The House passed legislation Tuesday that would pay the travel and moving expenses of families of FBI agents killed in the line of duty.
The measure is named for FBI Special Agent Samuel Hicks, who was killed in a shooting in Pennsylvania in 2008. The Senate passed the bill last week and the House cleared the measure for the president late Tuesday.
According to the FBI Agents Association, the bill is intended to help the families of FBI agents return to their home community after an agent is killed in action. The FBI Agents Association currently reimburses families for those relocation costs.
“Families of law enforcement officers, such as FBI Agents, should not have to worry that the pain of losing a loved one in service to our country will be compounded by an inability to return to their support networks,” said Konrad Motyka, president of the association, in a statement after the bill’s passage. “Helping those families relocate to areas where they have family support and established roots can help these families cope with their losses.”
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the bill would have applied in about 80 cases over the past 10 years about will cost less than $1 million per year going forward.
For more on the bill, see this write-up on The Washington Post’s Federal Eye blog.
