We did intensely study this, and when you stand on Yucca Mountain the cinder cones are moving away. The youngest one is 80,000 years old so if any new ones develop they're moving south and away,

Even though you get five to six inches of rain each year and we're in a desert environment, some amount of moisture will penetrate the mountain and over the millennia we might want to make sure we'll use a drip shield,

And we did look at it, ... We studied it, characterized it and in February of 2002 the (DOE) secretary recommended it to the president who recommended it to Congress.

Yucca Mountain was recommended by the U.S. Geological Survey because of the attributes the site possesses including a stable geology, a deep water table, no one lives there, it's a desert environment and ... it's remote,

We're giving credence to these because we referred them to Inspectors General of Department of Energy and the Department of the Interior,

In terms of these e-mail issues, a couple of people were involved in venting, if you will, and my comments to the press at the time when all this came out, were this was water cooler chatter,