Vermonters Say No

The legislature in my old recalcitrant state has refused to renew the license for the Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor. I'm proud of them.

In an unusual state foray into nuclear regulation, the Vermont Senate voted 26 to 4 Wednesday to block operation of the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant after 2012, citing radioactive leaks, misstatements in testimony by plant officials and other problems.

Unless the chamber reverses itself, it will be the first time in more than 20 years that the public or its representatives has decided to close a reactor.

Vermont currently has a Republican governor, Jim Douglas, of whom I'm not fond. He said that he had been talking to President Obama, who (incomprehensibly, to me) agrees with him and other Republican governors about the need to build many more reactors in the U.S., and had been hoping to delay this vote. I'm glad that grassroots Vermont, which has been fighting problems at Vermont Yankee for decades (it was commissioned in 1966) was finally able to express itself through the legislature. A cooling tower collapsed in 2007, and plant officials recently lied under oath about buried pipes that could have leaked tritium. Furthermore, the Louisiana-based parent company, Entergy, wants to spin off Vermont Yankee and five others, including Indian Point in New York State into a new public company that would sell stock and raise money to pay back Entergy.

Schemes like that don't go over well in Vermont, where there is still a sense, albeit diminished, that small is better and local control (and legal liability) are important.

Comments

[hal lewis]

I was also wondering the reason for another in the long line of reversals on policy and promises that Obama made during his campaign for President.
I found out that the largest donor to his political campaigns is a person from Chicago that is the CEO of a company that owns the largest number of nuclear power plants in the United States. I found three times at least that Obama stated during his campaign that he was against nuclear reactors.
Also David Alexrod and Rahm Emanuel worked for this nuclear company in Chicago. In a recent article in the Financial Times it was stated that these two plus Gibbs and Jarrett are the only four that has Obama ear. Always with him with the standard and only line-----politics and reelection.
I was never a supporter of George Bush and felt he left the country in dire straights but I did know from the beginning where he was coming from.
Obama is a much bigger disappointment. His list of---I said that but I'll do this--- is becoming more and more difficult to take. This subject of nuclear power plants is and has been for over 30 years a nonstarter. My state had Three Mile Island and now Vermont has the Yankee nuclear reactor. Strange to call them reactors they sure do in ways we never dreamed of.

[Jessamyn]

I am so pleased and relieved about this. Now I'm just hoping no one manages to find a way to overturn it.