Kent Conrad: “The regulatory and administrative burden upon mineral development on Fort Berthold caused considerable economic harm.”

I wish I could look you in the eye and say, you know, if we just had the will, we could reverse this, and we could go back to a time when defined benefit plans were on the increase. I do not think that is in the cards.

It lifts the bottom. It asks those of us at the top to take a little less of an increase than we might have expected.

The new improvised system was not adequate.

The surviving spouse provisions are especially important with regard to offsetting some of the unfairness that exists elsewhere.