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The House passed legislation on Thursday to deliver comprehensive health care and benefits to veterans exposed to toxins during military service.
The “Honoring Our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics (PACT) Act,” H.R. 3967, would significantly expand the list of “presumptive” conditions for veterans. Those are ailments that the federal government would presume are related to burn pits or other forms of toxic exposure. Veterans affected would be immediately eligible for Veterans Affairs health care and other benefits.
The legislation passed through the House 256-174, with every Democrat and 34 Republicans voting in favor.
This was an issue President Joe Biden stressed during his State of the Union address on Tuesday night.
“I’m calling on Congress: pass a law to make sure veterans devastated by toxic exposures in Iraq and Afghanistan finally get the benefits and comprehensive health care they deserve,” Biden said, calling it part of “a sacred obligation to equip all those we send to war and care for them and their families when they come home.”
Biden lamented the dangers of the toxic smoke from burn pits, which have resulted in enduring health issues for military veterans stationed overseas in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Southwest Asia.
The open-air combustion of trash and other waste in burn pits is a common practice of military operations. Common materials incinerated in burn pits included human waste, paint, metal cans, food waste, unexploded ordnance, lubricant products, plastics, rubber, wood, and even jet fuel.
Active-duty service members exposed to these toxic chemicals are often plagued with life-threatening diseases and illnesses.
“And they come home, many of the world’s fittest and best-trained warriors in the world, never the same,” Biden told lawmakers. “Headaches. Numbness. Dizziness. A cancer that would put them in a flag-draped coffin.”
The bill would specifically designate 23 respiratory illnesses and cancers as likely linked to toxic exposures related to military burn pits and airborne hazards exposure.
Currently, the Department of Veterans Affairs decides these exposure claims on a case-by-case basis, with the exception of those filed for asthma, rhinitis, or sinusitis. The burden of proving one’s illness is related to a burn pit exposure falls on the veteran, leading to delays in health care.
“We passed the most comprehensive legislation to date to treat toxic exposure as a cost of war,” House Veterans Affairs Chair and main sponsor of the bill Mark Takano (D-Calif.) said in a release. “I will not rest until our veterans have a guarantee in statute that their government will take care of them when they come home.”
The Senate passed its own bill in February aimed at helping former military service members suffering from toxic burn pit exposure.
Next, the two bills go through a reconciliation process — either through a formal conference committee or a negotiation process — before a final piece of legislation can be approved by both chambers and signed by the President into law.
