[xtypo_dropcap]T[/xtypo_dropcap]he Senate passed legislation on Saturday to help remedy problems at Arlington National Cemetery.
The legislation is intended to assist new leadership at the cemetery to avoid errors that stemmed from a lack of automation with tracking burial records and managing burial operations. The cemetery has spent between $5 million and $8 million on multiple IT contracts over seven years, according to Sen. Clair McCaskill (D-Mo.).
The records, which are still in paper form, were presented during a July hearing that suggested that as many as thousands of graves might be unmarked, improperly marked, or mislabeled on the cemetery’s maps.
Saturday’s legislation was introduced by Sens. Claire McCaskill, Scott Brown (R-Mass.), Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), and Richard Burr (R-N.C.).
“I am outraged at the problems that continue to surface at Arlington Cemetery,” said Sen. McCaskill in a statement. “After our July hearing, I made a promise to the American public and to the families of those brave men and women buried at Arlington that the hearing would not be the end of Congress’s oversight of this problem.”
