The bill, known as the Honoring Our PACT Act, passed both the House and Senate with bipartisan support in June, but due to a snag in the bill’s language, it had to go back and pass the House and Senate again. On Wednesday afternoon, 25 Republican senators reversed their support from June and voted no in a procedural vote to advance the legislation. Veterans have come home with a range of illnesses, including terminal cancers, but have been forced to argue to the Department of Veterans Affairs that their illnesses were related to burn exposure. The legislation would have removed the burden of proof from veterans and their families, assuming certain conditions could be related to exposure to toxic burn fumes. President Joe Biden is a staunch supporter of the bill. At the State of the Union in March, he called on Congress to take action on burns, which he believes may have been a factor in his son Beau’s terminal brain cancer. Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) speaks during a news conference on the Honoring Our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics (PACT) Act on Capitol Hill on July 28, 2022 in Washington, DC. Drew Angerer/Getty Images At a press conference Thursday in front of the U.S. Capitol originally scheduled ahead of the bill’s Senate passage, Veterans Service Organizations and sponsors of the legislation decried the sudden pushback from senators who just last month voted for the bill. “I’ve never seen anything happen like what happened yesterday and what compounds it and makes it so much more difficult is that basically yesterday we took the benefits away from the people who have been affected by the war – that we sent them to war.” Democratic Sen. Jon Tester of Montana said at the news conference. Other speakers at the press conference, including former “Daily Show” host Jon Stewart, lit up Congress with attacks. “This is an embarrassment to the Senate, the country, the founders and everything they claim to love. And if this is America first, then America is f*****,” Stewart said. Speakers at the press conference advocated easier access to health care for veterans exposed to toxic fumes from open burnings, holes in the ground where the military dumped trash and burned it — sometimes using jet fuel as an accelerant — to dispose of it. The press conference was supposed to be a happy affair, but instead, speakers conveyed their shock at the failure to advance legislation that seemed like a done deal in June. US Army Veteran Aleks Morosky of the Wounded Warrior Project attended the event along with representatives from several other Veterans Service Organizations. “We make a promise to people who serve in the military that we will support them if they are injured,” Moroski said. “Passage of the PACT Act today would have finally kept that promise to veterans with toxic injuries. Instead, that promise continues to be broken.” Republican Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania voted no in June and Wednesday because of how the money is calculated, though he supports the intent of the legislation. Toomey opposes the bill because it includes language that would shift money from discretionary to mandatory spending, freeing up about $400 billion in discretionary spending for everything, including non-veteran-related programs Twenty-five Republicans who voted yes in June joined Toomey in voting no on Wednesday. Because several senators were not present for the vote due to COVID and Senator Patrick Leahy was out recovering from hip surgery, the Senate failed to reach 60 votes to overcome the filibuster. Tester said the Senate Appropriations Committee should be able to address the issues Toomey raised, but instead Toomey and other Republican senators blocked the procedural vote. Toomey on Wednesday said he and others were willing to resolve the issue by voice vote and pass the bill.
It will be difficult for the Senate to pass the bill and send it to the White House before the August recess unless Republicans are allowed to pass amendments on discretionary versus mandatory spending, as there are some senators who are self-isolating after testing positive to COVID.
Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio said during Thursday’s press conference that the Senate should not go home until this bill is passed and on its way to the White House. “This delay may not sound like a big deal, but number one, we haven’t passed the bill, and number two, there will be veterans who die between now and when this bill passes,” Tester said Thursday.

Eleanor Watson

CBS News reporter covering the Pentagon.