could it have been this legionnaires' disease? and who besides us are trying to get answers on this, and is the va still refusing to talk to you? >> reporter: yeah, they will not come out. as you saw in that piece, they will not talk to us at all. they referred us to the washington pr division, sent us right back to pittsburgh. it's been a mess. but the centers for disease control and prevention, they did send a team there in november to investigate this. we're told that the investigation, the results from the cdc will go to the va in coming weeks. we're not sure if that's going to be released to the public. >> and i still can't understand why the va did nothing when they knew they had a problem. >> reporter: actually, anderson, we found out that about six months ago, the va did bring in a consultant who made recommendations on how to fix the water, but the va apparently did not tell that consultant that they had legionnaires cases at the hospital. if they had told the consultants that, there would have been different recommendati

but bill nicholas died the day after thanksgiving from heart failure and legionnaire's disease.contracted it from using the water at the va, which was contaminated with high levels of a bacteria, the cause of legionnaire's disease. two other families are wondering whether their veterans contracted the legionnaire's disease that killed them from this same pittsburgh va. cnn has now learned that hospital officials knew they had a problem with the water system as far back as december of last year, but chose not to reveal any of that publicly until a month ago. >> being a veteran myself, i'm shocked and appalled that the va would put their veterans in that type of situation. >> records obtained by cnn show that over the past year, the amount of disinfectant in the va's water was less than the amount needed to prevent the bacteria from reaching dangerous levels, and internal records from a water quality company called liquitech show that in december of 2011, an inspection show they have legionela, systems not being properly maintained. five months later the problems continued. obviou

remember, they're the ones who discovered legionnaires' disease. how much time have i consumed? the presiding officer: the senator's time has expired. ms. mikulski: i have a commitment to the gentleman from arizona and i will honor that commitment both in speaking here and in dealing with these issues. mr. president, the point i'm making is this across-the-board meat ax approach has very serious consequences. let's use prudence here and delay them, i would hope for at least one year or two years. not a matter of weeks. but we are saying, and i promise, we do have methods for beginning our spending under serious discipline. i yield the floor and look forward to working with my colleagues. the presiding officer: the senator from arizona. mr. mccain: may i thank the senator from maryland, as always, for her usual courtesy and i think she had a very important message and i appreciate not only the words themselves but her eloquence and passion. mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the senator from south carolina be included in a colloquy during my remarks. the presiding office