Veterans gain expanded burial benefits; families no longer forced to choose
S. 1116 — Ensuring Veterans’ Final Resting Place Act of 2025 · Filed by Jim Banks (R-IN) · 2 cosponsors · Introduced Mar 25, 2025 · Reported out
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 amends federal law to expand burial benefits for veterans by allowing the Department of Veterans Affairs to provide additional burial assistance (such as an urn or plaque) in cases where a headstone or marker is already furnished, rather than treating them as mutually exclusive options. The change applies retroactively to veterans who died on or after January 5, 2021.
Why we flagged it
The bill's sole operative function is to expand eligibility for burial benefits by removing an either/or restriction, allowing veterans' families to receive both a headstone/marker and an urn or plaque. This is a straightforward benefit expansion with no hidden mechanisms or narrow carve-outs.
What the text implies
- Retroactive application to deaths since January 5, 2021 may create a backlog of claims from families who were previously denied dual benefits and may now seek them; VA will need to process these claims and budget for the additional cost.
- The bill does not specify funding source or appropriation level, leaving the cost of expanded benefits to be absorbed within existing VA burial appropriations or through supplemental funding.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Veterans and their families gain expanded access to burial benefits at no cost to them — the bill removes a restriction that previously forced a choice between a headstone and an urn or plaque, allowing both. This is a pure expansion of a public benefit with no offsetting cost to citizens.
Named in the bill
Department of Veterans Affairs, 38 U.S.C. § 2306(h), Veterans
Where it stands
2 cosponsors: 1 Democrats, 1 Republicans.
- Mar 25, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Mar 25, 2025 — Referred to Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Veterans' Affairs”
- Dec 10, 2025 — Hearing held · Congress.gov: “Committee on Veterans' Affairs. Hearings held”
- Mar 18, 2026 — Reported out of committee · Congress.gov: “Committee on Veterans' Affairs. Ordered to be reported with an amendment in the nature of a substitute…”
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 1 disclosure filings across 1 quarter, Dec 2025 to Dec 2025. Those filings disclosed $50,000 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.
Jim Banks, the sponsor, reported $559,626 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- National Funeral Directors Assn — $50,000 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jan 12, 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 (742 characters) on Aug 20, 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 Dec 2025. 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 Jan 12, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
“Veterans gain expanded burial benefits; families no longer forced to choose” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/s1116 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.