Sam Gibbons: “this morning our Nation witnessed yet another tragic train accident. A commuter train collided with a freight train in…”

“this morning our Nation witnessed yet another tragic train accident. A commuter train collided with a freight train in southern California with at least one dead and hundreds injured. This latest accident follows two other serious train accidents, one in northeast Florida killing four and injuring hundreds, and one yesterday when a freight train derailed in Wells, Nevada. Madam Speaker, these events are not just isolated incidents. Instead, they show that accidents can and do happen. While these recent accidents certainly are unfortunate and tragic, the death toll and environmental damage that could have occurred if the freight train was shipping high-level nuclear waste would have been absolutely devastating. We should not take that risk. We should not ship nuclear waste across our entire country to a hole in the ground that will not even solve our nuclear waste problem. It is time to prevent a disaster. For the good of our country, it is time to stop the Yucca Mountain project.”