Thursday, February 9, 2012

The Commerce Clause, the Role of Vermont Yankee, and the Troubles with NRC Meetings

I rarely do a post which is mostly about links to other sources, but here goes. Three important articles, none written by me.

The Commerce Clause and the Shakedown Attempts: When I read the Judge's ruling, I was astounded at the directly-illegal stuff that the Vermont legislature did. As Cavan Stone noted in his guest post on the Control-H defense: what kind of legislature goes on the record with a statement with "Okay, we have to find another word for safety"?

That's all about the pre-emption part of the ruling.

Then there's the part of the ruling about the commerce clause. John McClaughry quotes from the Judge's ruling on that section. The legislature wrote letters to Entergy that could have been written by an assistant to the Godfather. It was basically a shakedown of Entergy. Read McClaughry's post: The Other Part of the Yankee Decision. Reading his post is like watching a gangster movie.



A Victory For Vermonters: The local headlines on the ruling tended to be statements like "A Stinging Defeat." In True North Reports, Guy Page explains why the Murtha Decision was a Victory for Vermonters. Workers, ratepayers and the environment all benefit. He puts Vermont Yankee in context with Vermont power needs, Vermont revenues, ISO-NE and grid stability. A very rational report.

NRC Public Meetings Need Improvement. In July, I wrote about the difficulties of getting on the agenda to speak at the NRC meeting in Brattleboro. Yesterday, at ANS Nuclear Cafe, Suzanne Hobbs Baker wrote of attending an NRC meeting in South Carolina. Her experience had many similarities to my experience in Brattleboro. The NRC has got to make some improvements about how they sign up speakers! Read How to Survive an NRC Public Meeting, and read the comments, too.

BREAKING NEWS AND A FOURTH LINK:

VOGTLE REACTORS APPROVED BY NRC TODAY!

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For the record: I head the Energy Education Project of the Ethan Allen Institute in Vermont, and John McClaughry is vice-president of that Institute.

1 comment:

Tom Clegg said...

Hi sorry I have not been available for some time. I have a story to tell you about speaking at an NRC meeting. I was at an NRC meeting about life extension for Indian Point. At that meeting the forum for speaking was the NRC had a table set up you filled out a card if you wanted to speak. The NRC would pick cards at random and call you up in order.Politicians and Officials went first. Of course there were a lot of anti-nukes at this meeting. Well one anti-nuke gentleman who was already called was called again. When they called him again he asked them if his fellow anti-nuke could speak instead because he had all ready spoke. The NRC agreed to this. I WAS FUMING! This meant that he broke the rules and the NRC buckled under to him. When the substitute speaker got up to speak I jumped out of my seat and expressed my dissatisfaction with what just went on. For that they made me the next speaker after the substitute speaker. I liked that I got to be the next speaker, but it still wasn't wright for the other people who followed by the rules. So yes the NRC has to improve on how they let people speak at meetings.