WASHINGTON — In a packed room of veterans, lawmakers and advocates, President Joe Biden signed the PACT Act into law Wednesday. The act was a personal victory for the president, and for a Texas couple who began the fight for the bill 13 years ago.
The law expands health care benefits for veterans exposed to toxic burn pits while serving in wars like in Iraq and Afghanistan. The bill was also part of Biden’s platform he laid out in his State of the Union address.
“This is the most significant law our nation has ever passed to help millions of veterans who are exposed to toxic substances during their military services,” Biden said at the signing. “I was going to get this done come hell or high water.”
The president in his remarks thanked many people including long-time advocates of the PACT Act, comedian Jon Stewart and Texan Rosie Torres, whose husband Le Roy began experiencing symptoms of exposure to toxic burn pits after returning from service in Iraq.
Torres, like many other veterans, was repeatedly denied health benefits by the Department of Veterans Affairs despite damage to his lungs and brain. This led to his decision to start Burn Pits 360 with his wife.
Through the organization, the couple has fought for the PACT Act, which passed the Senate 86-11 on Aug. 2.
Rosie Torres after the signing said it was an “amazing victory” for veterans and that she was honored to have a role in history.
“I just feel like God gave us a mission to my husband and I and we were here to be part of that mission,” Torres said. “It’s been an honor to serve the veteran community,”
On top of expanding VA health care eligibility for veterans impacted by exposure to burn pits, the bill makes it easier for them to qualify for VA services and strengthens research into the impacts of toxic exposure. It also removes the burden of proof for veterans diagnosed with certain conditions relating to toxic burn pit exposure, improves screening for exposure and increases resources for the VA to provide services.
“This new law matters, it matters a lot,” Biden said. “These conditions have already taken such a toll on so many veterans and their families.”
Biden’s son Beau Biden, an Iraq veteran, died at the age of 46 of brain cancer. The president has speculated exposure to burn pits contributed to Beau’s death.
“Toxic smoke, thick with poison spreading through the air and into the lungs of our troops. When they came home many of the fittest and best warriors that we sent to war were not the same. Headaches, numbness, dizziness, cancer. My son Beau was one of them,” Biden said Wednesday.
At the end of his remarks, Biden urged veterans and their families to “promptly” file claims and contact their local VA offices to benefit from the law.
Rosie and Le Roy Torres stood next to the president during the signing of the PACT Act. Rosie said at that moment, however, she didn’t see the commander in chief. Instead she said she saw Biden as a grieving father fulfilling his role and honoring his son.
“This is the father of someone who draped the U.S. flag over his son’s casket, and that image will always stay in my head,” Torres said. “To see him fulfill that was such an honor.”
The bill had already passed the Senate in June on a vote of 84-14. However, the bill contained a revenue-related provision that must start in the House, which required a new vote to make the technical fix. The House passed the bill again, 342-88, but failed to pass a second time in the Senate after 25 Republicans flipped to vote against it in July.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and other Republicans who voted against the bill last week said they were opposed to a provision reclassifying $400 billion from discretionary to mandatory, which they argue would open the door for unregulated spending for unrelated measures. Cruz voted yes in the final vote.
However, advocates of the bill countered that what passed in June but failed in July were essentially identical, and that the reclassification was already included in the bill that passed in June.
After the bill failed a second time in the Senate, Torres along with dozens of other veterans and advocates protested outside the U.S. Capitol day and night for six days until it passed.
“We slept on the steps, the president brought us pizza and he gave us a bill,” Torres said. “So we’re happy.”
Democrat U.S. Rep. Colin Allred of Texas, who serves on the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, said in a statement he had seen the impact of toxic burn pits firsthand during a visit to Afghanistan and was honored to work with veterans on the passage of the PACT Act.
“Today, America takes a big step forward in keeping our promise to our veterans by ensuring that those exposed to toxins while serving can get the benefits and health care they have earned,” Allred said in a statement. “It is a credit to our veterans that, despite setbacks and delays, they never gave up and kept fighting to get this bill across the finish line.”
Now that the law is passed, the next steps will be ensuring enactment goes smoothly and resources get to veterans and their families.
Moving forward Torres said she hopes there will be a health care model similar to the World Trade Health Program for screening and prevention.
“We have a lot of work to do,” Torres said with a laugh.
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