Sponsors (19)
The bill reduces passport costs and speeds processing for highly honored veterans but requires modest taxpayer funding and raises privacy/data‑sharing risks that must be managed.
Veterans awarded the Purple Heart or Medal of Honor no longer pay certain passport fees, reducing travel costs for these honor recipients.
Veterans experience faster, simpler passport verification because the State Department will establish an MOU with the Department of Defense to streamline documentation and speed processing for eligible applicants.
Linking passport fee waivers to Department of Defense service records could create privacy or data‑sharing risks for applicants if data access and limits are not carefully defined and secured.
Taxpayers may incur modest increased administrative costs to implement and operate the verification processes between DoD and the State Department.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Exempts Purple Heart and Medal of Honor recipients from certain passport fees and requires State and Defense to set documentation and verification rules.
Exempts individuals who received the Purple Heart or the Medal of Honor from specified passport fees and directs the State Department and Department of Defense to set up rules and verification for the exemption. It requires the Assistant Secretary for Consular Affairs to enter into a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Secretary of Defense to establish documentation requirements and a mechanism for DoD to verify service records for applications and renewals. One short provision simply establishes a short title and makes no substantive change; the fee-exemption and MOU requirement are the only operative changes. The fiscal and operational effects are likely small and handled within existing agency processes.
Introduced February 5, 2026 by Mike Levin · Last progress February 5, 2026