Sponsors (3)
Introduced July 9, 2025 by Jacklyn Sheryl Rosen · Last progress July 9, 2025
The bill makes it substantially easier for many veterans and some civilian employees to obtain VA benefits and healthcare for presumed toxic exposures—improving care and reducing proof burdens—while raising taxpayer costs, administrative burdens, privacy risks, and potential gaps or disputes tied to how covered locations are defined and verified.
Veterans, former service members, and some DoD civilian employees who served at DOE-listed sites or the Nevada Test and Training Range (NTTR) are presumed to have toxic exposure, making it substantially easier for them to qualify for VA disability benefits and compensation without individual proof of exposure.
Veterans with lipomas and related tumor conditions covered under 38 U.S.C. § 1119(c)(1)(A) will have those conditions automatically presumed service-connected, allowing eligible veterans to receive VA healthcare and compensation for those diagnoses more quickly.
DoD-to-VA transfer and centralization of documented toxic-exposure histories and linked medical data will improve care continuity, give VA disability evaluators better evidence for faster decisions, and help health providers coordinate treatment tied to exposures.
Taxpayers may face substantially higher costs because expanded presumptions and broader eligibility will likely increase VA disability compensation, healthcare payments, and related program expenditures.
Centralizing and sharing exposure histories and linked medical records raises privacy and data-security risks for service members and veterans if records are breached, misused, or inadequately access-controlled.
DoD and VA will incur increased administrative burden and staffing needs to collect, verify, transfer, and adjudicate expanded exposure records and presumptive claims, potentially diverting resources from other programs and straining VA facilities.
Based on analysis of 7 sections of legislative text.
Expands DoD exposure records and creates presumptions that service at DOE-listed facilities or covered Nevada Test and Training Range locations implies toxic exposure, adding certain tumor presumptions for veterans.
Requires the Department of Defense to expand and share individual toxic-exposure records for service members and to mark service records for duty at places with potential toxic exposure. It creates legal presumptions that military members and DoD civilian employees who served or worked at facilities on the Department of Energy’s published list — and those who served at covered locations of the Nevada Test and Training Range (NTTR) — were exposed to toxic substances. Directs the Air Force and DoD to identify current and former personnel assigned to the NTTR since January 27, 1951, allows submission of supporting documentation without requiring proof, expands VA definitions of radiation-risk activities and presumptions for service connection tied to covered NTTR locations, and adds a presumption that lipomas and tumor-related conditions are service-connected for affected veterans. The bill focuses on recordkeeping, presumptive exposure, and expanded VA benefit eligibility for exposed populations.