Congress raises VA mileage reimbursement for veterans' medical travel
H.R. 1288 — DRIVE Act of 2025 · Filed by Julia Brownley (D-CA) · 54 cosponsors · Introduced Feb 13, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill increases the mileage reimbursement rate that the Department of Veterans Affairs pays to veterans traveling for health care. Instead of a fixed rate, the VA must now reimburse at the same rate the federal government pays its own employees for using personal vehicles on official business (currently 67 cents per mile under the General Services Administration standard). The bill also requires the VA to process and pay mileage reimbursement requests within 90 days.
Why we flagged it
The bill's sole operative mechanism is to raise the mileage reimbursement rate for veterans' health-related travel and impose a processing deadline. It is a straightforward benefit expansion for a defined beneficiary class.
What the text implies
- The bill ties the VA rate to the GSA employee rate, which means the VA reimbursement will automatically increase whenever the federal government raises its employee mileage standard, without requiring future legislative action.
- Veterans in rural areas with longer travel distances to VA facilities will see proportionally larger absolute dollar increases in reimbursement, potentially improving access equity.
- The 90-day payment deadline may require the VA to hire additional processing staff or upgrade claims systems, creating administrative costs not explicitly appropriated in the bill.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Veterans traveling for VA-covered medical care receive higher mileage reimbursement, reducing their out-of-pocket costs for necessary health-related travel. The 90-day payment deadline also improves cash-flow certainty for veterans awaiting reimbursement.
Who stands to gain
- veterans receiving VA health care
Named in the bill
Department of Veterans Affairs, General Services Administration, 38 U.S.C. § 111, 5 U.S.C. § 5707(b)
Where it stands
54 cosponsors: 47 Democrats, 7 Republicans.
- Feb 13, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Feb 13, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Veterans' Affairs · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
2 lobbying clients named this bill on 4 disclosure filings across 2 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $509,800 in lobbying spend. A filing names 139 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 41% of bills with at least one filing.
Julia Brownley, the sponsor, reported $296,500 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- Disabled American Veterans — $310,451 on 2 filings
- Paralyzed Veterans of America — $199,349 on 2 filings
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 21, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (1,568 characters) on Aug 18, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 21, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
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