WASHINGTON — A manager’s amendment filed ahead of this week’s scheduled floor consideration of a sweeping package of veterans legislation would tweak some key language in the bill, but leave untouched the most controversial part of the measure.

House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Mike Bost, R-Ill., filed an amendment last week with the House Rules Committee for his bill that would adjust the marquee provision, in addition to making numerous technical changes throughout the legislation. Senate Veterans’ Affairs Chairman Jerry Moran, R-Kan., jointly introduced the measure with Bost on June 10 and released his chamber’s version at the same time.

The main provision in the underlying bill, based on stand-alone legislation known as the Maj. Richard Star Act, would allow more disabled veterans to collect the full amounts of both their military retirement pay and Department of Veterans Affairs disability benefits.

Bost’s amendment would specifically clarify eligibility for the expanded pay among retirees from reserve components. It would also make the expanded benefits for all affected veterans kick in immediately upon enactment instead of in 2027.

But veterans say those tweaks for reservists still don’t solve some problems with the language and that another issue limiting who can get expanded benefits is unaddressed by the amendment.

Partisan proposals

Further, the amendment would not significantly change the part of the bill that has drawn the most opposition — the fact that the expanded benefits would be paid for by cuts to future disability benefits for veterans with tinnitus or sleep apnea. Still, it would tweak the offset by changing the effective date from immediately to “on or after” Oct. 1.

With the offset intact, it’s unclear if the manager’s amendment would be enough to get opponents on board with the legislation.

The measure has divided major veterans groups, with some saying it represents the only practical way forward for the prior bill and others saying that one group of disabled veterans should not be made to pay for another group.

The main tweaks in Bost’s amendment are in language related to retirement pay for reservists.

The bill text would make reservists eligible for concurrent receipt of military retirement pay and VA disability benefits if their time in service is calculated under one section of U.S. Code. The amendment would add a second section of U.S. Code that could be used to calculate time in service, thereby expanding the pool of reservists eligible for the expanded benefits.

But some veterans say the amendment would still give the Pentagon’s accounting office too much leeway in deciding who is eligible and are calling for further changes to ensure reservists can get the full benefits.

Another issue some veterans have been raising with the GOP-supported bill is also unchanged in the amendment. For combat-injured veterans from both the active and reserve forces with less than 20 years of service, the underlying bill would stipulate they can collect the “lesser of” their actual retirement pay plus their disability benefits or their hypothetical retirement had they served for 20 years plus their disability pay.

The underlying legislation did not include that tradeoff, and some veterans groups are calling for the GOP plan to remove what they are characterizing as an artificial cap on benefits.

Offset troubles

The original legislation’s namesake is an Army reservist who was forced to retire from the military early after being diagnosed with lung cancer caused by a burn pit and has since died. When it was introduced, the GOP-backed veterans package received the endorsement of Richard Star’s brother, David.

Over the weekend, David Star urged lawmakers to change the offset in the bill that cuts tinnitus and sleep apnea benefits, arguing it is unlikely to pass the Senate in its current form.

“You could push this through the House now, but it will be stalled in the Senate or you can fix it and have an opportunity for it to be signed into law,” David Star wrote on social media Sunday in response to a post from House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Republicans touting the new proposal.

The so-called Star Act has been introduced every congressional session since 2020 but has struggled to move forward despite broad bipartisan support because of its $11 billion-plus increase to mandatory spending and the difficulty of finding an offset for it.

As he has in previous years, the chief House sponsor of the legislation, Rep. Gus Bilirakis, R-Fla., has filed the original version, without an offset, as an amendment to the fiscal National Defense Authorization Act pending in the House this year. In past years, it has not gotten a vote as an NDAA amendment because of the lack of an offset.

Last month, Rep. Mark Takano, D-Calif., the ranking member on the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, filed a discharge petition as part of an effort to force GOP leadership to bring the original Star Act bill to the floor. As of Monday, the petition to bring up a special rule triggering a vote on the measure had 213 signatures, five short of the 218 needed to force a floor vote.

Bilirakis has not signed the discharge petition. Only two Republicans have so far: Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey.

The House Rules Committee is scheduled to meet Tuesday to prepare the GOP leadership-backed legislation for expected floor consideration later this week.

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