BELO’S Act

The bill would amend the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act to add a new category of eligible recipients for the free lifetime National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands Pass. Specifically, it would extend that pass to any individual who is a survivor entitled to a death gratuity — meaning the service member died while on active duty or during inactive-duty training — or to dependency and indemnity compensation, a benefit paid to surviving dependents of service members whose deaths were service-connected.

The bill makes no change to the pass itself or to how it is used; it only expands who qualifies. It does not define "survivor" beyond referencing the two existing statutory benefits that determine eligibility.

Surviving family members of U.S. Armed Forces members who died in service — specifically those already entitled to a death gratuity under 10 U.S.C. § 1475 or to dependency and indemnity compensation under title 38, chapter 13. These are typically spouses and dependent children of fallen service members. Federal land management agencies that administer the pass would also need to process the expanded eligibility.

Survivors of fallen service members would gain free, lifetime access to all national parks and federal recreational lands — a tangible, ongoing benefit for families who have lost a loved one in uniform. Without this change, those survivors must pay standard entry fees unless they qualify under a separate eligibility category. The bill closes that gap by tying pass eligibility directly to existing survivor benefit determinations.

Because the bill amends the eligibility list in the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act directly, the change would be largely self-executing upon enactment. Agencies that administer the America the Beautiful pass — including the National Park Service and Bureau of Land Management — would need to update their application processes to accept proof of death-gratuity or dependency-and-indemnity-compensation entitlement as qualifying documentation. No rulemaking timeline or reporting requirement is specified in the bill.