[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 74 (Tuesday, June 7, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Page S6166]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. BIDEN:
  S. 1184. A bill to waive the passport fees for a relative of a 
deceased member of the Armed Forces proceeding abroad to visit the 
grave of such member or to attend a funeral or memorial service for 
such member; to the Committee on Foreign Relations.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, today I introduce a bill to remedy a small 
gap in our passport laws. The change that I propose could be important 
to family members of servicemembers who lose their lives in service of 
their country.
  Under current law, the State Department may not charge a fee to issue 
a passport to relatives of a deceased member of the Armed Forces who 
are proceeding abroad to visit the grave of such a member. But the law 
as applied requires that the family be visiting an official gravesite 
overseas.
  The law does not, however, allow the waiver of passport fees if the 
family is attending a funeral or memorial service for a servicemember 
killed in action, but who is buried or memorialized overseas. The need 
for such a waiver probably does not occur often, but it happens. Last 
year, a servicemember from my home State of Delaware was killed in 
action in Iraq. The servicemember was stationed in Germany and his wife 
was German. She wished for him to be buried in Germany. So all of his 
relatives in the United States needed to travel quickly, and many of 
them did not have passports. At a time of such grieving for a lost 
servicemember, the family of the fallen hero should not have to worry 
about paying passport fees, which can add up quickly for a family, 
Waiving the fee in such cases is the least that we can do.
  I hope we can approve such a minor change in the law quickly. I urge 
my colleagues to support this bill.
  I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed at this 
point in the Record.
  There being no objection, the bill was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

                                S. 1184

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. PASSPORT FEES.

       Section 1 of the Act of June 4, 1920 (41 Stat. 750, chapter 
     223; 22 U.S.C. 214) is amended in the third sentence by 
     striking ``or from a widow, child, parent, brother, or sister 
     of a deceased member of the Armed Forces proceeding abroad to 
     visit the grave of such member'' and inserting ``or from a 
     widow, widower, child, parent, grandparent, brother, or 
     sister of a deceased member of the Armed Forces proceeding 
     abroad to visit the grave of such member or to attend a 
     funeral or memorial service for such member''.
                                 ______