-7- The Interior Department has not reached any definitive position with respect to the scope of the plan required, or of the program to arise from it. It would welcome the early expressions of views from any source as to the requirements of the statute. Preliminarily, the Interior Department suggests that the most reasonable reading of the statute appears to be that the Secretary's plan should provide for comprehensive health care for the inhabitants of the four listed atolls -- Bikini, Enewetak, Rongelap, and Utirik; and that the inhabitants of additional atolls should also be afforded comprehensive health care if they have been affected by radiation from the nuclear weapons testing program. In deciding whether the inhabitants of additional atolls have been so affected, the Secretary would consider information obtained from on-site health evaluations of the people of those atolls, and other relevant evidence presented to him. 3. The Interior Department has asked the Department of Energy to provide advice to Interior by mid-November 1980 as to the details of the schedule required by subsection (a)(2), pertaining to environmental research and monotoring, radiation dose assessments, and risk estimates, and the education and information program required by subsection (a)(3). The Department of Energy has agreed to provide this detailed advice by that date. a. Background information: (a) Rongelap and Utirik The medical monitoring and follow-up care program of the exposed people of Rongelap and Utirik atolls commenced after the Bravo Shot Fallout of March 1, 1954. This program has been the responsibility of the Atomic Energy Commission, the Energy Research and Development Administration, and now the Department of Energy. The medical monitoring and follow-up medical care program of the exposed residents of these two stolls, and for members of selected “comparison” groups, has from the onset of the program been contracted to the Brookhaven National Laboratory, Associated Universities, Upton, New York.