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Pelosi Visit to Taiwan May Prompt More High-Level Visits

The impact of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s whirlwind visit to Taiwan is beginning to be felt, experts say, as another group of high-profile politicians solidifies plans to drop in on the self-ruled island that China considers a breakaway province. 

While China has been preventing Taiwan from sending its leaders to global forums, “they cannot prevent world leaders or anyone from traveling to Taiwan to pay respect to its flourishing democracy,” Pelosi said in a statement published after she concluded her Taiwan visit Wednesday.

The visit has put China’s leadership in a lose-lose situation, said Ali Wyne, a senior analyst at Eurasia Group.

“If it does not respond, it [the Chinese leadership] worries that it may lose political legitimacy at home and project weakness abroad, inviting other high-profile leaders to visit Taiwan and revealing that China’s alleged ‘red lines’ are not, in fact, inviolate,” he wrote in an emailed response to VOA Mandarin.

Yet if Beijing continues to respond to Pelosi’s visit with provocative rhetoric, military drills and threats to retaliate against the United States, other countries may view China as belligerent or even reckless, according to Wyne.

“It is difficult for Beijing to respond in a manner that conveys the strategic importance that it attaches to reunification without undercutting its diplomatic stature,” Wyne added.

China has started a live-fire military drill over seven swaths of water around the self-governed island, according to Taiwanese officials.

In a statement issued Wednesday, foreign ministers of the Group of Seven leading industrial nations warned China not to escalate tension in the region and emphasized that it is routine for legislators from their countries to travel internationally.

Craig Singleton, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the world is keeping a close eye on these drills.

“Beijing’s rhetoric over the last 24 to 48 hours suggests this will not simply be a one- or two-day crisis. Based on an initial assessment, the already tense situation will likely deteriorate further before eventually stabilizing,” he said in an email to VOA Mandarin.

No-win situation for China

China has long tried isolate Taiwan, blocking exchanges between Taiwanese politicians and officials from other countries, especially high-profile representatives such as Pelosi, whose office puts her second in line for the U.S. presidency, behind Vice President Kamala Harris.

But since Pelosi’s sojourn, Beijing may now be facing a domino effect as other high-profile politicians aim to cement their own ties with Taipei by visiting the island.

The Guardian reported Monday that Britain’s House of Commons foreign affairs committee was planning a visit to Taiwan later this year. A source told the British daily that the trip had been scheduled earlier this year but was postponed because a member of the delegation tested positive for COVID-19.

On Tuesday, after Pelosi arrived in Taiwan, China’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, Zheng Zeguang, addressed those countries considering a visit to Taiwan: “We hope that the other countries will recognize the extreme sensitivity of the Taiwan question, honor their commitment to the one-China principle, exercise prudence in words and actions relating to the Taiwan question, and not be led astray by or dance to the tune of the United States.”

When asked about U.K. lawmakers’ plan to visit Taiwan, Zheng said at a press conference [[ ]] that if the visit transpired, it would lead to “severe consequences” for China’s relations with the U.K., adding that “the U.K. side knows this all too well.”

Yun Sun, a senior fellow and director of the China Program at the Stimson Center, said if Western countries interpret Beijing’s countermeasures to Pelosi’s visit as “overreacting,” China will find itself working against its own interests by inspiring lawmakers from other Western democracies to visit Taiwan.

“I think the current backlash from China, including some military threats, will lead to more democracies thinking they have to align together to stand against China,” she told VOA Mandarin in a phone interview. “Following that line of thinking, I think we will see more parliament members visiting Taiwan to showcase their support for democracy.”

Another worry for Beijing, according to analysts, is that it’s losing the narrative on the “One China” policy because visits such as Pelosi’s bring more international exposure and recognition of Taiwan. The “One China” policy is the diplomatic acknowledgement of China’s position that there is only one Chinese government. The U.S. recognizes and has formal diplomatic ties with China yet maintains a robust unofficial relationship with Taiwan.

China thinks Pelosi’s visit might shake the long-standing policy, which is a cornerstone of U.S.-China relations, said Patrick Cronin, the Asia-Pacific security chair at Hudson Institute.

“They see the visit as hollowing out the ‘One China’ policy and accelerating the gradual independence of Taiwan,” Cronin wrote in an email to VOA Mandarin. “What they don’t say but may also think is that for [Chinese President] Xi Jinping and the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] to control the narrative and policy direction over Taiwan requires demonstrating China’s resolve and power in the face of what they believe to be a declining hegemonic power, the United States.”

Sun from the Stimson Center cautioned that China should be careful not to overact.

“I think the best way for China now is to maintain a strong rhetoric, that is, to put its posture at a more aggressive level but be sure to reduce direct military and security losses,” she said.
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Women Gubernatorial Hopefuls Break Records with Primary Wins

Even with several U.S. primary elections still to go, women candidates for governor are already shattering records. At least 20 female gubernatorial candidates have won their party’s nomination and will be on the ballot in November, breaking the previous high of 16, which was set in 2018.

“It’s notable because this is an area where women’s underrepresentation has been quite persistent,” says Kelly Dittmar, director of research at the Center for American Women in Politics (CAWP) and an associate professor of political science at Rutgers University-Camden. “This disrupts gendered perceptions about who can and should lead … we’ve had some really stubborn biases about the association between executive office and masculine traits.”

There are currently nine women state governors in the United States, the most ever.

So far this year, there are 13 Democratic and 7 Republican female nominees for governor, as tracked by CAWP. And while being a major political party’s nominee isn’t a guarantee of winning office, the numbers do increase the likelihood that there could soon be a record number of women serving at the highest level in their states

“It’s a powerful and influential political position where we want women’s voices and experiences to be heard. But it’s especially important as we see major policy issues being allocated back to the states,” Dittmar says. “When we think about abortion or voting rights or education — where a lot of our key policy debates are today are at the state level and governors will play a key role in them. And so having women in those positions is only more important now.”

In all, 47 gubernatorial candidates have already been selected ahead of November’s midterm elections. With 36 of the 50 states electing their governors this year, another 25 nominees are still to be selected. Several women — both Democrats and Republicans — are competing for those slots.

There are also more woman vs. woman gubernatorial matchups in 2022 than ever before. In all of American history, there have only been four all-women contests in races for governor. This year, there are already five, which highlights the fact that women don’t all think alike.

“Women are not monolithic in their experiences, in their perspective, and their policy agendas and positions,” Dittmar says. “It’s a good reminder for us not to make assumptions that women are the same in ways that we don’t make that assumption for men who are competing against each other.”

Seeing women in positions of power sends an important message to donors, voters and future potential female candidates about the ability of women to succeed at the highest political levels, says Dittmar. It also helps fulfill the promise of a representative government, one of democracy’s key premises.

But having women in these high public offices isn’t enough when it comes to a representative government, she says.

“We want enough women in these offices that there are a diversity of them,” Dittmar says. “You know, we’ve only ever had three women of color governors in all of U.S. history. We only have one woman of color currently serving as governor. We’ve never had a black woman governor.”
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Democrats Say They’ve Reached Agreement on US Economic Package

Senate Democrats have reached an accord on eleventh-hour changes to their top-priority economic legislation, they announced late Thursday, clearing their major hurdle to moving the measure through the chamber in coming days.

Democrat Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, a centrist who was seen as the pivotal vote, said in a statement that she had agreed to changes in the measure’s tax and energy provisions and was ready to “move forward” on the bill.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, said lawmakers had achieved a compromise “that I believe will receive the support” of all Democrats in the chamber. His party needs unanimity to move the measure through the 50-50 Senate, along with Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote.

Schumer has said he hopes the Senate can begin voting on the energy, environment, health and tax measure on Saturday. Passage by the House, which Democrats control narrowly, could come next week.

Final congressional approval of the election-year measure would be a marquee achievement for President Joe Biden and his party, notching an accomplishment they could tout to voters as November approaches.

Sinema said Democrats had agreed to remove a provision raising taxes on “carried interest,” or profits that go to executives of private equity firms. That’s been a proposal she has long opposed, though it is a favorite of other Democrats, including conservative West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, an architect of the overall bill.

The carried interest provision was estimated to produce $13 billion for the government over the coming decade, a small portion of the measure’s $739 billion in total revenue.

It will be replaced by a new excise tax on stock buybacks, which will bring in more revenue than that, said one Democrat familiar with the agreement who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the deal publicly.

The official provided no other details.

The Senate won’t be in session Friday as Democrats continue their talks. That pause will also provide time for the Senate parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, to decide if any of the bill’s provisions violate the chamber’s rules and should be removed.
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Biden Pushes Inflation Reduction Act, Amid Divided Opinion

The Biden administration on Thursday pushed Congress to pass its proposed $260 billion Inflation Reduction Act, which the White House says will “lower costs, reduce inflation, and address a range of critical and long-standing economic challenges.”

“My message to Congress is this: Listen to the American people,” Biden said during a virtual roundtable of U.S. business leaders. “This is the strongest bill you can pass to lower inflation, continue to cut the deficit, reduce health care costs, tackle the climate crisis and promote America’s energy security, all while reducing the burdens facing working-class and middle-class families.” 

Economists, politicians and ordinary consumers alike agree that rising prices are a problem — U.S. inflation hit 9.1% in June, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Food price hikes are especially painful for many American families: In the past year those have risen, on average, by about 10%, the highest yearly increase in more than 40 years.

What few can agree on, however, is what needs to be done to bring it back down.

Biden’s supporters say the act will raise government revenues by $313 billion by imposing a 15 percent minimum corporate tax — a move that will affect some of the nation’s wealthiest companies, especially those that paid nothing in federal corporate income taxes on their profits in 2020.

It will also reform prescription drug pricing, which the administration estimates will save the federal government $288 billion a year. The act also invests more than $400 billion in energy security, climate change mitigation and health care.

The country’s largest union umbrella group, the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, supports the act, its president said Thursday during the roundtable with Biden.

“I’m bringing the voice of our 57 unions, 12.5 million members, who believe this bill is going to help us reshape the future and deliver real help to working families by reducing rising energy and health care costs,” said AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler. “This is going to deliver fundamental economic change across America.”

But some economists are not so sure.

A study from the Penn Wharton Budget Model predicts the act would have little impact on inflation, forecasting prices would slightly increase for another two years and then fall.

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget reached the opposite conclusion, saying that the act would “very modestly reduce inflationary pressures in the near term while lowering the risk of persistent inflation over time.”

Moody’s Analytics reached a similar conclusion, while the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated the bill would trim U.S. budget deficits by $102 billion over 10 years.

Economist Steve H. Hanke, a professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins University and founder and co-director of the university’s Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise, said Thursday that the act is “ill-conceived” and involves the one thing that people seem to dislike more than rising prices: taxes.

“The idea it’s going to do anything with inflation is ridiculous,” he said Thursday during a seminar with the Jewish Policy Center. “It will change the relative prices of different things — exactly how, I don’t know, because I haven’t gone through the 10,000-page thing. And it looks to me like it’s a tax increase bill.”

The U.S. Senate hopes to vote on the act in coming days. Given Democrats’ razor-thin majority in the Senate and the fractious nature of current American politics, Biden needs every Democrat in the upper chamber to vote for it.

Democratic holdout Senator Joe Manchin made news last week when he dropped his opposition to the act, but Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema, the other holdout on Biden’s economic proposal, has yet to indicate whether she will support it.
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Blinken to Lay Out Strategy for Sub-Saharan Africa During Visit

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will launch a three-country tour of Africa on Sunday in South Africa. He is expected to deliver a major speech laying out the Biden administration’s strategy for Sub-Saharan Africa. Experts tell VOA that human rights concerns will likely be high on the agenda. VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports.
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US Senate Committee Holds Hearing for 3 Women Nominated to African Ambassador Posts

Three career diplomats in the U.S. Foreign Service answered questions Wednesday from senators during a hearing examining their credentials to lead U.S. diplomatic missions in Africa. If confirmed, three of the toughest diplomatic missions abroad will be led by women, who told the lawmakers that serving on the diplomatic front lines is a privilege and that they are committed to doing what they can to further peace and prosperity in the region.

Lucy Tamlyn, who currently heads the U.S. diplomatic mission in Sudan as chargé d’affaires, may soon head south to the Democratic Republic of Congo to serve as ambassador. The DRC is the largest country, by size, in sub-Saharan Africa.

In her testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Tamlyn described the DRC as a country of enormous size, complexity, and promise, and said “the DRC’s dynamic, entrepreneurial, and creative population of over 100 million are eager to engage with the United States.”

Senator Chris Van Hollen, a member of both Foreign Relations and the Appropriations Committee, which has authority over U.S. foreign aid, pointed to the challenges awaiting Tamlyn at the hearing.

“The DRC is an incredibly complicated place with all sorts of rivalries and conflict, especially in the East. My question for you is: what do you think is at the heart of those conflicts and what do you think you can do as U.S. ambassador to try to address them in the long-term interest of stability in the DRC?” Van Hollen, himself the son of a career U.S. Foreign Service officer, asked.

A lack of governance, coupled with the possession of vast natural resources formed the basis of some of most entrenching challenges the DRC has faced, Tamlyn said in response to Van Hollen’s question.

“There’s inevitably a competition, both inside the country as well as outside, for access to those resources. In the absence of strong government providing services to the people, you have instead a whole network of armed groups which provide some form of local governance,” a situation that poses problems, she said.

Tamlyn said it is important to communicate to the country and its people that things could change.

“We want the Congolese people to know that corrupt mineral exploitation deals, illegal logging and environmental devastation is not inevitable, and that there are alternatives,” she said.

The United States is committed to supporting governments and leaders that provide security and services to the people, she said, while vowing to use “all our diplomatic tools, including leveraging visa ineligibilities and sanctions, to help the Congolese fight corruption,” which she said was a common aspiration among the population.

The committee also heard the testimony of two other senior career diplomats nominated to head embassies in Mali and Ivory Coast, both in West Africa.

If confirmed, Jessica Davis Ba will represent the United States in Ivory Coast and Rachna Sachdeva Korhonen will lead the diplomatic mission in Mali.

The State Department currently places Mali on Level 4: Do Not Travel in its Travel Advisory. Ivory Coast and the DRC both are Level 3: Reconsider Travel.

The three senior members of the U.S. Foreign Service fully embraced the assignments awaiting them.

“If confirmed, my husband and our five sons will be going with me,” Davis Ba told the lawmakers, pointing to her husband and eldest son sitting behind her.

Korhonen, whose family emigrated to the United States from India, told the senators that in looking at her, they were looking at “an American dream come true.”

Meanwhile, Tamlyn, whose home in the eastern U.S. state of Rhode Island stands in sharp contrast with the heat in central Africa, said in her testimony that “I feel privileged to have served in countries where we are literally on the front lines, where U.S. diplomacy really matters, and side by side with colleagues who answer the call despite the personal, family, and health sacrifices entailed.”

The DRC, Mali and Ivory Coast are among “some of the most difficult ambassadorships,” former U.S. Ambassador to Chad Christopher E. Goldthwait said in a written interview with VOA.

“These are not glamour posts, but are in the forefront or representing U.S. interests on a continent that suffers from great poverty and instability, but has enormous potential and the fastest population growth on the globe.”

Representing U.S. interests in these three countries and furthering the economic and political development that is at the core of these interests will not be easy, Goldthwait said, but he had no doubt the three senior members of the U.S. Foreign Service are up to the challenge.

“It’s always encouraging to see seasoned career foreign service officers entrusted with some of the most difficult ambassadorships,” he said. 
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US Senate Approves NATO Membership for Sweden, Finland  

The U.S. Senate approved Sweden’s and Finland’s accession into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on Wednesday by a vote of 95-1, sending a strong bipartisan message of support for expanding the Western alliance against Russia.   

“The NATO vote is a very important vote — for American security around the world: Finland’s and Sweden’s membership will strengthen NATO even further and is all the more urgent given Russian aggression, given Putin’s immoral and unjustified war in Ukraine. Putin is strengthening the NATO alliance,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said on the Senate floor Wednesday.   

The United States is one of 30 NATO member countries that will have to approve Sweden’s and Finland’s admission into the more than 70-year-old organization that has guaranteed European security since World War II. The usually lengthy process for admission has been fast-tracked in the U.S. Senate as part of a robust response to Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine earlier this year.   

Prior to the vote, Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez said the Senate vote would send a powerful rebuke to Russian aggression in Ukraine.

The vote would “send a signal to the world that we will unite against those actors who seek to destabilize the supply of food that threatens hunger for millions of people all over the world; who seek to weaponize energy in the middle of an unprecedented heat wave; and who think they can simply invade a neighbor with no consequences,” the New Jersey Democrat said.

But Republican Senator Josh Hawley, who cast the only vote against the ratification, said the approval was not in the interests of U.S. foreign policy. 

“I fear that some in this town have lost sight of that. They think American foreign policy is about creating a liberal world order or nation-building overseas. With all due respect, they’re wrong. As you would pay this, you should be about protecting the United States, our freedoms, our people, our way of life. And expanding NATO, I believe, would not do that,” Hawley said on the Senate floor.   

The Missouri Republican argued the United States cannot afford to focus on security threats in Asia and Europe, and he suggested European allies must pay more for their own defense.   

“We have to prioritize, to focus, and that means we have to do less, in Europe, in order to prioritize America’s most pressing national security interest, which is in Asia, with regard to China,” Hawley said.  

Senator Rand Paul attempted to include an amendment ensuring NATO’s defense guarantees do not replace Congress’ own ability to authorize the use of military force.  That amendment was not approved. The Kentucky Republican voted “present” on allowing Finland and Sweden to join NATO.  

An amendment offered by Senator Dan Sullivan, an Alaska Republican, stating that Sweden and Finland should spend at least 2% of their annual GDP on military defense — in line with a 2006 agreement between NATO members — did pass.    

But a majority of Senate Republicans voted in favor of the admission, with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky warning members of his caucus ahead of the vote not to damage the bipartisan agreement on admitting Sweden and Finland.   

“If any senator is looking for a defensible excuse to vote ‘no,’ I wish them good luck. This is a slam dunk for national security that deserves unanimous bipartisan support,” McConnell said.
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Biden Seeks to Federally Protect Abortion as States Vote on Issue 

President Joe Biden on Wednesday signed an executive order that the White House said would protect access to abortion care, part of the continuing fallout from a June Supreme Court reversal of its landmark 1973 ruling establishing a right to abortion.

With each of the 50 states now free to write abortion laws as it sees fit, an early test came Tuesday when voters in the Midwestern state of Kansas voted decisively to keep that state’s right to abortion. But several states now outlaw the practice, sometimes even in the case of rape or incest.

“This is just extreme,” Biden said before signing the order, which aims to help people seeking abortions travel to a state where it remains legal. “You know, even the life of the mother is in question in some case — in some states.

“Republicans in Congress and their extreme MAGA ideology are determined to go even further, talking about nationwide bans that would outlaw abortion in every state, under every circumstance, going after the broader right to privacy as well. But as I said before, this fight is not over. And we saw that last night in Kansas.”

This was the second abortion-related executive order that Biden had signed since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision. The first executive order, last month, aimed to guarantee access to emergency contraception and abortion medication.

Critics said these White House actions were too vague, and too slow.

“What we’re seeing is the federal government figuring out how they can support abortion patients without violating federal law,” said Elizabeth Nash, state policy analyst at the Guttmacher Institute, a research and policy organization that supports abortion rights.

“And so that’s why some of this is so piecemeal,” she said. “And we’re seeing what agencies are going to come up with. And frankly, this is the sort of announcement that we really needed to hear right when Dobbs came down. And so I’m hoping that these agencies can be kick-started into action so that they can catch up. Because we are seeing states ban abortion.”

On Wednesday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the Biden administration is working as fast as it can, but “there’s steps and processes that we have to take in order to take actions as big as these.

“But look, there has been an urgency from this president from day one when — when the Supreme Court made this extreme decision to take away a constitutional right,” she said.

Thirteen states immediately banned abortion right after the Supreme Court ruling. In the coming months, four states — California, Kentucky, Michigan and Vermont — will vote on abortion, as Kansas did.

Kansans on Tuesday voted in large numbers, and nearly 59% voted against a proposal to amend the state constitution to remove abortion protections. In this respect, the conservative state echoed national trends: A recent Pew poll found that 61% of U.S. adults say abortion should be legal in all or most cases.

Anti-abortion groups decried the Kansas vote and Biden’s actions.

“Biden and the Democrats make a serious error in assuming Americans nationwide agree with their radical agenda — using the full weight of the federal government to impose abortion on demand up to the moment of birth, illegally forcing taxpayers to fund it, ‘cracking down’ on nonprofits that provide life-affirming alternatives, and threatening to destroy any guardrails of democracy that stand in their way,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America.

No state allows abortion at birth. Most abortions — about 91% of them — happen before the 13-week mark, said the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Research from the Kaiser Family Foundation found that abortions at or after 21 weeks of pregnancy represent just 1% of all U.S. abortions. Those cases, it said, are often the result of serious health risks to the fetus or the pregnant person.

Since the ruling, Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have urged Congress to enshrine abortion access into federal law. Harris has spent the past few weeks crisscrossing the country to speak about the issue with legislators, health care providers, faith leaders and others.

She said the Biden administration’s policy is clear.

“We trust the judgment of the women of America to make decisions based on what they know is in their best interests,” she said.

“We trust the women of America to make those decisions, if she chooses, in consultation with her faith leader, with her physician, with her loved one. But we understand fully the government should not be making that decision for her.”
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US Voters Cast Primary Ballots

Voters in multiple U.S. states cast ballots Tuesday in primary elections ahead of the November general elections that will decide control of the U.S. congress.

In the state of Arizona, Karrin Taylor Robson and Kari Lake were about even in the Republican race for governor with three-quarters of the ballots counted early Wednesday.  Lake has the backing of former U.S. President Donald Trump, whose support is being closely watched ahead of the November vote.

The winner will advance to face Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, in the general election.

A U.S. Senate seat will also be on the November ballot in Arizona with incumbent Democrat Mark Kelly facing reelection.  Trump-backed Blake Masters defeated Army veteran Jim Lamon.

The race for Arizona secretary of state featured Mark Finchem, another Trump-backed candidate who was at the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. He defeated three other Republicans to advance.

Voters in the U.S. state of Kansas rejected a constitutional amendment that would have removed abortion protections.

It was the first time U.S. voters decided an abortion-related matter since the U.S. Supreme Court’s June decision overturning a longstanding constitutional right to end a pregnancy.

In another Kansas vote, state Attorney General Derek Schmidt won the Republican nomination for governor.  Trump supported Schmidt, who will go up against Democratic Governor Laura Kelly in the November election.

In the state of Michigan, Republican Tudor Dixon won the party’s nomination to face Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer.  Dixon is among a group of Republican candidates who have supported Trump’s false claims that he won the 2020 presidential election.

Democratic Congresswoman Rashida Talib won her primary election by a wide margin.

Two other Michigan lawmakers, Congresswoman Haley Stevens and Congressman Andy Levin faced off against each other in a Democratic primary due to the fact that the state lost one of its seats in the House of Representatives in the latest round of redistricting.  Stevens prevailed and will face Republican Mark Ambrose in the general election.

In Missouri, Democratic Congresswoman Cori Bush also handily won a spot on the November ballot.

Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt won the Republican race to oppose Democrat Trudy Busch Valentine, an heiress to the Anheuser-Busch beer fortune, in a November election for a seat in the U.S. Senate.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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US Senate Passes Bill to Help Veterans Exposed to Toxic Burn Pits

A bill enhancing health care and disability benefits for millions of veterans exposed to toxic burn pits won final approval in the Senate on Tuesday, ending a brief stalemate over the measure that had infuriated advocates and inspired some to camp outside the Capitol.

The Senate approved the bill by a vote of 86-11. It now goes to President Joe Biden’s desk to be signed into law. Biden described the legislation as the biggest expansion of benefits for service-connected health issues in 30 years and the largest single bill ever to comprehensively address exposure to burn pits.

“I look forward to signing this bill, so that veterans and their families and caregivers impacted by toxic exposures finally get the benefits and comprehensive health care they earned and deserve,” Biden said.

The Senate had overwhelming approved the legislation back in June, but a do-over was required to make a technical fix. That process derailed when Republicans made a late attempt to change another aspect of the bill last week and blocked it from advancing.

The abrupt delay outraged veterans groups and advocates, including comedian Jon Stewart. It also placed GOP senators in the uncomfortable position of delaying the top legislative priority of service organizations this session of Congress.

A group of veterans and their families have been camping out at the Capitol since that vote. They had endured thunderstorms and Washington’s notorious summer humidity, but they were in the galleries as senators cast their votes.

“You can go home knowing the good and great thing you have done and accomplished for the United States of America,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told them.

The legislation expands access to health care through the Department of Veterans Affairs for millions who served near burn pits. It also directs the VA to presume that certain respiratory illnesses and cancers were related to burn pit exposure, allowing veterans to obtain disability payments to compensate for their injury without having to prove the illness was a result of their service.

Roughly 70% of disability claims related to burn pit exposure are denied by the VA due to lack of evidence, scientific data and information from the Defense Department.

The military used burn pits to dispose of such things as chemicals, cans, tires, plastics and medical and human waste.

Hundreds of thousands of Vietnam War era veterans and survivors also stand to benefit from the legislation. The bill adds hypertension, or high blood pressure, as a presumptive disease associated with Agent Orange exposure.

The Congressional Budget Office projected that about 600,000 of 1.6 million living Vietnam vets would be eligible for increased compensation, though only about half would have severe enough diagnoses to warrant more compensation.

Also, veterans who served in Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Guam, American Samoa and Johnston Atoll will be presumed to have been exposed to Agent Orange. That’s another 50,000 veterans and survivors of deceased veterans who would get compensation for illnesses presumed to have been caused by their exposure to the herbicide, the CBO projected.

The bill is projected to increase federal deficits by about $277 billion over 10 years.

The bill has been a years-long effort begun by veterans and their families after they had returned from the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan and experienced maladies that they suspected were caused by their close proximity to burn pits. It was named after Sgt. First Class Heath Robinson from Ohio, who died in 2020 from cancer he attributed to prolonged exposure to burn pits. His widow, Danielle Robinson, was first lady Jill Biden’s guest at the president’s State of the Union address earlier this year.

Stewart, the former host of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, also brought increased exposure to the burn pit maladies veterans were facing. He also was in the gallery watching the vote Tuesday. He wept and held his head in his hand as the final vote began.

“I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a situation where people who have already given so much had to fight so hard to get so little,” he said after the vote. “And I hope we learn a lesson.”

The House was the first to act on the burn pits legislation. An earlier version the House approved in March was expected to increase spending by more than $320 billion over 10 years, but senators trimmed some of the costs early on by phasing in certain benefit enhancements. They also added funds for staffing to help the VA keep up with the expected increase in demand for health care and an increase in disability claims.

Some GOP senators are still concerned that the bill will increase delays at the VA because of an increased demand for veterans seeking care or disability compensation.

“What we have learned is that the VA cannot deliver what is promised because it does not have the capacity to handle the increase,” said Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn.

Sens. Jon Tester, D-Mont., and Jerry Moran, R-Kan., led the effort to get the bill passed in the Senate. After passage, Tester told reporters he received a call from Biden, thanking him for “taking a big weight” off his shoulder.

Moran said that when the bill failed to pass last week, he was disappointed but remembered the strength of the protesters who had sat outside in the scorching heat for days.

“Thanks to the United States Senate for demonstrating when there’s something good and a good cause, this place still works,” Moran said. 
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