Faced with a mounting backlog of nearly 6,000 pending veterans’ claims, US Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims Chief Judge William Greene Jr. has recalled two of its retired judges to help trim the caseload. The number of pending cases has more than doubled in the past two years, with each of the court’s seven current judges handling more than 300 new cases each month when they used to hear less than 200 per month. Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee chair Larry Craig (R-Idaho) in a statement welcomed the additional judicial help to reduce the backlog “and give all veterans a timely decision.” He noted that more retired judges may be recalled if the caseload is not sufficiently trimmed in three months.
A new report from the Government Accountability Office calls for the Pentagon’s Chief Technology Officer to have budget certification authority over the military services’ research and development accounts—a move the services say would add a burdensome and unnecessary layer of bureaucracy.
