Commemorative Plaques and Urns

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS <CFR>38 CFR Part 38</CFR> <RIN>RIN 2900-AR88</RIN> <SUBJECT>Commemorative Plaques and Urns</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Department of Veterans Affairs. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is amending its regulations to implement new statutory authority to furnish commemorative plaques and urns for certain veterans whose cremated remains are not interred. This action is necessary to administer the new benefits, which were authorized by the “Johnny Isakson and David P. Roe, M.D. Veterans Health Care and Benefits Improvement Act of 2020” (the Act). </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective June 10, 2024. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Eric Powell, Director, Memorial Products Service, National Cemetery Administration, Department of Veterans Affairs, 810 Vermont Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20420. Telephone: 202-632-8670 (this is not a toll-free number). </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> On November 20, 2023, VA published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> , at 88 FR 80649, a proposed rule revising its regulations to implement section 2207 of the Act (Pub. L. 116-315), which amended sec. 2306 of title 38, United States Code, by adding a new subsection (h), to create a new memorialization authority for the National Cemetery Administration (NCA) to furnish, upon request, an urn or commemorative plaque for a veteran whose cremated remains are not interred. The public comment period ended January 19, 2024, and VA received nine comments. VA will address each in greater detail below but notes generally that six commenters expressed concerns with the rulemaking, two commenters supported the rulemaking, and one commenter's comment is considered beyond the scope of the rulemaking. One commenter criticized the proposed rule as poorly written and lacking in foresight, suggesting the rulemaking was a cost-saving measure at the expense of the veteran community. While the expressed opinions about the regulatory work product are outside the scope of the rulemaking, we address this commenter's remarks about the underlying statutory authority implemented by this final rule. The commenter noted that a veteran who receives a commemorative plaque or urn would be prohibited from interment in a “national/state” cemetery in addition to being prohibited from receiving a headstone, marker, or medallion. The commenter also expressed concern about the effect of this outcome on grants for interment and care of remains. The commenter is partially correct in that, if VA furnishes a commemorate plaque or urn for a veteran, § 38.634(a)(3)(i) and (ii) would prohibit VA from providing a Government headstone or marker and interring the veteran in a VA national cemetery. However, the proposed rule correctly explains this prohibition is based on statutory law, not a budgetary decision. See 38 U.S.C. 2306(d)(4) (authorizing VA to provide a medallion in lieu of a headstone or marker) and (h)(2) (prohibiting VA, after furnishing a plaque or urn, from providing a headstone or marker (and, by extension, a medallion provided in lieu of a headstone or marker) and interring the eligible individual in a VA national cemetery). Additionally, we clarify for this commenter that VA grant-funded cemeteries are not prohibited from interring an individual who receives a commemorative plaque or urn, as VA national cemeteries are prohibited from doing so in sec. 2306(h)(2)(B); therefore, VA grant-funded cemeteries may inter a veteran who has received a plaque or urn and provide perpetual care of that veteran's gravesite. VA will make no changes based on commenter's concerns about the statutory restrictions in sec. 2306(h) implemented in this final rule. Three commenters provided detailed feedback on multiple issues, which VA will address by subject matter below. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Adverse Impacts on Eligibility for Other VA Benefits and Cemetery Grant Funding</HD> Commenters expressed concern that when a claimant accepts a Government-furnished commemorative plaque or urn for an eligible deceased veteran, the veteran is prohibited from future interment in a VA national cemetery or receiving a Government-furnished headstone or marker. The commenters noted that acceptance of “relatively low cost” items would deny the significant burial benefit and perpetual care of a veteran's gravesite. These commenters generally criticized the proposed rule's disqualification of a veteran's remains from interment in a VA national cemetery or a VA grant-funded cemetery as counter to the larger purpose of “honoring veterans and providing perpetual care” of their gravesites. The commenters were concerned that if a VA grant-funded cemetery interred a veteran who received a commemorative plaque or urn, such interment would violate the terms of grant funding under 38 U.S.C. 2408 and adversely impact a cemetery's eligibility to receive the VA plot or interment allowance. The commenters also cited to possible administrative burdens to verify whether a veteran has received a commemorative plaque or urn. The commenters noted financial burdens for VA grant-funded cemeteries to cover costs of furnishing a headstone or marker at their expense to veterans who received a commemorative plaque or urn and are interred in such cemeteries because VA would otherwise provide headstones or markers for veterans interred in those cemeteries. First, VA reiterates that the purpose of the commemorative plaque and urn benefit is to honor veterans for their service for families that choose not to inter their loved one. The commemorative plaque or urn is authorized as a Federal benefit provided to an eligible deceased veteran instead of a headstone or marker, under sec. 2306(h)(1); and if furnished, VA is prohibited from interring that veteran in a VA national cemetery and providing a headstone or marker for such individual, under sec. 2306(h)(2)(A) and (B). The commenters implied that because commemorative plaques and urns are “relatively low cost,” VA's provision of these items should not affect a veteran's eligibility for burial. VA clarifies that the cost of the commemorative plaque or urn is irrelevant to VA's obligation to follow the law, which prohibits VA from interring an eligible veteran in a VA national cemetery or furnishing a VA headstone or marker if we have furnished a commemorative plaque or urn for that veteran. Consistent with sec. 2306(h)(2), these express prohibitions must be implemented in regulations as proposed. Additionally, the prohibitions in sec. 2306(h)(2) only affect burial in a VA national cemetery and the provision of a Government headstone or marker. Statutory eligibility for burial in a VA national cemetery is defined in sec. 2402, but sec. 2306(h)(2) prohibits VA from interring such veteran in a national cemetery or providing a Government headstone or marker for that veteran. If a VA grant-funded cemetery receives a request to inter a veteran for whom VA has furnished a commemorative urn or plaque, the cemetery may inter that veteran, and the prohibitions in sec. 2306(h)(2) would have no impact on existing or future VA grant-funding terms and conditions. VA grant-funded cemeteries are operated for the interment of eligible veterans and their eligible family members, including veterans who received a commemorative plaque or urn. Similarly, eligibility of certain cemeteries to receive the VA plot or interment allowance under sec. 2303 for the interments of eligible veterans would be unaffected by VA furnishing a commemorative plaque or urn for veterans interred in those cemeteries. However, if a cemetery, including a VA grant-funded cemetery, inters a veteran for whom VA furnished a commemorative plaque or urn, sec. 2306(h)(2)(A) prohibits VA from providing a Government headstone or marker for such veteran, and the cemetery would need to provide a headstone or marker through some other means. VA understands the administration and financial burdens raised by the commenters. However, VA's provision of a commemorative plaque or urn for an eligible veteran and the prohibitions in sec. 2306(h) do not directly affect any non-VA national cemetery's decision to inter that veteran. The commenters expressed uncertainty about processes for VA grant-funded cemeteries or other stakeholders to verify whether a veteran was furnished a commemorative urn or plaque. VA plans to include information on a public facing online tool that stakeholders can use to find such information. We stress that information in such online tool would not be intended to be determinative of a veteran's eligibility for interment in any cemetery, but instead would be designed to provide stakeholders, which potentially include every cemetery or burial services provider in the nation, information to support their business decisions regarding the interment of a veteran subject to prohibitions under sec. 2306(h). VA appreciates these comments raising concerns regarding restrictions in the underlying statutory authorities, including sec. 2306(h). However, VA is obligated to implement the current authority as proposed and makes no changes based on these comments. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Impacts on Future Generations and Risk of Increased Unclaimed Remains</HD> The commenters noted the common practice of families delaying interment of cremated remains until surviving spouses and dependents have passed, which could affect long-term chain of custody of the commemorative plaque or urn. They raised concerns that decisions affecting the disposition of remains may fall to a family representative, generations removed, who may be unfamiliar with the prohibitions in sec. 2306(h) and the impact on other VA benefits. Additionally, commen ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 37k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━