Political Quotes

“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.…”