Lawmaker Threatens Navy Over Toxins

The Senate Veterans Affairs Committee on Thursday approved legislation to provide health care to individuals exposed to toxins at Camp Lejeune, N.C., and Atsugi Naval Air Facility, Japan. But the committee's decision not to press the Navy to fund health studies related to the contamination is prompting a political battle that has spilled over into the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., ranking member of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, vowed Wednesday morning that no nominee to the Navy Department will make it to confirmation until the Navy is forced to fund research necessary to help care for those sickened by toxins at Camp Lejeune.

Burr said he has tried every way to get the Navy or the Defense Department to act on legislation to fund studies on the decades-old problem and the mortality rate related to it, but he has had no success.

"The law of the country says that the Secretary of the Navy must fund - not can - but must," he said. "And the secretary of the Navy refuses to commit to the [Centers for Disease Control] and the [Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry] the funds they need to carry out the health survey and mortality survey. [That] is unconscionable to me. And I will say as a member of the Armed Services Committee, there will not be a Navy nominee to be considered on the House floor until this is resolved."

The law to which Burr referred is Title 42 of the U.S. Code, which requires an agency or department responsible for a site designated by the Environmental Protection Agency as a priority for clean-up to fund the research.

Officials have acknowledged that military members and their families who were assigned to Camp Lejeune from 1957 to 1987 were exposed to toxic chemicals in the base's drinking water. From 1983 to 2001, according to the government, residents of Atsugi Naval Air Facility were exposed to contaminants, including dioxins, from incinerator emissions.

The legislation approved Thursday by the committee is a comprehensive package that also includes measures to end veteran homelessness and beef up VA health care.

A source within the Senate committee, speaking on background, said the majority of the committee members believed that Burr's approach was too narrowly focused on Camp Lejeune, while the bill framed and offered by committee chairman Sen. Daniel A. Akaka, D-Hawaii, attempts to tackle the problem more broadly.

Akaka, speaking during the hearing, said his version of the bill has the support of several veterans groups, including the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Disabled American Veterans, Paralyzed Veterans of America, and Vietnam Veterans of America.

"I am pleased that the committee approved legislation to provide health care to troops, veterans and military dependents potentially exposed to environmental hazards at Camp Lejeune and Atsugi Naval Air Facility," Akaka said in a statement after the meeting.

Burr's strong comments followed discussion on a proposed amendment to legislation that would authorize Defense Department health care to individuals who were exposed to the toxins at Lejeune and at Atsugi. Burr says responsibility for care should be given to the Department of Veterans Affairs, where information on the problems can be centralized. He said that the Defense Department has already made it clear it does not want responsibility for the care, and that the services provided by DoD's TRICARE program would not be adequate.

Many of the affected individuals are scattered across the country, he said, and a TRICARE card is no guarantee "that medical professional who sees them knows immediately that [their condition] was a result of exposure to contamination at Camp Lejeune.

"Hell, they don't even know where Camp Lejeune is and they have no idea what the exposure was to," he said.