Claire McCaskill

I can think of no one in the State of Missouri--and I mean that literally--no one in the State of Missouri that is more deserving of this appointment to the Federal bench than my friend, Ronnie White.

It's very troubling to me they released those people, and I think it's something that we should all be very worried about.

I think at the end of a decade of war it's fair to say that it's very important that we go back and take a look at the lessons learned and make sure we document those now while they're fresh.

I really think we need to do a clear-eyed assessment, now that we have both Iraq and Afghanistan to look at.

No more than 21 percent of Afghanistan will be accessible to civilian oversight going forward.

Well, it is hard to imagine that we could make it any more complicated or difficult than it is right now with some of these rules.

We are captured by the severity of the situation and the technical expertise that is required

But you did not think it was a courtesy to let them know that you fired her.

But you guys have a serious problem in terms of whistleblower culture out there, and we are going to have to do something to make sure that people understand that they are not going to be moved to the basement; they are not going to be…

If you did that, if you took the impetus to do that, that would remove the necessity of them being branded as whistleblowers.

The essence of this hearing is I understand what your words are, but we have outside agencies, time and time again, citing problems with the culture at that facility in terms of people feeling like they can come forward with concerns.

Do you acknowledge, either one of you, that you have an issue with the culture there, that people do not believe they can come forward?

At the end of the day, this controversy boils down to technical concerns, highly technical concerns, by two professionals in the field.

These cases go on for years, millions of dollars in legal costs, and at the end of that, if they settle the case without admitting any wrongdoing, then the taxpayer stays on the hook, correct?

Does it surprise you that they, 2 weeks after the Secretary, who I am a big fan of, Secretary Moniz--2 weeks after he signed the memorandum about safety and a culture of safety, that they would choose that time to get rid of Dr. Tomasaitis…

It incentivizes lengthy litigation as opposed to a quick resolution.

We have certainly made it very clear to our contractors that reprisal against whistleblowers or people raising issues is totally unacceptable.

The design-build concept for something like this is literally like trying to build an airplane in the air

I just know that in terms of resourcing litigation this is not an even playing field, and the way it is set up does not incentivize a quick resolution of the dispute.

In other words, you cannot just replace these two people and have the concerns go away.

Why couldn't we give DNFSB some kind of jurisdiction as a third party oversight on a facility like Hanford?

It seems to me that we could work on doing something in that regard that might level the playing field slightly.

At some point in time, the customer here needs to do something other than ask for another report because, clearly, it does not appear that even the Secretary of Energy issuing a memorandum had much of a chilling effect.

Madam Chairman, this completes my comments. I would be happy to answer your questions at this time.

Somebody needs to ask some tough questions about why this is not occurring, because it is clearly not