Newsbytes June 26, 2026

In this issue:
Star Act Blocked Again
FRA Advances Consent and EHRM Work
VA Releases FY2025 Benefits Report
Pentagon Drops Commissary Privatization
House Delays VA Omnibus

Star Act Blocked Again
The Senate floor fight over the "Major Richard Star Act" (S. 1032) intensified this week, marking two more blocked attempts to advance the legislation and leaving approximately 59,000 combat-injured veterans no closer to receiving their full retirement pay and disability compensation concurrently. Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee Ranking Member Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) went to the floor twice: first requesting unanimous consent to pass the bill immediately, then offering a compromise motion that would have set a roll call vote by August 7, 2026, requiring 60 affirmative votes. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) objected to both requests, citing concerns over fiscal offsets and arguing that the bill's multi-billion dollar cost structure has not been paired with a long-term funding mechanism. These Senate-floor blockages follow objections by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) on June 9 and June 10, which themselves came after prior obstructions in October 2025 and March 2026.

The floor debate also exposed the deepening fault line over how to pay for the Star Act. A proposal circulating in House Republican discussions would fund the bill through H.R. 9237, the "Take Care of America's Veterans Act," an omnibus package that offsets costs in part by restructuring disability compensation ratings for veterans with tinnitus and sleep apnea. Blumenthal directly rebutted this framework from the floor, arguing that the cost of caring for combat-injured veterans is a cost of war itself, and that reducing compensation for veterans suffering from acoustic trauma and operational sleep disorders to pay for another class of veterans is fundamentally unacceptable. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has publicly endorsed the Star Act without an offset, as have 79 bipartisan Senate cosponsors and 334 House cosponsors.

The FRA is deeply disappointed by the continued Senate obstruction and stands fully with the position that S. 1032 must be passed as a clean bill, without predatory offsets drawn from the disability compensation of other veterans. Military retirement pay and VA disability compensation are two entirely separate benefits earned for two entirely separate reasons, and the "wounded veteran tax" imposed by the current concurrent receipt offset has no legitimate place in a Congress that claims to honor its obligations to those broken in service. FRA will continue to aggressively lobby both chambers and urges all members to visit the FRA Action Center now to send a message to their Senators demanding a clean vote on the Major Richard Star Act. Click Here to Take Action

FRA Advances Consent and EHRM Work
DLP Theo Lawson spent the past week conducting back-to-back advocacy engagements on Capitol Hill targeting two interlocking FRA legislative priorities. Lawson met with senior legislative staff in the office of Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IA), Chair of the House Veterans' Affairs Health Subcommittee, to press for movement on the "Written Informed Consent Act." With standalone floor time increasingly difficult to secure, the sessions focused on identifying alternative legislative vehicles to carry the consent protections into law, including potential incorporation into the Veterans' Bill of Rights Act. FRA's push centered on ensuring that families and designated caregivers are explicitly named as protected parties in any statutory informed consent framework, particularly in the context of high-risk psychiatric medication disclosures.

FRA also engaged directly with technology developers on the Electronic Health Record Modernization program, presenting emerging frameworks for modernizing the VA's digital infrastructure. Discussions emphasized the potential for advanced software architectures, including blockchain-based data integrity tools, to secure veteran medical records, prevent corruption of health data, and enable secure interoperability between VA systems and outside care networks. The sessions reinforced FRA's position that designated family caregivers must retain frictionless access to care records and scheduling systems as part of any modernized EHRM architecture.

The FRA maintains that full execution of the EHRM program is a foundational requirement for correcting systemic shortfalls across the VA enterprise. A fragmented, legacy-dependent health records system produces cascading failures in claims processing, clinical quality, and care coordination. The Association will continue to pressure lawmakers and the administration to fully fund the EHRM program while locking in statutory protections for the families administering daily care to wounded Shipmates. Progress on the Written Informed Consent Act remains an active FRA priority; members can support the campaign at the FRA Action Center. Click Here to Take Action

VA Releases FY2025 Benefits Report
The Veterans Benefits Administration published its Fiscal Year 2025 Annual Benefits Report this week, providing a comprehensive accounting of federal benefit delivery across the VA's seven primary program streams: Compensation, Pension and Fiduciary, Insurance, Home Loan Guaranty, Education, Veteran Readiness and Employment, and Outreach. The report covers total program obligations, state-by-state distribution data, and participation metrics, and by all indications documents the most operationally demanding cycle in the department's history. PACT Act implementation drove historic claim volume throughout the fiscal year, with the VA issuing disability rating decisions at a record pace. The Home Loan Guaranty program also logged a high-water mark for new guaranties issued, and the Veteran Readiness and Employment pipeline continued expanding to serve the growing population of disabled veterans transitioning to civilian careers.

The report's granular state-level data tracks how program funds flow into local economies and highlights regional variation in participation rates, insurance utilization, and claims processing performance. For FRA's advocacy work, this geographic breakdown matters: it allows the Association and its National Service Officers to identify precisely where Sailors, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen are encountering persistent backlogs or lower benefit utilization, and to direct congressional pressure accordingly. The data also provides FRA's legislative staff with the evidentiary foundation to challenge future proposals that would reduce earned compensation under the guise of fiscal efficiency.

The FRA is reviewing the FY2025 Annual Benefits Report in full to inform our upcoming Hill engagements and sharpen our Pillar 3 advocacy on disability compensation reform. While record-high delivery numbers reflect genuine VBA effort and meaningful administrative progress, the Association remains clear-eyed about what the volume itself signals: millions of sea service members and their families are depending on a system that cannot afford to slip. FRA will use this data to hold the department and Congress accountable to the accuracy and timeliness standards our Shipmates have earned.

Pentagon Drops Commissary Privatization
The Department of War has formally ended its exploration of privatizing the nation's 178 domestic commissary stores, confirming this week that outreach to the commercial grocery industry produced zero interest in acquiring a system legally required to deliver at least 24 percent savings to military shoppers. Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Anthony Tata confirmed the decision publicly, noting that no private entity was willing to absorb what he called a "24% haircut right out of the gate." A subsequent analysis signed by Deputy Under Secretary Sean O'Keefe concluded that privatization would create an unacceptable risk to the readiness and well-being of service members and their families, and that potential cost savings could not be realized without severely degrading the benefit itself. The decision was formally communicated to Congress in an April 3 letter.

The reversal closes out a process that began with a September 2025 request for information issued under DoD's April 2025 directive to prioritize privatization of non-inherently governmental functions, specifically citing retail sales. The RFI drew significant congressional and VSO pushback, and the FY2026 NDAA reinforced existing statutory language barring DoD from taking actions that conflict with restrictions on commissary privatization. DoD confirmed it is now shifting focus to technology and efficiency improvements within the existing commissary footprint. The Defense Commissary Agency operates 235 stores globally on approximately $1.5 billion in annual appropriations, a subsidy that makes the benefit possible and that no commercial operator could replicate without government support.

The FRA strongly welcomes the Pentagon's decision to abandon commissary privatization. For generations, the commissary benefit has been a non-negotiable pillar of non-pay compensation for our Sailors, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen, particularly for junior enlisted families stationed in high-cost installations and isolated forward posts where commercial alternatives are limited or nonexistent. The Association has consistently held that a federal grocery benefit is not a marketplace asset to be handed to corporate operators; it is a readiness and retention tool funded by a promise made at enlistment. DoD reached the right conclusion, and Congress must ensure it holds.

House Delays VA Omnibus
The House floor schedule for the "Take Care of America's Veterans Act" (H.R. 9237) collapsed on June 25 as chamber-wide legislative activity ground to a halt over an impasse between House leadership and the White House on the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act. The 62-bill veterans omnibus, introduced June 10 by House Veterans' Affairs Committee Chairman Mike Bost (R-IL) and Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee Chairman Jerry Moran (R-KS), had been cleared by the House Rules Committee on June 23 and was scheduled for a floor vote this week. The SAVE Act dispute, which involves voter identification requirements that are a top White House priority, triggered a broader freeze on House legislative activity, pushing all deferred floor votes, including H.R. 9237, into an indefinite hold.

The delay is consequential for FRA on two levels. H.R. 9237 contains the Major Richard Star Act in its text, which would represent the first legislative vehicle to move the bill through either chamber if passed. However, the omnibus also funds portions of that expansion through a restructuring of disability compensation ratings for veterans with tinnitus and sleep apnea, a mechanism FRA opposes. The floor pause has given a growing coalition of House Democrats, VSOs, and affected veterans' groups additional time to press for structural changes to the offset provisions before a vote occurs. Rep. Mark Takano (D-CA), Ranking Member of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee, has been a leading voice against the offset framework.

The FRA is monitoring the House floor situation closely and views the current pause as an opportunity, not a setback. The Association supports significant provisions within H.R. 9237, particularly the Major Richard Star Act, the Love Lives On Act survivor benefit improvements, and expanded VA home loan access for Guard and Reserve members. However, FRA will not endorse any legislative vehicle that funds earned benefits for one class of veterans by cutting earned compensation for another. We will use this window to press House leadership and committee staff to break the offset mechanism from the package and identify alternative pay-fors that do not put the disability compensation pipeline at risk for any Shipmate.