On June 18, 1973, Congress passed the National Cemetery Act which transferred 82 of the United States Army’s national cemeteries to the Veteran's Administration (VA). The following year, the VA’s National Cemetery System adopted the regional cemetery concept plan in which one large national cemetery would be built within each of the 10 standard federal regions, as established by the General Services Administration. A policy was established that new cemeteries would only be created on land already owned by the federal government.