Rep. Lynch Amendment In House-Passed Spending Bill Provides Additional Funding To Repatriate American POWs And MIA

Jul 31, 2020 | News & Updates, Veterans

Washington, D.C. – Today the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 7617, Defense, Commerce, Justice, Science, Energy and Water Development, Financial Services and General Government, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development Appropriations Act, 2021.  This legislation comprises six appropriations bills to fund nine Departments and numerous federal agencies.  Included in the spending bill is an amendment proposed by U.S. Representative Stephen F. Lynch (MA-08), Chairman of the National Security Subcommittee, to provide an additional funding to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA), which is tasked with locating and repatriating the remains of American servicemembers.

“I am extremely pleased that my bipartisan amendment to provide additional funding to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) has been included in this spending package.  As Chairman of the National Security Subcommittee I have had the opportunity to meet with the men and women of the DPAA at their headquarters and skeletal identification laboratory at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, and to conduct oversight at their recovery missions in Vietnam, the Korean Peninsula and the Philippines.  There is a solemn and sacred duty that we owe to these families to find POW and Missing in Action service members who never made it home – and it is one that we must fulfill.  This additional funding will help the DPAA continue its mission to find and recover over 82,000 POW/MIA service members around the world since World War II.  This is an issue that transcends party lines and I appreciate that Representatives Jody Hice of Georgia and Mark Green of Tennessee joined me in cosponsoring this amendment.”

H.R. 7617 includes six of the eight remaining appropriations bills:  Department of Defense; Commerce-Justice-Science; Energy and Water; Financial Services and General Government; Labor-Health and Human Services-Education; and Transportation-Housing and Urban Development.  Representative Lynch’s amendment would provide an additional $5 million to the DPAA.