S 2501119th CongressIn Committee

VSAFE Act of 2025

Introduced: Jul 29, 2025

Sponsor: Sen. Cornyn, John [R-TX] (R-Texas)

Healthcare

Standard Summary

Comprehensive overview in 1-2 paragraphs

The VSAFE Act of 2025 would create a new position within the Department of Veterans Affairs called the Veterans Scam and Fraud Evasion Officer (VSAFE Officer). This officer would lead fraud prevention, reporting, and incident response efforts related to scams targeting veterans, and would serve as a central point of contact to connect veterans and their families with anti-fraud resources. The bill lays out duties such as issuing consistent guidance for identifying and reporting fraud, promoting the VA’s VSAFE resources (hotline and website), developing metrics and training, and coordinating with the Inspector General and other federal agencies to pursue a whole-of-government approach to fraud prevention. The act also requires input from veterans service organizations and state, local, and tribal governments. In addition, the bill makes minor administrative changes: it adds the new 325th section to the VA code, and it extends the window for certain pension payment limits to 2032. It specifies that the new office cannot automatically increase the VA’s full-time staff and preserves the Inspector General’s authority.

Key Points

1Establishment of the Veterans Scam and Fraud Evasion Officer within the Department of Veterans Affairs to lead fraud prevention, reporting, and incident response, and to be the central contact for veterans seeking help.
2The VSAFE Officer must carry out responsibilities including: providing comprehensive communications during fraud incidents, issuing consistent guidance to employees and veterans, promoting the VA’s VSAFE Fraud Hotline and VSAFE.gov resources, and identifying other identity theft resources for veterans and beneficiaries.
3The Officer is charged with developing methods to monitor fraud metrics within VA (for internal and external reporting, analytics, and trend identification), creating training plans for staff handling fraud inquiries, and coordinating with multiple federal agencies to improve fraud prevention.
4The bill requires consultation with veterans service organizations and state, local, and tribal governments to improve understanding of fraud risks to veterans.
5Administrative and related provisions: adds a new Sec. 325 to title 38, clarifies that creating the office does not authorize more full-time VA employees, preserves the Inspector General’s authority, and extends certain pension payment limit deadlines to January 30, 2032, with a clerical amendment to add the new section to the table of sections.

Impact Areas

Primary group/area affected:- Veterans and their families, caregivers, and survivors (who would benefit from improved fraud prevention, reporting, and access to resources).- VA employees who handle fraud inquiries and need standardized guidance and training.Secondary group/area affected:- Veterans service organizations (VSOs) and state/local/tribal governments that interact with VA on veteran fraud issues.- Other federal agencies involved in fraud prevention and data sharing (e.g., IG, DOJ, SSA, DOD, CFPB, IRS) through coordinated efforts.Additional impacts:- Administrative: potential reallocation of existing VA resources (since the bill does not authorize more full-time staff) to establish and maintain the VSAFE Officer’s duties.- Oversight and privacy considerations: increased interagency data sharing and reporting could raise privacy and interagency coordination considerations; ongoing role for the VA Inspector General remains intact.- Pension timing: a small policy change extending a pension-payment-related deadline to 2032 could affect veterans’ timing of benefits processing.

Generated by gpt-5-nano on Oct 8, 2025