Mark Begich

One thing I am always nervous about, to be frank with you, is another committee around this place, because we will committee stuff to death.

In the appropriations process. So that is a real positive for all of us.

Thank you very much, Mayor. And just for folks here in the room, these are pictures from that fire, and it is incredible devastation that occurred.

As a former mayor myself, I know firsthand how important it is to have personnel and resources to prevent and fight fires when they occur.

I hate to use the word, but 'surplus' planes from the military that we--who knows what they were going to do with them.

I was somewhat shocked when I got here and found out we were funding at about a 20-percent level or so.

We just want to have a strategy that has an action plan that we can look at and determine if we can fund it, help it, make it happen from the State, local, private, Federal level.

This is a national issue that everybody has skin in the game on.

I may bring you an issue then, because I just think in some of these States that have this huge swath of jurisdictional issues, especially Federal land, it seems like we should figure out this.

I do, because people I think did not understand what it was.

We know since the 1990s the amount of money for suppression has gone from about $1 billion to $3 billion.

We thought this was a great win-win not only for the Forest Service but the Coast Guard for equipment that is desperately needed.

I think we had to bring in two Canadian water tankers, if I remember right, in addition to our crew.

Do we believe that we have good resources for their continued maintenance and upgrade?

I have veterans now who call me and say thank you; not that they are not going to always go to VA.

We have a huge Alaska Native veteran population, American Indian population, in Alaska: 150,000-plus.

Without accountability we are never going to solve this problem.

As a former mayor, we would fire them. They would be gone.

If they are cheating, they are not trustworthy.

Sometimes, you have got to have some heads roll in order to get the system to shape up.

It has now become a systemic issue that I am now seeing in others.

To not have the service delivered at the highest level to our veterans is a disservice.

It is critical that we figure out the systematic problem.

The $10.10 wage is just getting to the poverty level. That is what I understand and why I cosponsored this legislation.

Before the Senator leaves I would like to ask him a quick question if I could. I know he talked toward the end of his comments-- and I am going to speak on minimum wage also--but he mentioned President Reagan. I think the last time minimum…