[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 1]
[House]
[Page 109]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1015
              CONTINUED FAILURE OF THE SCIENTIFIC PROCESS

  (Mr. GIBBONS asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. GIBBONS. Mr. Speaker, imagine if you were participating in an 
Olympic event and you were winning the race and suddenly the Olympic 
Committee came along and changed the rules because they did not want 
you to win. You would be outraged.
  Well, yesterday the Nuclear Regulatory Commission notified Nevada of 
their plans to once again change the ground rules for judging Yucca 
Mountain. The NRC is proposing to eliminate rules governing what it 
calls the ``unlikely event'' of a volcanic eruption.
  The NRC staff believes that there is less than a 1-in-10 chance of an 
eruption occurring within 10,000 years. A less than 10 percent chance? 
What does that mean? Does the term ``1-in-10'' or ``less than'' equate 
to ``sound science''? There is a better chance of Yucca Mountain 
exploding than there is of winning the lottery.
  We should ask the people of Africa. We should ask the people of 
Hawaii. We should ask the people of Mount Saint Helens in Oregon what 
they thought about that 1-in-10 chance.
  I continue my outrage at the entire Yucca Mountain project. But by 
telling Nevadans that they have a less than 1-in-10 chance that Yucca 
Mountain could explode is downright astonishing.
  The NRC should be ashamed of itself. It is time to put the safety of 
Nevadans and all Americans ahead of their own desire to win at any 
cost.

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