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Senate: Pay reservists more for drill travel

National Guard and reserve members traveling more than 50 miles to inactive duty training would be reimbursed at a rate of 48.5 cents per mile, plus meal and lodging expenses, under a bipartisan bill introduced last week in the Senate.

The bill, S 2654, also would increase mileage reimbursement for veterans being treated at Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals and clinics.

Congress has authorized travel reimbursement for drilling Guard and reserve members under a program intended to be limited to people with critically needed skills, but the Defense Department has not yet implemented the benefit.

Guard and reserve members who travel more than 100 miles from home and stay overnight can deduct their travel expenses from their federal income taxes.

“With gas prices hovering around $3 per gallon, I am concerned about the financial burden high travel costs are placing on our nation’s service members and veterans,” said Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., the bill’s chief sponsor.

Coleman said 5,000 members of the Minnesota National Guard are driving more than 50 miles to drill, and some are driving as far as 450 miles.

On Feb. 1, the Department of Veterans’ Affairs increased the veterans’ travel reimbursement rate to 28.5 cents per mile, up from the previous 11 cents per mile. However, deductibles are applied to the rates — $7.77 for a one-way trip, and $15.54 for round-trip travel, with a maximum monthly deductible of $46.62.

Coleman’s Citizen Solder and Military Veteran Travel Reimbursement Act would drop the deductible.

Sens. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., and Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., are co-sponsors of the bill, which was referred to the Senate Armed Services Committee for consideration. The bill is likely to be considered by the committee when it begins to write its version of the 2009 defense authorization bill later this year.

Lincoln said the bill “will take positive steps to ensure our veterans and citizen soldiers do not have to pay their own way to receive the care and training they need.”

Improved travel reimbursement for Guard and reserve members was a key recommendation of the Commission on the National Guard and Reserves, which issued its final report Jan. 31.