State Department gets power to waive evacuation costs in war zones
H.R. 270 — To authorize the waiver of costs of activities relating to evacuation of United States citizens when their lives are endangered by war or acts of terrorism. · Filed by Neal Dunn (R-FL) · Introduced Jan 9, 2025 · Referred to committee
Your members of Congress
Enter a ZIP to see where your representative and both senators stood on this bill.
Looked up on this device — your ZIP is never stored on our servers.
What it does
This bill authorizes the Secretary of State to waive costs for evacuating U.S. citizens whose lives are endangered by war or terrorism. Currently, the State Department's repatriation loan program charges citizens for evacuation costs; this bill allows the Secretary to forgive those charges in emergency situations.
Why we flagged it
The bill's sole operative mechanism is a discretionary waiver of evacuation costs for U.S. citizens in life-threatening situations. It is a narrow, targeted authorization addressing a specific humanitarian scenario.
What the text implies
- Waiver authority is discretionary, not mandatory — the Secretary retains full discretion to charge costs in any given evacuation, potentially creating inconsistent treatment across different crises.
- The bill does not specify funding source for waived costs, leaving unclear whether the State Department absorbs the expense or whether it is covered by existing appropriations.
- No sunset or limitation on waiver authority — once granted, the Secretary's discretion to waive costs is permanent and unlimited in scope.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Citizens facing imminent danger from war or terrorism gain access to emergency evacuation without bearing the full financial cost, removing a potential barrier to life-saving rescue. The waiver authority is discretionary (not mandatory), preserving the Secretary's ability to recover costs in non-emergency or lower-risk scenarios.
Named in the bill
Secretary of State, State Department, State Department Basic Authorities Act of 1956, Repatriation Loan Program
Where it stands
- Jan 9, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Jan 9, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Foreign Affairs · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
1 lobbying clients named this bill on 2 disclosure filings across 2 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $300,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 12 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 0% of bills with at least one filing.
Neal Dunn, the sponsor, reported $438,583 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- Aca International — $300,000 on 2 filings
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 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 (482 characters) on Jul 2, 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 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
“State Department gets power to waive evacuation costs in war zones” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/hr270 Report an error
The week in bills
One email, Sunday: what Congress passed, what it changed, and who paid.
One link arrives to confirm the address. It is used for this email and nothing else, and every issue carries an unsubscribe link.