Congress expands veteran suicide prevention funding through 2030
S. 1139 — HOPE for Heroes Act of 2025 · Filed by Jerry Moran (R-KS) · Introduced Mar 26, 2025 · Reported out
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What it does
This bill reauthorizes and expands the Staff Sergeant Parker Gordon Fox Suicide Prevention Grant Program at the Department of Veterans Affairs through 2030. It increases the maximum grant from an unspecified amount to $1 million per grantee, adds up to $500,000 in performance-based bonuses tied to intake numbers, mandates use of the Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale screening tool, requires coordination between grant recipients and VA medical centers, and adds transportation services for veterans attending appointments.
Why we flagged it
The bill's core function is reauthorizing and expanding a suicide prevention grant program for veterans, with increased funding caps, performance incentives, and mandated evidence-based screening protocols. The named-after provisions (Parker Gordon Fox, John Scott Hannon) are commemorative of deceased veterans and align with the bill's protective purpose, not vanity.
What the text implies
- Performance-based bonuses tied to 'intake process' numbers may incentivize volume over treatment outcomes; grantees could prioritize enrollment metrics rather than sustained care or recovery rates.
- Mandatory Columbia Protocol screening may create compliance burden for smaller grant recipients unfamiliar with the tool, potentially reducing grant competitiveness for community-based organizations.
- Quarterly briefing requirement for VAMCs within 100 miles of grant recipients creates administrative overhead and may fragment care coordination if VAMCs and grant recipients operate as separate silos rather than integrated systems.
- 72-hour emergency care guarantee (section 1720J fallback) creates an unfunded mandate on VA medical centers if grant recipients cannot meet demand, potentially straining existing VA mental health capacity.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
The bill expands suicide prevention services for veterans by increasing funding, mandating evidence-based screening protocols, improving care coordination, and adding transportation assistance—all measures that directly reduce barriers to mental health care for a vulnerable population. The restrictions on administrative costs (30% cap) and food/beverage spending (5% cap) ensure grant dollars flow to direct services.
Who stands to gain
- Veterans Affairs grant recipients (nonprofit and community mental health organizations)
- Transportation service providers (rideshare, medical transport companies)
- Training and technical assistance vendors
Named in the bill
Department of Veterans Affairs, Staff Sergeant Parker Gordon Fox Suicide Prevention Grant Program, Commander John Scott Hannon Veterans Mental Health Care Improvement Act of 2019, Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale (C-SSRS), Veterans Affairs Medical Centers (VAMCs), Section 1720J (emergency mental health care)
Where it stands
- Mar 26, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Mar 26, 2025 — Referred to Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Veterans' Affairs”
- Jul 30, 2025 — 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, Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $340,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 104 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.
Jerry Moran, the sponsor, reported $396,550 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- American Psychological Association Services Inc.(fka American Psychological Assn — $340,000 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 16, 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 (5,080 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 Jun 2026 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 16, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
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