YourVoice.Now Summary
Your MoneyRepeats first responder cancer-benefit rules that became law in December 2025 — mainly adds time to file claims.
Your Money
Today, officers and families have until December 2028 to file these claims. This bill would start a new 3-year clock on the day it became law, for cancer claims and some related on-duty claims.
More about this bill
Most people would see no change from this bill, because its main parts are already law. Congress passed the same rules in December 2025, as part of a larger law (Public Law 119-60). That law already treats 20 named cancers in police officers, firefighters, and other first responders as caused by the job. So these officers and their families can already get federal death and disability benefits for those cancers. If this bill passed, the main new effect would be more time to file. Officers and families could file these cancer claims within 3 years after this bill became law. The same goes for some related claims about what counts as on-duty work. Under today's law, that window closes in December 2028. The bill also repeats privacy rules for information given to Justice Department programs. Those rules are already on the books too.
Congressional Summary
Honoring Our Fallen Heroes Act of 2025 This bill extends death and disability benefits under the Public Safety Officers' Benefits Program (PSOB) to certain public safety officers who suffer from exposure-related cancer while on duty and their survivors. The PSOB program provides death, disability, and education benefits to public safety officers who are killed or injured in the line of duty and their survivors. The bill specifies that exposure to a carcinogen shall be presumed to constitute a personal injury in the line of duty if the exposure occurred while the officer was in the line of duty; the officer began serving as an officer not fewer than 5 years before the date of the diagnosis of an exposure-related cancer and the diagnosis occurred not more than 15 years after the last date of active service; and the exposure-related cancer directly and proximately resulted in the death or permanent and total disability of the officer. The Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Assistance must periodically review the definition of exposure-related cancer and update the definition if appropriate based on medical evidence and in accordance with the requirements of a petition process.
Legislative Subjects
Details
- Congress
- 119th
- Chamber
- House
- Status
- summarized
- Action
- Introduced in House
- Action Date
- 2025-02-12
- Date Added
- 2026-10-07
- Source
- Congress.gov →
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