Since joining the Senate, he has focused his work on helping workers, veterans, and families and has led key legislation on health care, climate change, and technology.
Senator Schatz chairs the Indian Affairs Committee, and serves on the Appropriations Committee; the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee; the Foreign Relations Committee; and the Select Committee on Ethics. He also serves on the Senate Democratic Caucus's leadership team as Chief Deputy Whip.
Our veterans and their families have made tremendous sacrifices in service to our great nation, and we owe them nothing less than the same commitment that they have showed us. With more than 100,000 veterans in Hawai‘i, Senator Brian Schatz is committed to honoring our veterans and their families, and empowering them to seize new opportunities as they transition back to civilian life.
Senator Schatz believes we have a responsibility to invest in our veterans’ futures. He is committed to ensuring that they have access to transition assistance programs, including career training services and higher education that will better position them to compete for civilian careers. He is dedicated to working with the private sector to showcase important skills that America’s veterans have to offer businesses, such as dependability, initiative and self-direction. And he is devoted to making sure that none of Hawai‘i’s veterans sleep without a roof over their heads.
To expand care and services to veterans across the neighbor islands, Senator Schatz is working to leverage community organizations, including local health clinics, to provide quality health care to veterans in their communities. These community organizations often provide the most common outpatient care, such as health and wellness visits, without the need to travel long distances or to other islands. That is why Senator Schatz is committed to working with the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to ensure that resources are available to support VA community-based outpatient clinics in Hilo, Kailua-Kona, Kahului, and Lihue. These clinics are important to providing our veterans with more options to access the care they need.
Senator Schatz is working to grant Filipino veterans the benefits they were promised for their service during the Second World War when more than 250,000 Filipinos served under the U.S. flag in the Pacific. Many of these soldiers made the ultimate sacrifice to preserve freedom. But many others have lived on quietly, under-recognized and denied the basic veterans’ benefits they earned for their service. The Filipino Veterans Fairness Act that Senator Schatz introduced would right this wrong and make all surviving Filipino veterans eligible to the benefits they earned.
Providing our veterans with the best health care, education, transitional programs and memorials are top priorities for Senator Schatz. He is working to ensure all these vital programs have the resources to care for our veterans.