directs the VA to brief Congress on activation planning for the new medical center. Secretary Collins, will you commit that the department will work closely with my office and this subcommittee as activation planning for this facility moves forward? Secretary Collins: Of course. Congresswoman Escobar: Wonderful. Secretary Collins: Can I bring up something here, though? Congresswoman Escobar: Yes, absolutely. Secretary Collins: And I do appreciate you looking at this. And maybe something we could actually [unintelligible] because you've experienced it: Construction. I brought this up on - this is my 10th or 11th time on the Hill. I'm down - somebody told me that there's only, I think Scott Bessent and Pete Hegseth [are about] the only two that's been up here more than me, but I bring this up every time. And you - I appreciate you so much doing this. Construction at the VA is abysmal. It is awful. It's terrible. I can't come up - with my thesaurus runs out of words. And the reason is, is because over the years we have tried to piecemeal stuff, place it out, and we'd give 200 million here, 200 million here, 200 million here, 200 million here. And at the end of the day, we got a 15 year project that costs 1.6 billion. Example. You know - we're - so one of the things I did was change that. I said, let's look for a major like hospital construction, which yours is ongoing, which by the way is about 49% completed. And we're completing that out. But when we look at this, we're putting in the facilities to be built with all the money up front so that we're not coming in and giving the land one year, the paving one year, whatever else, one year. So that's one thing that we're changing. The other thing though, that we're also changing and we'd love to have help, is we're internally changing - [Undersecretary] Richard's over this. I don't know if y'all know this. Did y'all know that - everybody's heard of National Building Standards, right? We all know what national building standards are. Somewhere in the VA though a number of years ago we decided those wasn't good enough. So we added an entire VA on top of it, which makes stuff that's going on i