mr. speaker , i thank the gentleman for yielding me this time , and i want to compliment the gentleman from wisconsin ( mr. obey ) xz4003000 , the gentleman from texas ( mr. edwards ) xz4001180 , and all the members who deeply care about our veterans in this body . 
i am always surprised that this issue takes on a partisan tone , because i really believe each member cares about veterans . 
it is just that there seems to be an unwillingness on the part of this administration to face up to the reality of how much money is needed to take care of the veterans . 
and with the war raging in iraq , and with the seriousness of the injuries , any of us who have been out to walter reed or to bethesda to see these heroic young men and women who have come back with these very severe wounds , i think all of us want to see the best care given to our veterans . 
we have been reading about post-traumatic stress syndrome and the consequences and the effect on the lives of these soldiers and sailors and marines when they come home after having been involved in the kind of violent combat that is being seen in iraq . 
i had a chance to visit the va hospital in seattle recently , and i was told by the people there that they still have a backlog , a waiting list of 2 , 500 people waiting to get their appointments at the seattle va . 
now , that is just unacceptable . 
i hope that that has been reduced . 
mr. speaker , i want to say that i believe the other body was correct in adding this money , but this is not something that normally would be part of the interior appropriations bill . 
this is not within our jurisdiction . 
this is just something that happened -- we were the first bill moving through , and it became a convenient vehicle in the other body to put this $ 1.5 billion onto . 
there was an effort here to put some money , i think it was , what , $ 975 million -- or thereabouts , which the house adopted , i believe , overwhelmingly , maybe unanimously , but it is simply not enough . 
i think mr. nicholson has not been as forthright as he should have been in telling the various committees on the hill what was needed . 
but in my mind there is absolutely no excuse for not approving this $ 1.5 billion . 
i hope that it will be unanimous that every member of the house will vote for this because i think we should do as much as we can to take care of the legitimate needs of these people . 
as i said , this should not be a partisan issue . 
i just regret that the administration continues to underfund this important priority . 
