We must make sure that claimants found eligible for benefits are promptly compensated.

Our nation owes them a debt of gratitude.

I appreciate it. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I offered an amendment in September with your colleague here Senator Murkowski co-sponsoring the amendment.

Have you advised the Alaskan claimants that there is no willing payor?

So if it is none, if it is zero--and we have also made that assumption, that there are none--what was the purpose of putting this language in the MOU?

I might suggest that I do not believe it was Congress's intent that we just run people through a bureaucratic nightmare just so that they can say we processed their claims.

In many cases we have had Alaskans dying while waiting for their claims to be resolved.

This is simply unacceptable. Let me repeat--this is unacceptable.

I was assured [by DOE] that the contractor would be notified and asked to accept primary liability for my claim and would also be asked not to raise any affirmative defenses in my case.

I think that speaks a lot. And if you listen well to the concerns and are willing then to implement afterwards, I think we all win.

We need to work with our communities on that. We need to work to push the prevention issues.