38 U.S.C. § 322 — Office of National Veterans Sports Programs and Special Events

(a) Establishment. The Department of Veterans Affairs has an Office of National Veterans Sports Programs and Special Events, headed by a Director. The Director reports to a senior Veterans Health Administration official chosen by the Secretary, or reports directly to the Deputy Secretary or the Secretary. (b) Responsibilities of Director. Under the Secretary's direction, the Director must set up and run "qualifying" sports programs and events. The Director may have the Department sponsor these programs and events, may help and encourage disabled veterans to take part in them, and — as much as feasible — must work with organizations experienced in running large adaptive sports programs. The Director must also try, as much as feasible, to get private-sector sponsorships and donations to cover costs. The Director may take on any other job the Secretary decides fits. (c) Qualifying Program or Event. A "qualifying program or event" is a sports program or other event where disabled veterans and disabled service members take part, and that the Secretary has approved as fitting the Department's goals and mission. (d) Monthly Assistance Allowance. If money is available, the Secretary may pay a monthly allowance to two kinds of veterans: a disabled veteran invited by the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee to try out for, or who made, the Paralympic Team, for any month spent training or competing in a Committee-sanctioned event, or living at an Olympic training center; and a veteran with a VA-rated service-connected disability of 30 percent or more who was picked by the Committee for the Olympic Team, for any month spent competing in an event sanctioned by a National Governing Body of U.S. Olympic sports. The monthly amount equals the subsistence allowance the veteran would get under the VA's chapter 31 vocational rehabilitation program, if they qualified for it. Veterans with service-connected disabilities get priority for this allowance. Congress authorized $2,000,000 a year for this from 2010 through 2023, and $2,500,000 a year from 2024 through 2027. (e) Applicability to Commonwealths and Territories of the United States. This allowance program works the same way for American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands — using whichever Paralympic sport organizations the Secretary decides properly represent each of those places, instead of the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee. (f) Limitation on Statutory Construction. Nothing in this section limits any disabled-sports or special-events support the Department was already providing before this section became law.