110-161 ). A detailed description of the legislative path for the appropriations bill, the accompanying national defense authorization bills, and several interim continuing resolutions can be found in section of this report entitled " Enactment of the Regular FY2008 Appropriations ." This supplemental request asked to add $1.38 billion to the FY2007 Army military construction account, $412.5 million to the FY2007 Navy and Marine Corps military construction account, and $60.2 million to the FY2007 Air Force military construction account. The Senate passed an amended bill on May 17. Enactment of the Regular FY2008 Appropriations

The House Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction, Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies marked its draft of the appropriations bill on May 22, 2007, recommending a total Fiscal Year 2008 appropriation of $109.2 billion. 2764 ) on December 17, 2007, to form Division I of the Consolidated Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2008. Base Realignment and Closure/Integrated Global Presence and Basing Strategy (Global Defense Posture Realignment)

				Cost of Implementation

In its appropriations request for Fiscal Year 2007, DOD estimated that the total one-time implementation between 2006 and 2011 of the 2005 BRAC round (the realignment and closure of a number of military installations on United States territory) and the Integrated Global Presence and Basing Strategy (the redeployment of 60,000 - 70,000 troops and their families from overseas garrisons to bases within the United States) would cost $17.9 billion. This would be an increase of $4.4 billion, or 5.5%, over the FY2007 appropriation (including the supplemental). One of the key issues for VA non-medical benefits has been the size of the disability claims workload and the average time (177 days in FY2006) to process claims. 110-28 funding, and providing funding for the additional claims processing personnel proposed in the FY2008 budget request; and funds for a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) for certain VA benefits including compensation benefits—i.e., disability compensation and dependency and indemnity compensation (the COLA is equal to the COLA applied to Social Security benefits). The House-passed appropriation bill, H.R. The Senate Committee appropriation bill, S. 1645 , provided an increase (above the FY2007 enacted level with the additional funding provided by P.L. The total amount requested by the Administration for VHA for FY2008 is $34.6 billion, a 1.7% increase in funding compared to the FY2007 enacted amount. For FY2008, the Administration is requesting $27.2 billion for medical services, a $1.2 billion, or 4.6%, increase in funding over the FY2007 enacted amount. As in FY2003, FY2004, FY2005, FY2006, and FY2007, the Administration has included several cost sharing proposals. On June 15, 2007, the House passed its version of the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations bill for FY2008 ( H.R. 2642 also includes $3.5 billion for medical administration, $69 million above the Administration's request of $3.4 billion; $4.1 billion for medical facilities, a 14% increase over the President's request; and $480 million for medical and prosthetic research, a 17% increase over the President's request of $411 million. 2642 did not include any bill language authorizing fee increases as requested by the Administration's budget proposal for VHA for FY2008. S. 1645 , as reported, provides a total of $37.0 billion for VHA. 3043 would have provided $37.2 billion for VHA for FY2008, this is, $2.6 billion above the Administration's request for FY2008.
The President submitted his FY2008 appropriations request to Congress on February 5, 2007, including $105.2 billion for programs covered in this appropriations bill: $21.2 billion for Title I (military construction and family housing); $83.9 billion for Title II (veterans affairs); and $163 million for Title III (related agencies). With no regular appropriation passed or enacted for FY2007, this must be compared with the combined totals of the subsequent continuing resolutions and emergency supplemental appropriations: $17.9 billion for Title I; $79.6 billion for Title II; and $149 million for Title III. The request represented an increase of $3.2 billion (18.0%) in Title I, $4.4 billion (5.5%) in Title II, and $14 thousand (9.2%) in Title III above the FY2007 enacted appropriations. The overall FY2008 request exceeded the FY2007 appropriations by $7.6 billion, an increase of 7.8%.
The House passed its version of the FY2008 Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies appropriations bill, H.R. 2642, on June 15, 2007. The Senate passed an amended version on September 6. H.R. 2764, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2008, enacted on December 27, 2007 as P.L. 110–161, included FY2008 funding for Military Construction and Veterans Affairs as Division I. The bill's legislative path is laid out in detail in the "Enactment of the Regular FY2008 Appropriations" section of this report.
While appropriations for Title I activities has increased above FY2007, this is not true across all appropriations accounts. Funds for military family housing in FY2008 are less than those for FY2007, while construction for the active and reserve military components and appropriations for Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) actions exceed 2007-enacted amounts. Much of this addition can be attributed to the recently authorized increase in end-strength of military ground forces and the onset of construction required by the 2005 BRAC round.
In veterans' non-medical benefits, mandatory spending for disability compensation, pension, and readjustment benefits is increasing due to the aging of the veterans population and the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. As a result of the increase in the number of claims, the average processing time for a disability claim in FY2006 was 177 days. To reduce the pending claims workload and improve the claims processing time, funds were provided in the FY2007 supplemental and in the FY2008 appropriation for hiring and training additional claims processing staff. While mandatory spending has increased by 19.6% between FY2006 and FY2008 (from $37.2 billion to $44.5 billion), mandatory spending has declined as a share of the total VA appropriation (from 52.1% in FY2006 to 50.7% in FY2008).
In terms of medical care afforded to veterans, similar to the past five years, the Administration has included several cost sharing proposals including increase in pharmacy copayments and enrollment fees for lower priority veterans. The House Appropriations Committee draft bill provides $37.1 billion for VHA for FY2008, a 9.1% increase over the FY2007 enacted amount of $34.0 billion, and 7.3% above the President's request of $34.6 billion. The draft bill does not include any provisions that would give VA the authority to implement fee increases. This report will be updated as events warrant.