Sam Gibbons: “imagine if you were participating in an Olympic event and you were winning the race and suddenly the Olympic Committee…”

“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.”