I want to join the voices of Matthew Shears, Bill Drake, and James Gannon here on the downside risks of delay. There are always risks to any change but the fabric of this change is strong enough (and flexible enough) to deal with most stresses. During yesterday's Senate hearing there were excellent presentations by many and good questions by some. But, there were areas where it was clear that the Senators do not fully understand, and areas where ICANN has to explain things with more clarity. There was confusion between notions of a fragmented Internet and the impacts of national policy. The risk of delay is that national governments will either move to transfer ICANN's remit to another UN or multilateral organization, which would be bad in that it exposes the core DNS stability and security remit to a political domain. That is why delay is risky, but this is confounded by what I see as some confusion resulting from an inadequate recognition of the differences between the notion of "fragmentation of the Internet" within ICANN's DNS remit, and differential Internet ecosystem policies in different countries. It is important that this difference be understood. We may care about both but where core DNS policy making resides should be clearly differentiated and understood. Much of regulation, including much around the broadly defined "net neutrality" may differ from country to country, some with good policy and some with bad policy. This is not "fragmentation" within ICANN's remit, it is differential national policy. ICANN could elect to show leadership and advocate for a sort of best in class high ethical ground position about "net neutrality" but that would be ICANN community advocacy outside ICANN's core remit. That would not compromise ICANN's benefit corporation remit. However, what needs to be made clear here is that a concern with "fragmentation of the Internet" is within the security, stability..and connectedness.. of the DNS system itself, and not those areas of policy that will always reside within the policy remit of national governments, and result in good, bad, or terrible domestic policy. The Senator's question about "Net Neutrality" suggested the need for more clarity here. Lastly, another Senator asked "what is broken", and countered with the principle that "If it ain't broken don't fix it". This too was a misunderstanding of the intent of the transition, and this needs to be explained more clearly. I suspect that many of the questions were prompted by a sense of "Well, if I don't understand this well, and we 'own' it, lets not give it away". The reality there, as well put by some speakers, is that the U.S. does not own it in any event, it is simply "out there". What is being handed over to wider stewardship is oversight, being handed over to a very public and transparent process where any constituency, including governments, can ring an alarm bell should policy impacting on the security, stability...and connectedness..." of the DNS system start to wobble on its axis, nothing more and nothing less. Get this transition behind us and let constituencies return to worrying about what their respective governments are up to with regard to Internet ecosystem policy at home, or the harmonization, or fragmentation, of those policies in UN and multilateral settings. That is where the next big struggles will occur and they are beyond the ICANN DNS remit. Sam L.