38 U.S.C. § 324 — Cost of War Toxic Exposures Fund

(a) Establishment. The law creates an account in the U.S. Treasury called the "Cost of War Toxic Exposures Fund" (the "Fund"), run by the Secretary^*.
(b) Deposits. Money appropriated to the Fund under (c) is deposited into it.
(c) Authorization of Appropriations. Starting in fiscal year 2023, Congress can appropriate whatever amount is needed, beyond the fiscal year 2021 level, to pay for: (1) health care for veterans exposed to environmental hazards during military, naval, air, or space service, run by the Under Secretary for Health; (2) other costs of delivering that health care and related benefits, including administrative costs like information technology and claims processing, but not leases under section 8104; and (3) medical and other research on exposure to environmental hazards.
(d) Budget Scorekeeping. This subsection controls how Congress's budget rules treat the Fund.
(1) As soon as the 2022 law creating this Fund was enacted, its future costs for fiscal year 2023 onward had to be estimated and counted as "direct spending," a category of mandatory, not year-by-year discretionary, spending. This applies: (A) in the baseline used under the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985; (B) for budget enforcement by the Senate and House Budget Committee chairs; (C) under the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, including its required reports; and (D) under the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010.
(2) Money appropriated to the Fund does not count as discretionary spending, and does not count as direct spending, when estimating an appropriations law under the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 or any other law.
(3) Despite older budget guidelines from a 1997 conference report, the Fund is treated, for certain budget-law purposes, as if it were an account labeled "Appropriated Entitlements and Mandatories for Fiscal Year 1997" under that same 1997 conference report.
(e) Estimates for Congressional Consideration. When the Secretary submits budget documents to Congress supporting the President's budget under 31 U.S.C. § 1105, the Secretary must include detailed estimates of the costs described in (c) for that fiscal year.
(f) Procedures for Estimates. The Secretary may, after talking with the Senate and House Appropriations Committees, set policies and procedures for making the annual detailed estimates required by (e).