HR7260-119

What This Bill Does

The National Cemetery Administration Annual Report Act of 2026 adds a new section 2415 to title 38. It requires the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to submit an annual report to the House and Senate Veterans' Affairs Committees on the activities of the National Cemetery Administration, beginning within one year of enactment.

The report must include interment counts disaggregated by each open national cemetery, eligible-person category, and casketed or cremated remains. It must also include customer satisfaction, maps of national cemeteries and state, county, or tribal veterans' cemeteries receiving section 2408 grants, descriptions of burial options at open national cemeteries, and counts of veterans interred in state, county, or tribal grant cemeteries.

The bill further requires reporting on Presidential memorial certificates, headstones, burial markers, and medallions by eligible-person category; claims processing; cemetery access and capacity; rural-service issues; and other National Cemetery Administration activity data. The practical effect is more regular congressional and public oversight of VA burial benefits and cemetery operations.

Who Benefits and How

Veterans' families benefit because annual reporting can make burial options, cemetery access, and service performance more transparent. The House and Senate Veterans' Affairs Committees benefit from recurring data on interments, claims, customer satisfaction, cemetery maps, and capacity. State veterans' cemeteries benefit because their section 2408 grant cemeteries and interments are included in the national picture. Tribal veterans' cemeteries benefit from explicit inclusion of trust-land cemetery grants. Veterans service organizations benefit from data they can use to press for burial-access improvements.

Who Bears the Burden and How

National Cemetery Administration staff must collect, disaggregate, map, and report detailed cemetery activity data every year. VA data and reporting teams must track interments, eligible-person categories, cremated and casketed remains, customer satisfaction, certificates, markers, medallions, claims, and capacity. State cemetery administrators may need to provide grant-cemetery information. Tribal cemetery administrators may need to coordinate information for trust-land cemeteries. The Secretary of Veterans Affairs must submit the report annually to both Veterans' Affairs Committees.

Key Provisions

• Requires an annual VA report on National Cemetery Administration activities.
• Requires interment totals by open national cemetery, eligible-person category, and casketed or cremated remains.
• Requires customer satisfaction data and maps of national, state, county, and tribal veterans' cemeteries.
• Requires descriptions of burial options at open national cemeteries.
• Requires counts of veterans interred in state, county, and tribal grant cemeteries.
• Requires data on Presidential memorial certificates, headstones, burial markers, and medallions.
• Requires recurring congressional oversight of cemetery access, capacity, claims, and performance.