House committee poised to pass vets’ jobs bill - Navy News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

House committee poised to pass vets’ jobs bill

On the eve of a major presidential speech on jobs creation, the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee is preparing to pass comprehensive legislation aimed at aiding veterans and separating service members and current veterans in finding work in a tough economy.

With a few changes to accommodate suggestions and concerns from veterans groups and federal agencies, the committee is expected to pass the Veterans’ Opportunity to Work Act, known as the VOW Act, on Thursday morning in advance of President Obama’s evening address to a joint session of Congress.

Endorsed by major veterans service organizations, the VOW Act, HR 2433, includes improvements in transition counseling and obtaining professional licenses or certificates for military-learned skills that could help separating service members more easily find post-service jobs. It also contains a section directed at older veterans who have lost jobs by providing up to one year of benefits for 100,000 people to learn new skills that could help them qualify for other existing jobs.

Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., the veterans’ committee chairman and chief sponsor of the VOW Act, intends for his bill — and a separate tax credit bill for hiring veterans that is pending before the House Ways and Means Committee — to cut the veterans unemployment rate to below 5 percent in two years. The jobless rate is now 7.7 percent for veterans of all generations but 9.8 percent for Iraq- and Afghanistan-era veterans who have left the military since 2001.

One concession made in Miller’s bill to improve its chances of passage was the removal of a provision that would have made it mandatory for every separating or retiring service member to attend transition assistance classes, something the Defense Department said was excessive.

While mandatory attendance remains a goal, the bill expected to come to a vote on Thursday will allow exceptions when military duties preclude attendance at transition assistance classes and also exempts people who plan to attend college or vocational school immediately after leaving the military.

Miller said he expects the bill, with a $1.5 billion price tag on its employment-related provisions, to pass the committee with the addition of a few ideas from a Democratic alternative, and to be taken up quickly by the full House of Representatives.

The Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee has passed a similar but less expensive bill sponsored by Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., committee chairwoman. Her Hiring Heroes Act has about $260 million in employment programs, according to estimates by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

House and Senate aides said a compromise appears possible, as long as partisan bickering doesn’t delay things.

Miller said he expects the House to pass his bill this fall. He also said he commends Obama “for joining us in making this effort a priority to ensure our veterans have every opportunity to gain meaningful employment in today’s tough economy.”

The White House has not said whether Obama’s Thursday night speech will include any new programs for veterans, but the administration has been pushing several initiatives aimed specifically at boosting employment for vets, especially within the federal government.

However, progress has been slow. A hiring programs for federal agencies launched in 2009 added only 2,000 veterans to the federal payroll, according to a report released in August. The low job count is the result of reduced federal hiring and difficulty in changing the federal bureaucracy.