Hello Governor Scott, and Goodbye Shumlin!

Governor Shumlin's Christmas Greetings

Governor Shumlin (soon to be ex-Governor Shumlin) has been a fierce and unremitting foe of Vermont Yankee.

Yeah, yeah, we know that.  But I was still surprised to see a story by Mike Faher breaking on Christmas Day this year. Here's the article in VTDigger December 26,  Shumlin: Vermont Better Off Without Nuclear Plant.  Two years after the plant closed, and Shumlin is still crowing about closing it?  This is what Shumlin wants to say, just before he exits from being Governor?

 From the article above, some quotes from Shumlin.

Windham County has an advantage for economic development because "We can do cash." (Cash from the Entergy settlement fund for economic development of Windham County.) 

Furthermore, Vermont is "an example of how to reduce your carbon footprint and do electric generation right." 

Here's my opinion of the real meaning of his statements:

• First, Shumlin is  the "we" in the first statement. Entergy's $10 million in cash for Windham Country redevelopment will not make up for the loss of Vermont Yankee's payroll of 600 people.  However, Vermont Yankee controlled its payroll, while the Governor of Vermont (Shumlin) makes the final decision on how the Entergy economic development funds will be spent.   Indeed, Shumlin has controlled more cash after Vermont Yankee closed than he controlled when it was operating.  Shumlin could "do cash." That was his version of "we."  
• Second, Vermont Yankee made 70% of the power made in Vermont.  Now, we import this power from the grid....adding some solar and some wind turbines in-state haven't exactly given us this power back. For Shumlin, "doing electric generation right" means that someone else generates the electricity, and they generate it somewhere else.

A Sad Anniversary

Yesterday was the second anniversary of the day that the plant went off-line forever,  December 29 2014.  My Facebook news feed includes many people sharing unhappy memories of the day. I did not enjoy reading Shumlin's cheerful words on Christmas Day as the anniversary approached.

I also encourage people to read my article about the consequences of the closing: Circles of Pain around Vermont Yankee Closing. 

Photo from the Phil Scott gubernatorial transition website

Goodbye to the Old Year

Some of my friends send me New Year Cards with the old Jewish saying:
Goodbye to the old year with all its curses: hello to the New Year with all its blessings.

A major blessing of the New Year is that Vermont's new Governor will be Governor Phil Scott.  I first heard of Phil Scott in 2010.  When Shumlin led the charge against Vermont Yankee in the Vermont Senate in 2010, then-Senator Scott was one of the four senators that voted to support the plant.  Twenty-six senators voted against, four voted for the plant.  Scott's vote was a profile in courage.  He urged the Senate to gather more information, and not just blindly charge to close the plant.

Here's the video of his remarks.




Governor Scott and A Party

And now, Scott will be Governor of Vermont!  Assuming the roads are clear, my husband and I are going to Governor Scott's inaugural ball next weekend. I don't  go to balls  and galas on a regular basis. However, until yesterday's deadline, anyone could buy a ticket.

In fairness to soon-to-be ex-Governor Shumlin, you could also buy a ticket to Shumlin's inaugural ball at the Sugarbush Ski Resort. Mary Powell, CEO of Green Mountain Power, was a major fundraiser for that ball.  I believe the ball was rather lavish.  Here's an older article that I wrote about the close ties between Shumlin and Green Mountain Power.  And here's an article in which Shay Totten wonders if it was just coincidence that Mary Powell raised $190,000 for the Governor's ball just before a Vermont agency needed to rule about a proposed Green Mountain Power wind farm. (Again in fairness, Shumlin's ball was a fundraiser for Vermont National Guard Charitable Foundation.)

Governor Scott's ball will be at a more modest venue: the Army Aviation Facility at the Burlington Airport.  Scott's ball will be a fundraiser for charities that support those who serve or have served in the military.  I plan to be there.

Vermont is not "better off without Vermont Yankee."  But Vermont will be better off without Peter Shumlin as Governor.  Hello, Governor Scott!

Money Settles into Gaz Metro Pockets, Dust Settles under the Dome

The Bottom Line: Gaz Metro Keeps the Money

After a fast and furious two weeks, Governor Shumlin got his ducks (I mean, the legislators) in order and beat off an attempt to return $21 million dollars to the ratepayers of Vermont.

Background: The rate-payers of Vermont are owed $21 million dollars that they loaned to CVPS. This money was to be returned if another company bought CVPS, half to the ratepayers and half to the shareholders.  Gaz Metro is buying CVPS, but they seemed totally shocked that ratepayers might expect to be repaid with actual cash money. Gaz Metro is happily sending cash money to the shareholders for their part of the loan return.The mere ratepayers don't rate cash, though. They are to be paid by the ability to take out weatherization loans. For further background, I recommend my post: A Modest Proposal: Use the Shareholder Money

The AARP and others objected to this scheme. It looked for a while as if the ratepayers might actually get some money.

Not to worry, though.  Shumlin lined up the ducks, and the ratepayers will get no cash.

The Legislature and the Ratepayers

On April 9, Governor Shumlin spoke at a clean energy summit, and the 7 Days blog reported that Shumlin said:“It’s ironic to me that [when] we talk about a merger that’s gonna save Vermonters $150 million in 10 years, that we quibble over whether or not we should be putting another $21 million into energy efficiency measures instead of sending out small checks to people we can’t find 12 years later.”

Apparently, Shumlin thinks it is easy to find the shareholders but hard to find the ratepayers. I can give Shumlin and Gaz Metro a hint--bills are sent to the ratepayer's addresses.  They quibble that some of the ratepayers from a few years ago have left town or died.  So true!  And some of the shareholders have left town, died, or sold their shares to new people.  It's just the same, for ratepayers and for shareholders. You have to give money back to the current shareholders and the current ratepayers.

The AARP strongly objected to the idea that returning $21 million dollars to ratepayers was "quibbling."

The Senate Escapes

The message from the voters about "quibbling" got through to the Vermont Senate.   On April 26, the Vermont Senate voted to direct the Public Service Board (PSB) to return the money to the ratepayers--as money.  The Senate voted 27 to 3 to return the loan to the ratepayers as money.

That same day, Shumlin sent a strong note to the Senate saying they had exceeded their legislative jurisdiction by interfering in an open PSB docket.  He chided them for costing the taxpayers money by staying in session and. for...well, I wouldn't call it a note.  I would call it an accusatory rant from someone who was used to getting his own way.  As a matter of fact, I am reprinting it at the bottom of this post.

Let's face it.  Shumlin's ducks in the Vermont Senate had gotten away from him.  He had to begin rounding up the ducks in the House.

WTF? Why the Flip?

Rob Roper wrote a great article in True North Reports about the vote in the House:  WTF?! Why the Flip?  There are 150 members of the Vermont House. Of these, 72 were sponsoring a bill to return the money to the ratepayers, and another eight to ten were committed to vote for that bill.  Shumlin's agenda of letting Gaz Metro keep the money was about to go down in flames in both the Senate and the House.

Pressure was applied.  Legislators flipped their votes and lined up behind Shumlin.  Why the flip?  We may never know.

I also recommend John McClaughry's article on Pirates of the Winooski about Shumlin's need for more tax revenue for the Clean Energy Development Fund. Also the amusing article by Paul Heintz of 7 Days on Shumlin's explanation of why interfering with the Public Service Board about Vermont Yankee was okay (he led that charge in the Senate) but the Senate interfering in the utility merger would be overstepping: Shumlin Clarifies Position on Utility Merger---Kind Of.

Oh, by the way.  If accusing the legislator of "quibbling" about $21 million weren't enough, Shumlin also said this about the legislative attempts to intervene in the merger: "I understand the need to pander for votes."(From an article by Terri Hallenbeck in the Burlington Free Press.)

Bottom Line: No Refund for the Ratepayers


===========================
Statement from Gov. Peter Shumlin:

“The appropriate avenue for legislators to express their views on this proposed merger is through the Public Service Board, which has taken countless hours of testimony and received input from a wide range of stakeholders and experts. This matter is now in the hands of the Board. The Senate’s action today interferes with an open PSB docket, undermines the credibility of the regulatory process, and is an extreme overreach of legislative jurisdiction.

The Senate should be wrapping up its work and adjourning this week. Instead, adjournment has been pushed back at least a week, and Vermont taxpayers are now on the hook for another $275,000 thanks to the Senate’s inability to complete its work on time. The Senate should focus on the real issues under its jurisdiction, like passing the budget that should have passed days ago, and bringing the session to a close.”

(This message was sent April 26 after the Senate vote.)

The Morning After

Believe me, friends, it feels like a "morning after." Wednesday the news came thick and fast. An all-day video feed of the Senators. The vote. The announcement that Entergy was disciplining employees. The announcement that the NRC had commented and would issue a Demand For Information. The announcement that the NRC knew about an earlier tritium incident. I can't possibly cover all of Wednesday's news in one post. I can't give the ultimate-big-picture context.

However, with Justice Marshall of the 1810 Supreme court as my guide, I plan a pleasant, almost courtly post, in which I will discuss the law, the vote, points of grammar, and definitions.

Actually, I plan to discuss legal challenges, politics, Entergy management and whistleblowers.

The Law

In an earlier post, I covered legal remedies that might be applicable to Vermont Yankee. Yesterday I spoke to two lawyers, who will remain off the record. I asked the first lawyer, who is anti-nuclear, to read my post and comment. He didn't think very highly of it, except for the possible importance of pre-emption. The second lawyer was pro-nuclear. This lawyer said that the case would probably turn on pre-emption. You heard it first here, friends. Pre-emption. Is the Vermont Senate attempting to pre-empt the NRC? I think so. Two lawyers agree. Stay tuned.

Other nuclear plants have been shut down, and some of them were quite unpopular at the time. However, those shutdowns followed very different scenarios. In some cases, the plant was off-line a lot and uneconomical. In other cases, the plant was required to make repairs and the owners considered the repairs too expensive. In other words, it was always the owner's decision to close down the plant. Yes, the antis celebrated in every case, but in the last analysis, it was the owner's economic decision that closed the plant.

With Vermont Yankee, we have a plant owner who wants to keep the plant operating, and a plant that has not been instructed to make expensive repairs. The legislature voted to shut it down? Keep that word in mind. Pre-emption.

The Vote

Well, the vote was just awful. Twenty-six to four. What can I say?

Still. The four votes in favor of the plant were two Democrats and two Republicans. If the vote is held again, nobody can assume a straight party-line split. I like that.

And even the vote wasn't all that clear. Some Senators voted against the plant partially due to the timing of the vote. The tritium leak and misleading statements hurt the plant's chances for approval. This stuff will be old news next year, but it is at the top of the agenda now. The New York Times reported about one senator who voted against the plant:

“If the board of directors and management of Entergy were thoroughly infiltrated by antinuclear activists, I do not think they could have done a better job of destroying their own case,” said one senator, Randolph D. Brock III, a St. Albans Republican who cast several votes friendly to the plant.

And so we have a nice little transition to my next section, about Entergy management.

Points of Grammar

Entergy suspended several employees as a consequence of the miscommunications. This report from the Rutland Herald claims that John Dreyfuss and Dave McElwee were among those suspended. Dreyfuss and McElwee were always in the forefront of testimony. I saw them testify at several hearings, and sometimes spoke to them. Full disclosure: McElwee and I also had several email conversations, particularly last November when we were both debating anti-nuclear activists. McElwee and Dreyfuss are not personal friends of mine. I have never joined either of them for a cup of coffee, a drink, a lunch. Just to make that clear. This section is about grammar and Entergy management, not anything personal about Dreyfuss and McElwee.

I think both men are both getting the short end of the stick. I believe Entergy did NOT have procedures in place for briefing them before they testified or answered the questions of review panels or activists.

In McElwee's case, my evidence is the famous email: "we consider this issue closed." I quote below from Arnie Gundersen's January 27, 2010 testimony to the House Committee on Natural Resources and Energy:

From Entergy Legislative Liaison Dave McElwee to Gundersen, August 13, 2009

“As for your outstanding question on underground piping goes, Act 189 requested that an underground piping system carrying radionuclide’s be part of the inspection. Other than piping carrying gaseous material (with very low amounts of contamination and no median to contaminate the ground water which was the intent of this item from the legislature) we have none. Since this is not an item active in the review of CRA recommendations, we consider this issue closed.”

McElwee cc’d Jay Thayer on Entergy email

I have added emphasis on misspellings and wrong word use. The sentences are long and hard to follow. This is not an attempt to embarrass McElwee. I am merely pointing out that this was an important communication. This was a request that was referred to the plant by the Public Service Board, and it doesn't look like anyone reviewed the answer. It sounds like someone said: "Dave, just answer this, okay?" And he did the best he could.

If you deal with an intervenor or auditor or advisory body, management must set up a regular method to get statements reviewed. Management must support the people who are going to sign their names to the testimony. There have to be in-house procedures for communicating with auditors and review panels. There has to be management sign-off on the answers.

A similar story about John Dreyfuss. I had been to several hearings where James Moore of VPIRG castigated Entergy and the state for hiring Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU) to monitor radiation at the plant boundary. When John Dreyfuss came to Norwich in November to debate Moore, he looked completely baffled by Moore's comments on ORAU. From where I sat in the audience, it looked like Dreyfuss had been thoroughly blindsided by an unexpected topic.

After the debate, I gave Dreyfuss a little background on the controversy, and he thanked me. But why me? I mean, if someone in your company is going to appear on a panel with an opponent who is very fond of a certain line of attack, wouldn't you brief your person first? Nobody briefed Dreyfuss on this. Another example of the managers simply not having their act together. The front line people just have to go out there, unsupported, and do their best.

In a post today, Rod Adams put the situation of the disciplined employees succinctly. They got "thrown under the bus."

Note: This critique is about Entergy relationships with regulators and Entergy communications. The tritium was no problem yesterday, and it is still no problem today. Tritium leaks are not indicative of bad management.


Definitions

What is a whistleblower? In an earlier post, I note that Gundersen got an email from a whistleblower about an earlier tritium leak. However, that leak was totally within the plant boundaries, and reported to the NRC years ago. If you blow the whistle on something already reported to the NRC and fixed....are you a whistleblower? Should everything reported to the NRC be simultaneously reported to the press? I don't know. I am asking you, faithful readers, for your opinion.

The Sound and the Fury and Some News

It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

The Sound

Macbeth was talking about his life, but he could have been talking about the upcoming Vermont Yankee relicensing vote.

Yesterday, my local paper had a top-of-the front page article: Many Vt Senators in the Valley Say They'll Vote Aganist Vt Yankee The article was in the Valley News Friday February 19, and was written by John Gregg. In this article, Senator Mark MacDonald says

"I think we'll vote no, and I don't think it will be close." However, a few sentences later, the article says "MacDonald also said a no vote was not necessarily a 'stake in the heart' of Vermont Yankee's future, since a vote in favor of Vermont Yankee could still potentially occur in 2011 or 2012. The company might also still take the matter to court."

(This paper does not keep a strong archive on-line, and this link may go dead fairly quickly. I have quoted the important part.)

In other words, the upcoming vote is advisory. A "no" vote would certainly be a set-back for Entergy. If the split takes place completely along party lines, a 23 to 7 vote would be a major setback. But, despite all this excitement, the vote means very little. The legislature can chose to vote the opposite way next year. Or the whole matter can go to court instead of being voted upon.

By the way, as usual in politics, the vote situation is not intuitively obvious. The bill that will be voted on would instruct the Public Service Board (PSB) to allow Vermont Yankee to operate past 2012. If the Senate votes no, the House does not see the bill, and the PSB is not instructed to renew Vermont Yankee's license. So, if they vote "no"- -basically, nothing happens. The PSB is not instructed in any way, though a 2006 law, passed by the Vermont legislature, says PSB must be instructed by the legislature in order to rule that continued operation of Vermont Yankee is in the best interests of Vermont.

I think this is going to be settled in court, but that is another blog post entirely.

The Fury

Anti-Vermont Yankee efforts have been stepped up. For example, there have been ads and announcements in our local paper that the following event is taking place: (quoted from Valley News Calendar)

Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster, play reading and discussion by theater professionals and community leaders of the one-act play: 7 p.m., Montshire Museum of Science, 1 Montshire Road, Norwich. Free. Refreshments provided. 802-885-4826 or drr@dartmouth.edu.

In an ad for the performance, the title is "Should the (sic) Vermont Yankee be re-licensed."

I called the number, and discovered that this play is written by a Vermont woman and is being performed throughout Vermont, with "nuclear experts" in the audience. In speaking to Mr. Belenky on the phone, he assured me that these experts would have arguments that I would find "hard to counter." Unfortunately, I messed up the phone conversation by saying that I didn't really want to talk much about this, we wouldn't have much to say to each other, but I wanted to know more about the performances. This gave him the perfect opening to explain how everyone has to be open to dialog, and he never heard of someone saying something like this about a conversation etc.

This was my bad. It was completely my bad. I don't know why I am writing it here. Self-flagellation, I guess. Admission that I am suffering from a bit of burn-out. I do try to have a dialog. I really do. But a person can hear this junk about an RBMK reactor being just like a LWR reactor only so many times. I think I have heard it enough.

The charter of the Montshire Museum does not allow it to host political meetings. So I suppose this playreading about Chernobyl-and-Vermont-Yankee is considered educational.

Tomorrow afternoon, there's a big anti-VY meeting in Brattleboro, with a full cast of anti-VY groups. Here's the list from that announcement

Paul Gunter, executive director of the Washington, D.C., -based nuclear watchdog group, Beyond Nuclear;
David Dean, Vermont State Representative and Riverkeeper for the Connecticut River Watershed Council;
Clifford Hatch, organic farmer in Gill, Mass.;
Dr. Ira Helfand, co-founder and past president of Physicians for Social Responsibility;
Deborah Katz, executive director of Citizens Awareness Network;
Clay Turnbull, staff member of the New England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution; and
Chris Williams, organizer, Vermont Citizen Action Network.

Chris Williams used to be with Citizens Awareness Network. I think the Vermont Citizen Action Network is relatively new. Some of the Usual Suspects are not attending the rally tomorrow. VPIRG and the Union of Concerned Scientists seem to be missing. We face quite a crew around here.

And they are well-funded. There was a half-page, full color ad opposite the opinion page in our local paper, with the usual cooling tower picture and exhortations to write your legislature. I am sure this ad appeared in all local Vermont newspapers. Meanwhile, in electronic media, anything with the word nuclear triggers a Google Adsense ad to shut Vermont Yankee. I see this on most of the pro-nuclear blogs I read.

We are such a small state. 700,000 people, and not growing. Where does all this money come from?

Old News Or New?

Arnie Gundersen wrote a note about a phone call from an anonymous whistle blower claiming that Vermont Yankee repaired a leak in the same area two years ago. Vermont Digger has the story. I link to the document obtained from the Department of Public Service. This story will be heavily covered in future days, no doubt. We have faith that Mr. Gundersen is not being devious or dumb in sharing his report of the phone call.

The Vote is Coming

I have been working up a post about lying, and another post about organically bound tritium. But these posts are being pre-empted by Peter Shumlin, President Pro Tem of the Vermont Senate, who has set the Senate vote about Vermont Yankee license extenstion for next week. It is generally agreed that Shumlin is doing this as part of his campaign for Governor of Vermont.

An article about the vote was published in the Burlington Free Press this morning, and already has 37 on-line comments (as I post this). The author, Terri Hallenback, has the politics right. Even senators who oppose VY feel forced prematurely into the vote.

Meanwhile, utilities are scrambling for replacement power. The power they have mostly announced is wind. They plan to buy 55% of the output from a 99 MW wind farm. This sounds like 54 MW, but the capacity factor for wind is about 0.30. So neglecting the non-dispatchable nature of wind, that would be only 16 MW of base-load equivalent.

As you might expect, the majority of the power they are purchasing, 45 MW of baseload at this point, is from the mostly-fossil holdings of the great Wall Street Giants that hold portfolios of power plants. Articles about Vermont power contracts name suppliers as J.P. Morgan Ventures Energy, an energy trading company that bought parts of Sempra Energy yesterday (Sempra has natural gas holdings) Merrill Lynch Commodities Group and Morgan Stanley. All these groups are in the energy trading business, as far as I can tell, not the energy producing business. Yesterday, J P Morgan and Morgan Stanley were involved (partners?) in the Sempra acquisition. As the Financial Times notes, J P Morgan has built its energy portfolio in a flurry of acquisitions over the last two years.

Apparently the good people of Vermont would rather deal with international banks and holding companies than with Entergy. Do they expect these groups of companies to be responsive to Vermont's needs? I suppose hope springs eternal. Perhaps some good Senators believe that banks won't lie to us, but Entergy does. Perhaps the good Senators need to read about two years worth of newspapers.

How would the closing of Vermont Yankee affect Vermont? This is a big topic. I want to comment on one aspect that I believe affects the politics of it all, and it is painful even to write about it. Social stratification. Rigid class structure.

When I moved here from California, one of my issues with moving East was the existence of more social stratification, especially in New England. California is such a state of immigrants, such a polyglot state. Class structure certainly exists in California, but is mixed up with lots of other demographic trends, and never felt dominant.

This VPR article about two cultures and Vermont Yankee skirts the issue, but is the closest thing I have seen to acknowledging it. The Murphys talk about the history of their fear and the Merkles talk about being close to their families, volunteering, and their jobs. The Murphys say they "feel" for the people who will lose their jobs when the plant closes, while simultaneously saying that most people won't lose their jobs. The Merkles feel unwelcome and are sure that when the plant closes, they will have to leave the area.

It's worth reading the article and looking at the pictures. Maybe I am reading class structure into the picture. Leave comments on this post and let me know.

To end on a more upbeat note. The vote is unlikely to be the end of the story, and I plan to continue blogging while all of these situations play themselves out. Besides, I have two more posts partially written.

It's not over till it's over, and it's not over yet.

And this post isn't even over yet! I just found this short article and news clip from WPTZ in the Champlain Valley which puts the vote in some perspective. The legislature can vote now, can reverse itself next year, can get itself sued. This vote is sheer political grandstanding by Shumlin. The prestigious local blog, Vermont Tiger, comes to the same conclusion with a guest blog by the publisher of the St. Albans Messenger.

As I said above. It's not over till it's over, and it's not over yet.