I have a strong record supporting our veterans. I have returned over $506,000 to veterans in Colorado’s Third District via constituent casework, voted for the VA Transparency and Trust Act of 2021, voted for the Tuition Fairness for Survivors Act, helped restart Honor Flights after the pandemic, helped reopen the National Personnel Records Center, and voted for and cosponsored legislation that helps our veterans.

This appropriations bill will also increase the quality of life for active duty service members and their families across the country by allocating over $17 billion for military housing and over $293 million for constructing new child development centers.

The VA funding bill that passed the House included six of my amendments that passed the House with unanimous, bipartisan consent. My amendments will increase funding for veterans’ benefits by redirecting an additional $13,000,000.00 to directly assisting veterans.

One of my amendments will redirect $2,000,000.00 from the bureaucracy and instead fund the Staff Sergeant Parker Gordon Fox Suicide Prevention Grant Program. This program supports suicide prevention programs in Colorado’s Third District, including veterans’ services in Pueblo, Alamosa, Conejos, Costilla, Huerfano, Las Animas, Otero, Rio Grande, and Saguache counties.

Additionally, my amendments will reduce the VA claim backlog, increase resources for medical research, fund the construction of new long-term care facilities, and assist rural veterans in accessing the benefits they earned.

My Upper Colorado and San Juan River Basins Endangered Fish Recovery Programs Reauthorization Act advanced through the legislative process and received a hearing in the House Committee on Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife, and Fisheries. My bill will protect four species of endangered fish and will protect the water rights of 1,200 Colorado water and power users. My bill is good for the environment, good for the economy, good for water users, and good for Colorado. I look forward to this bipartisan legislation being signed into law.

One of my first acts in office was to join a bipartisan and bicameral letter to Joe Biden requesting that he leave Space Command in Colorado. During committee hearings, I questioned Biden administration officials about the decision to move Space Command out of Colorado. Additionally, I worked to improve last year’s NDAA to include a provision ensuring the Pentagon would not prematurely move Space Command from Colorado.

Recently, my efforts paid off, and Space Command will stay in Colorado, its rightful home. This will protect thousands of jobs and keep hundreds of millions of dollars here in Colorado, including good-paying jobs for people that live in Pueblo.

I am working hard for Pueblo, and my Pueblo Jobs Act also recently passed the House with bipartisan support. My bill will create at least 1,000 jobs in Pueblo and help bring new businesses into the area as the Pueblo Chemical Depot closes.

I blasted Biden’s Bureau of Land Management’s two proposed land grabs to kill responsible oil and gas leasing on Colorado’s West Slope. Locking up another 1.6 million acres at a time when gas prices are skyrocketing just shows how out of touch this administration is with rural America. Families in the Third District depend on these jobs to put food on the table and a roof over their heads. I stand with Colorado’s roughnecks against this misguided overreach by federal bureaucrats that seeks to lockup our land and that will further increase pain at the pump.

Biden’s proposed land grab would destroy Colorado energy jobs on the Western Slope and prevent responsible oil and gas production on 1.6 million acres. Under these plans, 80% of the land managed by the Colorado River Valley Field Office and 81% of the land managed by the Grand Junction Field Office will be closed to new oil and gas leasing. These proposals will cause significant job losses, limit multiple-use of our public lands, and increase sky-high gas prices.