President Joe Biden’s administration expressed strong opposition to a House spending bill for fiscal 2025 largely over provisions that restrict abortions and deny therapies to veterans seeking gender-confirmation surgery. (Stars and Stripes)
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden’s administration expressed strong opposition Monday to a House spending bill for fiscal 2025 largely over provisions that restrict abortions and deny therapies to veterans seeking gender-confirmation surgery.
The White House also opposed a measure to require the Department of Veterans Affairs to obtain a court order before restricting the gun rights of veterans who have been appointed a representative to manage their finances.
The Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations bill was approved May 23 by the House Appropriations Committee and includes $148 billion for military construction for the Department of Defense and $130 billion for the VA.
The House Committee on Rules was scheduled to meet Monday afternoon about the legislation. The full House is expected to vote on the package later this week. Both chambers of Congress need to pass the spending package before it reaches the president’s desk to be signed into law.
But the White House Office of Management and Budget criticized H.R. 8580 — the annual appropriations bill for military construction projects and VA spending — as containing “partisan” policy measures by Republicans that would have “devastating consequences.” In a statement, the office said Biden would veto the bill if it passed the House and Senate.
The Office of Management and Budget warned the appropriations bill “would result in deep cuts to law enforcement, education, housing, health care, consumer safety, energy programs that lower utility bills and combat climate change, and essential nutrition services.”
“Rather than taking the opportunity to engage in a productive, bipartisan appropriations process to build on last year’s bills, House Republicans are again wasting time with partisan bills,” the office said in its statement.
The White House office focused on a handful of Republican-backed measures in the VA spending package. Among the measures are a new restriction for abortion services for veterans and their beneficiaries.
The House proposal would stop the implementation of a new policy that enables the VA to provide abortion counseling and services under limited circumstances, when the life or health of the mother is at risk if she carried to term or when the pregnancy is the result of incest or rape.
“This change would prevent VA from providing needed care when the health of the woman is endangered,” the White House office said.
The 2025 spending bill also would stop the VA from covering hormonal therapies and related surgeries for veterans seeking gender-reassignment surgery. While the VA does not cover gender-reassignment surgeries, it provides treatment options that support and are done in conjunction with the surgeries.
“VA currently provides all medically necessary gender-affirming care to transgender veterans with the exception of gender-affirming surgical interventions, due to an exclusion in the VA medical benefits package,” the VA states on its website.
A new provision in the 2025 spending bill would end that practice.
The legislation also would stop the VA from restricting gun rights of veterans appointed fiduciaries to manage their benefits without a court order from a judge or magistrate.
The VA had a policy of forwarding the names of veterans appointed fiduciaries to the FBI’s national database — effectively restricting identified individuals from legally purchasing or possessing guns.
Lawmakers in fiscal 2024 added a measure to the VA appropriations bill requiring the VA to first seek a court order from a judge or magistrate. But the requirement needs to be renewed in the fiscal 2025 appropriations bill to continue, lawmakers said.
The Biden administration argued Monday that the measure keeps the VA from reporting mentally incompetent veterans to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System — creating a “dangerous loophole” that allows mentally incompetent individuals to obtain firearms and potentially endanger the safety of communities.
The administration also objected to provisions in the appropriations package to keep the VA from requiring staff to receive vaccines for the coronavirus.
