§324 Cost of War Toxic Exposures Fund

Summary

Creates a new Treasury account called the Cost of War Toxic Exposures Fund. The Secretary will run the Fund. Money will come from amounts Congress appropriates. For fiscal year 2023 and each year after, Congress may appropriate whatever sums are needed, above the fiscal year 2021 level, to pay for three things: delivery of veterans’ health care for harm from environmental exposures in active military, naval, air, or space service (in programs run by the Under Secretary for Health); costs to deliver that care, including administrative items like information technology and claims processing and appeals (but not certain leases); and medical and other research about those exposures. Right after the Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson Honoring our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act of 2022 is enacted, those authorized amounts for 2023 and later must be estimated and treated as budget authority considered direct spending for baseline, budget committee enforcement, Congressional Budget Act reports, and PAYGO. At the same time, amounts actually appropriated to the Fund for 2023 or later must not be counted as discretionary budget authority and outlays or as direct spending for estimates of appropriation bills. The Fund is to be treated like the “Appropriated Entitlements and Mandatories for Fiscal Year 1997” account for certain budget rules. The Secretary must include detailed yearly estimates of these sums in the President’s budget documents and may set procedures for making those estimates after consulting the House and Senate Appropriations Committees.