Mr. Chairman: That is bad enough Thank you for providing us the opportunity to offer our views on Fiscal Year 1992 appropriations for programs administered by the Veterans Employment and Training Service at the Department of Labor. As you are probably aware, the unemployment rate for all workers rose to 6.8% in February. but the unemployment rate for veterans also rose to 6.8%. In the past two years the unemployment rate for veterans has been running a full percentage point behind the overall rate. In March of 1990, the unemployment rate for veterans was 3.6%. Thus in the past year, the rate for veterans has increased more than 90%. At the same time, the administration budget request for the Veterans Employment and Training Service contains a $42.2 million reduction in funding for the Disabled Veteran Outreach Program, the program area responsible for outreach to unemployed veterans. The mandated formula requires that one DVOP be assigned to state employment service offices for each 5300 Vietnam era or disabled veterans residing in the state. This means that under the formula some 1880 DVOP positions should have been factored into the budget request, but the proposal falls far short of that number. As you and the other subcommittee members know, there is now a new public law (P.L. 10216) which extends the date for counting Vietnam era veterans for purposes of the DVOP formula to December 31, 1994. We, therefore, urge that the DVOP progam be funded at a level of $86.2 million to ensure the continuation of this extremely important assistance network. One other portion of the budget request which is deficient, although not as seriously, is the Local Veterans Employment Representative Program. These are the people who serve as the liaison between the state employment service office and employers in the area served by the office. The mandated level of staffing for LVERS is 1600 nationwide. The budget request would only pay for 1492 of these positions. We urge that the LVER program be funded at the level of $80.196 million. We are seeking these appropriations levels for two reasons. First Title 38 USC mandates these programs. the size of the armed forces is going to be reduced by approximately 500,000 people. Many of them will have served in Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm. We believe it makes no sense to send these men and women to war, bring them back, force them out of the service and release them into a moribund economy while eliminating the very programs designed to help them with a transition to civilian life. We are determined that what happened to Vietnam era veterans not happen to these new veterans when they are released from active duty. Mr. Chairman, 1992 marks the last year of a three year contract the Assistant Secretary of Labor for Veterans Employment and Training signed with the Unversity of Colorado at Denver to operate the National Veterans Training Institute. The amount of the contract was $8.7 million, or $2.9 million per year. Apparently, the administration thinks that NVTI is a luxury this nation can no longer afford in spite of its reputation as one of the best establishments of its kind in this country. No money is requested for this important institution in FY 1992. Realizing that some savings can be generated through increased efficiencies in its operations and the use of travel funds, The American Lgion recommends a funding level of $2.21 million for NVTI in FY 1992. To put these three areas in perspective, we believe the administration request is deficient by $59.5 million. Yet, the administration is requesting $64.6 million to procure ammunition for M-16 rifles in the U.S. Army, $65 million for shipboard tactical communications systems and $56.3 million for several Air Force "classified projects." We would never deny the armed forces the equipment necessary to do their job, but when veterans return home from honorable service, they frequently need help in making a career transition to the civilian work force. The system designed to assist them certainly deserves to be treated as seriously as certain equipment they manned when they were on active duty. The American Legion continues to be concerned with the precarious nature 0 the tools used by job counselors across the country to help eligible veterans find work. Title IVC of the Jobs Training Partnership Act is a good example. The a ministration's budget plan only requests $8.7 million for FY 1992. We consider te minimum funding necessary for this training program to be in the neighborhood 50 million. The paperwork requirements for grant applications under Title : so onerous that nine states declined to participate last year. It simply was worth the man hours necessary to prepare the paperwork to obtain $50,000-$100,000 rant money. ST The Targeted Jobs Tax Credit continues to be another tool used by DVOPS :LVERS to place veterans in jobs. Vietnam era veterans are only one of the tgeted groups under this program. It is very likely that there will be some Desert rm veterans who will return to inner-city neighborhoods and find themselves ncomically disadvantaged to the point that they could qualify for placement under C. We would ask this subcommittee to help us persuade the Ways and Mears Committee to make this program permanent. We believe that the loss in tax revenues attributable to these employer credits would be more than offset by the declining cost of Food Stamp Aid, welfare payments, and umemployment compensation. Mr. Chairman, it has been my privilege to appear here today. I will be pleased to answer any questions. Concerned Citizens for Ethical Research, Inc. P.O. Box 1334, Evanston, Illinois 60204-1334 312/792-7117 STATEMENT: HEARING RECORD United States House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, April 18, 1991 Concerned Citizens for Ethical Research, Inc., (CCER) is a not for profit corporation whose purpose is to undertake public education about the ethical issues of animal experimentation. One of the current major concerns of CCER is an experiment being carried on locally at Northwestern University's Evanston campus by Dr. Charles Larson on the periaqueductal gray (PAG) of macaques. It is that experiment we wish to address in this testimony. This experiment, or series of experiments, has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, Grant # 2 RO1 NS 19290-04, and is currently up for renewal. The Larson experiment is an example of wasted funds and unnecessary cruelty to animals. Our group has solicited critiques from biomedical professionals about Larson's research design and has been investigating this experiment over the past four years without any cooperation from Northwestern University. For reasons which we will review below, we urge the committee to request that the NIH not renew funds for Larson's grant. |