A005490
United States Senate
December 3, 2001
The Honorable John Ashcroft
Attorney General
Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20530
Dear Mr. Attorney General,
We applaud the approach you are taking in soliciting wide public comment in fulfilling your
legislative mandate to promulgate regulations governing the fair expeditious distribution of
funds voted by Congress and approved by the President for victims of the terrorist attacks of September 11.
We write to urge that in creating the category of those who qualify as "survivors of someone lost in the crashes" under the fund's regulations, we can best carry out the intent and spirit of the law by compensating all of those who suffered both grievous emotional loss from these murders, and significant financial loss as well.
In providing such compensation, we believe the federal government should take into account all of those who had a close relationship with the murdered victim and whose own financial position will be adversely affected by the death. Relevant indicia of such a relationship include a shared residence, shared bank accounts for other financial instruments, joint membership in a health plan, a significant sharing of living expenses, etc. Obviously a wide range of different personal relationships will be covered by this, and we believe that this coverage is wholly appropriate in this instance. We note that this is the approach taken by Governor George Pataki of New York, where so many of the victims live.
The act we passed was not an effort by the Congress to regulate any set of personal relationships, nor to encourage or discourage people from following nay particular pattern in their living arrangements. It was simply a prompt response by the Congress to the terrible murders inflicted on America on September 11, in particular by doing what we can to come to the aid of all of those who were victimized by the deaths of people close to them.
Sincerely,
Patrick Leahy Lincoln Chafee
Richard Durbin Maria Cantwell
Ron Wyden Jack Reed
John Kerry Robert Torricelli
James Jeffords John Corizne
John Corizne John Corizne
Hillary Rodham Clinton Barbara Mikulski
cc: Mr. Kenneth R. Feinberg
Special Master of the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund