U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) has filed an amendment to an annual defense department spending bill to require the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to stop using Social Security numbers as identification numbers for the country’s 22 million veterans.

This is Baldwin’s second effort to get the VA policy changed through an amendment introduced on the Senate floor. Her first effort failed, but Baldwin said Congress would “have to push” the VA to fix this problem instead of waiting for the department to change its identification process on its own.

“It’s so important as we see the crime of identity theft increase so rapidly,” Baldwin said in a satellite interview from Washington. “It’s so important that government agencies not make individuals vulnerable by using Social Security numbers as their identification numbers.”

Baldwin introduced the amendment after News 3 reported on an April 2015 incident in which the Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs emailed a list including the SSNs of hundreds of Wisconsin residents to a random citizen. An investigative team from the VA’s Office of the Inspector General has been looking into what happened in Wisconsin because the email originated from a VA.gov email address. Baldwin said its report should be completed shortly.

“It’s a huge undertaking to do this, I realize that,” said Baldwin. “We need to raise awareness. Everybody wants to make sure that those who have served our country are not needlessly subjected to the potential of identity theft because the VA uses Social Security numbers as its means of identification.”

The National Defense Authorization Act needs to pass Congress in the next two weeks before lawmakers adjourn for their summer vacation.