Well, after a week of putting thousands of veterans and family members through hell, the S. 3373 (H.R. 3967), as amended, the “Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson Honoring our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act of 2021” or “Honoring our PACT Act” or simply, the “PACT Act” has left the Senate.
The 151 pages and over 50, 250 word PACT Act has finally been passed by the Senate and is on its way to the President for his signature.
One of the sites I use to follow legislation from Washington is Congress.gov’s GovTrack. On August 3, GovTrack wrote a summary of the history of the Pact Act:
“The Honoring our PACT Act of 2022 began as H.R. 3967 which passed the House on March 3 and passed the Senate on June 16, both on a bipartisan basis. However, the Senate’s changes contained a minor provision that purportedly violated the antiquated “blue slip” provision of the Constitution related to House-origination of revenue bills. As a result, the bill’s provisions were given a second chance by being moved into this bill, replacing this bill’s text in its entirety with the text of the PACT Act, with the minor offending provision removed to comply with the “blue slip” requirement. It was passed by the House in this form on July 13, though with less support from Republicans than the House’s original vote (unlikely related to the removed provision).
Original source can be found here.
