Mark Begich

The community has been consistent in only wanting to assess one alternative, which is a road.

But I want to make sure that, one way or another, it may be a very short letter, it may be a very long letter, but there will be a response to the correspondence they sent in to you the beginning of January regarding the EIS.

The last question I have, and I want to thank the chief for being here.

I ran a pretty large size city, mayor of Anchorage, almost at that time 270,000 people.

I think it is a very fair question, and it is a very fast growth we had about 4,000 of these train cars moving, but now we are up to 400,000 train cars for oil shipment.

Federal grants are very important.

Yes, they have gone up, fairly expensive.

No one likes to think like this, but it did not have to be a derailment. That could be an act of terrorism.

Good afternoon and welcome to the Subcommittee on Emergency Management, Intergovernmental Relations, and the District of Columbia.

This is an issue that affects every jurisdiction in America.

I am glad Alaska could be a model and really just cannot say enough about your team reaching out and doing that.

Last year's government shutdown almost cut off earned benefit payments to millions of veterans, including students, disabled and survivors.

It is excellent care; the South-Central Foundation, which is the organization that runs the healthcare system there and is, by Don Berwick's estimate, the best healthcare system in the United States.

The access to healthcare has greatly increased, and they get better choice now.

We are committed to providing a high level of access to both primary and specialty care in remote areas.

I think we have already capped out, or done, over $2 million in reimbursements.

Thank you for your leadership. Thank you for your willingness to recognize Alaska is what I call every 2-week disaster that we seem to have because it seems like it never ends.

I appreciate FEMA's interest in understanding climate change too.

I think it is a unique opportunity for tribes. I think it is a huge responsibility for tribes.

In other words, more mapping, more capacity, more areas handled.

I want to make sure that if you had more resources----

This is like 5-, 10-years easy, right?

But are we not doing that with the $400 million, almost replicating?

If you had more money, could you expedite the process?

That is right. There is a whole process they have to go through even to accept those maps in the legislative process depending on the community they are in.