Unlike other recent Senate confirmation hearings for President Trump's Cabinet picks that got testy, the one Tuesday for the nominee to lead the department of Veterans Affairs — a department that is second in size only to the Pentagon — went off without a single voice raised.
At his confirmation hearing on Tuesday, former Georgia Republican congressman Doug Collins vowed to put his military service front and center should he lead Veterans Affairs.
Collins, who is also a colonel in the U.S. Air Force Reserves, held up his dog tags as he delivered his opening remarks and called them "a reminder, just like every other veteran who served, that we're part of a bigger unit."
Collins served three terms in the House and was known more for his loyalty to Trump than for any involvement in veterans issues. He's never led an organization that's even a fraction of the size of the VA's 400,000 staff and 1,300 health facilities. Critics say that's why he's unqualified, but at the confirmation hearing Collins went into the weeds on VA policy and smoothly parried senators' questions.
"I'm gonna take care of the veterans. That means that we're not gonna balance budgets on the back of veterans benefits," he said in answer to questions about Trump's suggestions of spending cuts and the announcement of a federal hiring freeze. But with that freeze less than 24 hours old, Collins could not answer specifics about how it would affect VA's many job vacancies – even urgent ones for doctors, nurses and mental health care.
Collins gave a similar answer when asked if he would pull back on the Biden administration's massive expansion of VA benefits under the PACT Act, which treats veterans for service-related toxic exposures going back to the Cold War, including Agent Orange in Vietnam, or noxious burning trash pits in Afghanistan and Iraq. Collins said he knew the latter firsthand from his deployment to Balad, Iraq.
"I'm an Iraq war veteran," he said, "I understand burn pits because I slept next to one for many months. I understand this generation that went time and time and again, deployment after deployment in a different way than we'd seen many times before in our past wars."
Senators from both parties did push Collins about how he will solve problems that have plagued the VA for decades, like delivering timely health care and protecting whistle-blowers.
Washington Sen. Democrat Patty Murray asked him about the seemingly endless quest to update the VA's electronic health record system, which has now spanned four presidencies. Collins vowed bipartisan cooperation.
"We're going to have to work together. The finger pointing is done, it is time to get it done for one reason and one reason only. As I said earlier, the mission is the vet," he said.
Murray quickly pivoted into the more controversial issue of the VA providing abortion services, where cooperation is less likely.
"I wanna just ask you: Do you believe a veteran who lives in Texas who has been raped and becomes pregnant should be able to get abortion care at her local VA?" she asked Collins.
Since the Supreme Court ruled that states could ban abortion, the VA has provided that service nationwide. Collins made it clear he thinks a 1992 law prohibits the VA from offering abortion services.
"We will be looking at that issue when I get in there to confirm that the VA is actually following the law," he said.
The other most serious disagreement on display was about VA care versus private health care. In his first administration Trump pushed through the Mission Act, which opened up access for veterans to choose VA or private care in their local community. But that's a growing drain on the VA's budget. Collins said there's a happy medium.
"I believe you can have both. I believe you have a strong VA as it currently exists and have the community care aspect," he said.
How to have both is the biggest veterans policy disagreement in Washington. So many Democratic senators asked Collins to pledge not to privatize veterans' health care that Republican panel member Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina half-jokingly asked Collins to "pinky-swear" he wouldn't do it. Collins held up his pinky and obliged, but Trump has vowed to slash the government, and some of his advisers have mentioned VA as a target.
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