January 14, 2010, the New York Times

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) -- Vermont Yankee officials were put on the defensive again Wednesday, saying no one meant to mislead lawmakers about underground piping at the plant last year but ''should have been more thorough'' in answering a legislative panel's questions.

The reactor on the Connecticut River in Vermont's southeast corner has been in the spotlight as Entergy Nuclear tries to win legislative approval for a 20-year extension on a license set to expire in 2012. Vermont is the only state that gives its Legislature a say on the license; other states leave it up to state utility regulators and the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

''The fact that they admitted they misled people, yeah, that's not going to help Yankee,'' said Rep. Patti Komline of Dorset, the House Republican leader. ''And it just gives the politicians more fodder'' to criticize the plant, she said.

Meanwhile, hundreds of demonstrators descended Wednesday on the Statehouse to demand that Vermont Yankee be shut down. A handful of them marched 126 miles from the plant's corporate offices in Brattleboro.

The latest flare-up follows a plant announcement last week that elevated levels of radioactive tritium were found in a groundwater monitoring well on the plant site. Vermont Yankee spokesman Robert Williams confirmed this week that underground piping was among the possible sources of the contamination.

But last year, plant officials said repeatedly that there was little concern about the possibility of radioactive tritium leaking from underground piping at the plant because the reactor did not have much underground piping and those pipes did not carry irradiated water.

Williams said in an e-mail to The Associated Press the plant did not mean to leave the wrong impression.

''There was no intention to mislead, but certainly the response to the question should have been more thorough,'' Williams wrote. ''It is important to note that Vermont Yankee provided a complete list of underground piping and our underground piping inspection program for the NSA team (the administration consultants) to review while they were here.''

Williams acknowledged that the plant provided different answers about the extent of underground piping -- one to a consultant hired by the state Department of Public Service, part of the administration of Republican Gov. Jim Douglas, which has generally been friendlier to Vermont Yankee, and another to a panel of experts brought in by Democratic legislative leaders, who have been more critical.

An e-mail sent last August from Vermont Yankee engineer David McElwee to Arnie Gundersen, one of the Legislature's consultants, said Vermont Yankee had no underground piping that could carry irradiated water and he could cross a question about it off a list provided by lawmakers.

''Other than piping carrying gaseous material ... we have none,'' McElwee wrote. He said the gases had ''very low amounts of contamination'' and no way to contaminate groundwater. ''We consider this issue closed,'' he said.

Rep. Sarah Edwards, a Brattleboro Progressive and member of the House Natural Resources and Energy Committee, said a Vermont Yankee official had given that panel answers similar to those given the legislative consultants about the extent of underground piping at the plant.

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January 8, 2010, WCAX, by Kristin Carlson

The top priority this session for Progressives is passing a single-payer health care system.

Progressives say if everyone was in one insurance pool it would make the system more efficient and avoid duplication. They want everyone to pay on a sliding scale based on income.

There are only five Progressives in the 150 member House and one Progressive in the Senate.

"In Vermont last year our premiums went up by $350 million," said Rep. David Zuckerman, P-Burlington. "When you put it all together, if the Legislature said we are going to increase your taxes by $350 million, citizens would be outraged and yet year after year our health care costs are going up by $350 million. That's more than ten times the budget increase we put in last year with a tax increase. So we have to put it in context-- health care is a huge issue driving up our budget problem."

Some Democratic lawmakers support a health care overhaul, but Democratic leaders have said there may not be time this year.

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January 8, 2010, vtdigger, by William Mathis

There are four solutions for the state’s fiscal crisis: cut spending, raise taxes, run up debt and shift state costs to hidden property tax increases. Unfortunately, the cost-shift option is being played at an unprecedented level.

Since 1915, whenever economic times got tough, dour-faced governors, legislators and commissioners (of both parties) proclaimed education spending “out of control.” Gov. Douglas has been no exception. The attacks always chastise voters, school boards and educators for their spendthrift ways to justify shifting costs to the property tax. Politically convenient, they can present themselves as fiscally conservative while claiming they didn’t raise taxes or cut popular programs.

Whether it was the Hunt-Simpson, Miller, Morse-Giuliani, Foundation, Act 60 or Act 68 funding formulas, the refrain was always the same. And, of course, each time the state underfunded or reduced education appropriations, the formula would be pronounced “broken.” (What “breaks” any formula is underfunding).

In today’s verse of this Golden Oldie, the governor and former tax commissioner Tom Pelham claim that the citizens are voting too much money for education. Commissions, both official and nonofficial, have met and declared the funding system “broken.” Following the tune, our education commissioner has said that “education is inherently inefficient.”

These curious statements are contradicted by our uniformly high test scores (whether compared nationally or internationally) and our high ratings on child well-being. The gross state product and the state General Fund budget have both increased at faster rates than school spending in recent years.

The process plays out through a number of smaller, near invisible cost-shifts — that have a huge cumulative impact on property taxes. For example, Education Commissioner Armando Vilaseca was joined by Tax Commissioner James Reardon in proposing that costs for wards of the state be shared by local school budgets. Costs for high-needs children would also be shifted to the local school budget. The teachers’ retirement fund (historically paid from the General Fund) would be transferred to the Education Fund.

Two additional commissioner proposals simply punish the victims. Towns that have the misfortune of having few students would be penalized by having their small school state aid eliminated. This would increase taxes in at least 100 towns. Additionally, towns that happened to have a recent decline in enrollment would have their “hold-harmless” state aid scaled back. This would aggravate taxes in 120 school districts. The injustice is that neither of these factors is within the control of local citizens.

Further, the tax commissioner proposed increasing the statewide property tax by 2.2 cents in the same year as the per-pupil base amount is frozen. (The decline in property values drives this arithmetic.) If teachers’ retirement is transferred to the Education Fund, the statewide property tax needs another 2.5 cent increase to cover the tab. All of this is on top of the continuing $50 million cut from education funds this year.

Astonishingly, the governor, commissioners and many legislators lament the harsh burden of the property tax. Yet their proposals dramatically drive up property taxes. Conservatively estimated, these cost-shifts exceed $95 million, or more than 7 percent of education spending.

In disjointed distraction, school consolidation, vouchers and charter schools are proposed as economy measures despite clear, scientific evidence they do not save money or improve education.

The solution may be much easier and far more obvious. It is demonstrated by the 2 percent increase in education spending last year (90 districts had level or negative budget numbers) and in the fact that increases in school budgets have steadily declined over the past five years.

Why don’t we let local democracy work?

School boards fight to balance a solid educational program with fiscal realities. They reduce positions and strive to do this through attrition. Yet, layoffs are still required — and harm our communities with greater unemployment. Negotiated increases are coming down.

Student enrollments, economic cycles, staffing levels, and school costs historically adjust themselves. Vermont’s tax burden for education has consistently self-adjusted and remained steady, at 5 percent income, since 1992. As shown by the fact that 93 percent of school budgets pass, these local measures have the confidence and support of the people.

In these difficult fiscal times, the saying “I’m from the state and I’m here to help you” should strike fear in the hearts of Vermonters. Resolving the state’s financial crisis through shifts to the property tax and local school budgets is destructive of the schools, the funding system and, ultimately, the economy itself.

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January 8, 2010, WPTZ

SOUTH BURLINGTON, Vt. -- Outside a conference that featured fairly somber economic growth projections for Vermont in 2010, Gov. Jim Douglas was talking up a new jobs package that appears to find broad tri-partisan support at the Statehouse.

The plan taps $8.6 million in unspent federal stimulus funding Douglas suggests using in different areas, and included some of the targets in his State of the State address in Montpelier the day before.

Among the beneficiaries:

• $1 million for dairy farmers, who could access below-market rate loans for spring seed, fuel and fertilizer
• $1 million for workforce retraining
• $1 million to help Vermont businesses crippled by the sudden closure of the Lake Champlain bridge
• $2 million to VEDA to reduce interest rates on loans to various Vermont employers
• $500,000 for additional winter tourism promotion

The largest single chunk of the money -- $3.2 million -- would funnel through the Vermont Telecommunications Authority to commercial broadband providers to subsidize construction of high speed internet service to the most rural parts of the state that do not have it now.

The governor's aides said a 2007 goal to achieve 100 percent broadband access within Vermont by the end of 2010 could not be met without additional public funding, a setback blamed on the recession.

"But I think we can achieve our goal of universal access if we allocate these resources," Douglas said Friday.

"There's no disagreement that creating jobs is the No. 1 priority of the 2010 General Assembly," said Sen. Vince Illuzzi, the Republican chairman of the Economic Development Committee who joined Douglas and Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie for the news conference.

So did a Democrat and Progressive member of the committee, an indication of tri-partisan support that suggests the package will advance quickly at the Statehouse.

"Some of my strongest supporters might be surprised to see me at this event," said Sen. Tim Ashe, a Progressive from Chittenden County, "But I'm not. This proposal really speaks to the future. I know many of my contemporaries will be thrilled to live anywhere in the state and be able to have a home business and thrive and stay here."

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January 7, 2010, the Brattleboro Reformer, by Bob Audette

BRATTLEBORO -- Whether Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant closes in 2012 or 2032, hundreds of workers will be out of jobs.

And while there is a fund set aside to clean up the site in Vernon when the plant closes, there is no money set aside to retrain workers or to help them find similar jobs elsewhere in the industry.

That’s of concern to Rep. Sarah Edwards, P-Brattleboro, who is preparing a resolution that addresses the issue, which she will present during this year’s legislative session.

"We need to talk abut Entergy’s and the state’s responsibility to those workers," said Edwards.

What Edwards would like to see is for Entergy to establish a blind trust fund that could be used for job retraining and placement services for all the workers who will eventually be let go.

"The compensation packages for the officers of Entergy, especially the CEO, might indicate that there would be plenty of resources to do that," she said.

Entergy President and CEO J. Wayne Leonard received $54 million in compensation in the past three years, according to Travin Leyshon, an elected district vice president of the Vermont AFL-CIO and president of the Green Mountain Labor Council.

In 2009 alone, Leonard received $35.14 million in compensation.

"If he could get by on a meager $1 million per year, the saved $68 million over the next two years could go toward a just transition fund for compensating and retraining workers equal to $105,046 for each of the 650 workers," Leyshon said.

Leyshon, who lives in Middlesex, stressed to the Reformer that his statements are his and his alone and not the position of the labor organizations he is a member of.

"Untold millions will be spent on decommissioning the plant, cleaning up piles of contaminated dirt," said Leyshon. "Why should we treat dirt better than we treat workers? We can’t allow the workers to be tossed onto the economic scrap heap."

A spokesman for Vermont Yankee said Edwards has not made an effort to learn what programs it currently offers to employees.

"Our concern for our employees is second to none," said Rob Williams, who said Edwards should be asking another question.

"What would happen to jobs across the state of Vermont in every Vermont industry and every Vermont profession if Yankee shuts down and its tremendous economic benefit evaporates and Vermont’s baseload electricity -- a fundamental driver of the economy and jobs -- becomes more expensive and less reliable.

Arnie Gundersen, a former nuclear industry insider and now a nuclear safety advocate, said only about 200 workers will lose their jobs when the plant closes. Decommissioning operations will require up to 1,000 employees over several years, he said.

"Because the spent nuclear fuel must be cooled for five years, there will be a constant need to maintain the cooling systems, pumps and heat exchangers in the plant," Gundersen said. "This means that (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) licensed reactor operators, maintenance workers and health physics personnel must continue to maintain and monitor the spent fuel for at least five years."

A full compliment of guards will also be required to protect the fuel pool, said Gundersen, and workers will be needed to drain pipes and remove radioactive waste, which must be solidified on site before it is shipped for disposal in Texas.

Another 100 engineers will be needed over several years to write the decommissioning plan, he said.

Any real decommissioning fund needs to guarantee that workers "will not just be tossed out on the scrap heap," said Leyshon.

It’s called a "just transition," he said.

"This should be done in a just way, with care and proper planning," said Edwards. "The truly responsible thing to do on Entergy’s part would be to create a fund."

"We should be working together to make sure that when Yankee does close workers are not left high and dry," said Leyshon.

Edwards wants what is called a project labor agreement in place for when the plant closes.

"We can’t specify that those jobs be union jobs, but we can get a project labor agreement that assumes certain standards," she said.

Another question that needs to be asked is how will Enexus handle this issue if the spin off is allowed to go ahead, said Edwards.

Entergy has applied to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to extend the operating license of Yankee for another 20 years, from 2012 to 2032. In addition to NRC approval, Entergy must also receive a certificate of public good from the Public Service Board and the OK from the Vermont Legislature.

Entergy has also asked the NRC and the Vermont Public Service Board for permission to spin off Yankee into a wholly independent company called Enexus.

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