mr. o'rourke? mr. o'rourke: yes. rep. lamb: in the military, officers are frequently held accountable for the actions of their subordinates? mr. o'rourke: yes. rep. lamb: you're familiar with the phrase open "officers eat last." even if it is not the officer's direct fault, they have a responsibility for the people beneath the. that promotes a pretty good culture in the military, right? mr. o'rourke: for the most part, yes. on yourb: do you draw experiences in the military in the the eight? be o'rourke: i try to cognizant that i am in the civilian space, but yes. given our expectations, that is what our shared experiences are. rep. lamb: when you create that kind of culture, you have leaders who go out and take responsibility for the people below them, even when no one tells them to. the people below them succeed that, because they do not want the person who is leading them to get fired, if they like them, if they think they are doing a good job. if you talk about creating a culture, that is what they do day to day. if yo

mr. o'rourke, thank you for being here. do you generally recognize, sir, that this is an era of reform in the va, that the va has been a mess, man, for decades. it didn't get that way under one administration. or one executive or one va committee. and this committee in a very bipartisan manner has touched my spirit, has embraced the challenge to reform the va. but does the va get it, that this is an era of reform? >> i don't think any organization self-reforms. it is going to be what the leadership of this congress -- >> but, is there a clear understanding within the culture that you described, if you could change one thing or if you could identify one thing that reflects this era of the va, is that it is an era of accountability. but i'm going to talk about, is there consequence to accountability? just generally speaking, sir, i'm asking you, sir, as man, as an american, is it recognized in the va that we have to reform this thing? >> i think there is a growing number of people in the va that recognize that. >> for the rec

mr. o'rourke? >> yes. >> in the military officers are frequently held accountable for the actions of their subordinates, right? >> yes. >> you are familiar with the phrase officers eat last? >> yes. >> part of the military culture is that people at the top are supposed to look out for the people below them and take accountability for the actions even if it's not the officer's direct fault. they have responsibility for the people underneath them. >> yes. >> that promotes a pretty good culture in the military right? >> yes. for the most part. >> do you draw from your military experiences in your leading of the va? >> yes. >> is there overlap between the kind of culture you want to promote in the given our -- yes. >> one thing i saw in the re- marine corps, when you create that kind of culture you have leaders go out and take responsibility for the people below them even when no one tells them to. the people below them see that and they want to succeed for the person who is leading them because they d

mr. o'rourke, you're now recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman. ranking member, thank you, distinguished members of the committee. ai i'm pleased to be here. >> let me get right to the point. retaliation against employees who identify legitimate problem or report there may be a violation of alaw, rule or regulation is unacceptable. i will not tolerate it. protectsing employees from retaliation is a moral obligation of va leaders, a statutory obligation and a priority for the department. we take action to hold accountable those in retaliation and that includes appropriate disciplinary action. i'm confident that overwhelming majority of our employees are here to do the right thing. our best employees own accountability because they are here to make a positive difference in the lives of veterans. they use the formula to address accountability and that's why we're talking to day. the problems that surfaced in 2014 and covered serious short falls in the way leaders dealt with employees who made disclosures. they led to the interdisciplinary team and ex

mr. o'rourke and mr. arrington. if you put these young men and women back in a job and school, which we just passed a forever g.i. bill from this committee and the president has signed it into law, all of these things i think will make a huge difference in the future of not only these young children that served our nation so honorably, but will help our nation. i, as a veteran and as a person that did not benefit from this, i'm certainly more than happy to support this. and i think this is a great piece of legislation. and again, i thank mr. walz, mr. takano and others who helped push this through. i encourage all members to support this bill and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the question is will the house suspend the rules and pass the bill h.r. 5649 as amended. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, 2/3 being in the affirmative, the rules are suspended and the bill is passed and without objection, the motion to reconsider

mr. o'rourke there is a number of employees have reached out and believe issues within the v.a. would qualify them as whistleblowers. how does the office of accountability and protection handle the correct way with disclosure? how do you train them? >> there has been ongoing training or awareness from office a special counsel and t5 required by statute to post what do you do to those two agencies as disclosure whistleblower protection is new we had to educate what we needed him by statute we are required to identify a form and toll-free number that was within the first few weeks we continue to refine those but those are available to all employees we also have the website updated to describe very clearly what is a disclosure to show we really understood that we had to listen to employees to let them talk about their issues because if they feel they cannot talk to their management or supervisors they need someone to talk to and what we found is what caused a lot of this to fester and grow and then become a bigger issue we have done a lot in that area. we have more to do we have tr