Okay… so this is quickie, but it’s good.  First, Paul Hodes (yay!  We worked on his campaign) is joining the chorus of members of congress from neighboring states who are weighing in on Vermont Yankee:

Hodes wants a description of how the NRC will notify New Hampshire federal and state officials of future incidents, documents on the latest incident and information on what is being done to ensure the water cooling system is safe.

Might I humbly suggest that Representative Hodes read Green Mountain Daily?  We seem to be breaking a lot of this news before the print media.

On other, awesome news, the NRC has told Vermont Yankee “no” when it comes to the decommissioning fund:

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has shot down plans by Entergy Nuclear to tap into Vermont Yankee’s decommissioning savings account to pay for the handling of spent fuel.

The federal regulators also criticized the company’s projected rate of return on the $440 million fund.

The NRC said that if Entergy was allowed to use the fund for spent fuel management, there would not be enough money to fully dismantle and decontaminate the plant.

Entergy had submitted the plan to the NRC this winter, and the NRC ordered the company to submit a new plan within 90 days. The plan must be submitted five years before any nuclear reactor might shut down. Vermont Yankee’s 40-year license expires in 2012.

This is great news.  I blogged about this January.  Entergy’s been playing their own shell game, trying to use funds reserved for decommissioning to do other work, and the NRC actually said no.  

It’s good to see that sometimes they get it right.  

There's been differences of opinion, particularly between Steve and Doug, on the effectiveness of financial incentives for companies considering a relocation to Vermont.  Vermont was in competition with Michigan, a state offering a larger tax incentive package.

Utility Risk Management will be relocating to Vermont, not only in consideration of $140,000 in incentives, but because of the strong work ethic and talented work force.  What was unsaid in the Free Press article is that Vermont is the national leader in providing risk management services in respect to captive insurance.  Utility Risk Management will enjoyr a considerable amount of professional expertise and a work force segment with plenty of experience and national connections in this field. 

The company will be growing from a staff of 4 to about 20.  Two of the four declined to relocate, so the projected number of new jobs will be even more significant.  Risk management companies pay well and are an example of “clean” business.

Are tax incentives effective in order to recruit new business?  In my opinion, the answer isn't “Yay” or “Nay.”  Each business has its own needs and deserves an individual assesment of what kind of incentive package it can be offered. 

My view is that Vermont needs to focus on the recruitment of entrepreneurs and small businesses that offer the most significant opportunity for growth.  We need to use any and all recruitment tools in an effective, efficient, and cost-conscious manner in order to attract the best and brightest business people and professionals.  

Recruiting new businesses should be viewed in the same way investors build their investment portfolio.  Don't put all of your eggs in one basket.  Diversify.  Consider overall risk from the “portfolio” of new business “picks” and potential picks. Balance the need for growth against the current and projected future of the economy.

The “Good” vs. “Bad” conversation doesn't get us too far when it comes to policy, including economic development policy.

Nate Freeman

www.NateFreeman.com

Bush Sewage Plant Initiative Makes The Ballot In San Francisco

A voter initiative in San Francisco to rename a sewage plant in honor of George W. Bush has received a sufficient number of signatures, and will appear on the November ballot. The idea was hatched by a group calling itself the “Presidential Memorial Commission,” which by their own admission was formed over drinks at a bar.

http://tpmelectioncentral.talk…

A message to the legislative leadership: Don't do it!

Douglas has now joined Dubie in calling for a special legislative session to pass bills that even he admits would not have prevented the tragedy of Brooke Bennett's murder. Still, he is calling for a one-day special session to rubber stamp a series of his pet bills that the Legislature has already considered and rejected. 

This call is a transparent piece of demagoguery, and our Democratic leadership in the House and Senate should reject it.

Let's take civil commitment as one example. I served on the committee appointed by the Legislature to consider civil commitment, a process whereby a convicted sex offender would be committed to some kind of treatment facility after the completion of his sentence. We met for months, took testimony from many experts, and closely examined the experience of other states where civil commitment has been adopted, before concluding that it was a bad idea. There is no evidence that it works, virtually no offenders who are sentenced to civil commitment receive actual treatment, and it winds up being just a way to lock them up and throw away the key. And it's also really expensive. As a result, civil commitment is a way for the government to look tough, but it diverts money from efforts, like special investigative units, that actually work.

Here's what we said in our report:

The committee finds that sex offender civil commitment laws are well-intentioned, but are not the best use of Vermont’s resources for protecting the public from potentially dangerous sex offenders. The annual costs of such programs range from an estimated $46,500 in South Carolina to $125,000 in California per offender, with an average state expenditure of about $100,000 per offender. True costs are difficult to determine because some states that report costs for civil commitment include the capital, evaluation, and legal costs, while others do not. The committee is concerned that such a program in Vermont would be costly and divert scarce mental health resources from other mental health programs and patients to a relatively small number of sex offenders.

. . .

In addition to the general fiscal concerns, the committee finds that implementing a civil commitment program in Vermont would serve further to burden our struggling state mental health services.  . . .  Any substantial addition to mental health services, such as civil commitment of sex offenders, would likely result in a diversion of funds from other important mental health programs. The committee believes this would not be in the best interests of our mental health system or most Vermonters.

The committee made the following recommendation:

Recommendation
The state should not pursue civil commitment of sex offenders at this time, but should invest resources at earlier stages in the investigation, prosecution, sentencing, and treatment of offenders, as proposed elsewhere in this report, to reduce the number of unsupervised high risk offenders in the community.

What purpose would be served by returning for a one-day session? Only two: either the Legislature would capitulate to Douglas's calls for more ineffective legislation, giving him a win to campaign on, or they would hand Douglas another stick to beat them with for failing to cave. His shameless appearance at this little girl's funeral was bad enough. Why give him another chance to broadcast his demagogic tactics across the state?

Legislative leaders, just say no to a special legislative session! 

In a speech given in Washington Al Gore attempted to move some ‘real’ into the Presidential campaign. Real as in pointing out a problem that is desperate for real solutions.

“It is only a truly dysfunctional system that would buy into the perverse logic that the short-term answer to high gasoline prices is drilling for more oil 10 years from now,” Gore used a quote from a Saudi Oil minister “The Stone Age didn’t end because of a shortage of stones.”

The Alliance for Climate Protection, estimates that the cost transforming America’s energy infrastructure at $1.5 trillion to $3 trillion over 30 years in public and private money. Gore says that it would cost about as much to build coal plants to satisfy the country’s electricity demand.

The speech was a call for action rather than one with specific proposals.He likened the challenge to the 10 year effort to reach the moon which JFK proposed .Ten years being what Gore describes as the workable attention span of country.Gore is wise to use his status to try to move the dialog back in focus as the drill our way out of this attitude creeps in .The pressure for more drilling and quick answers is massive as attitudes toward getting more oil by any means increases .This happily encouraged by the oilmen at the top.This isn’t the kind of challenge that will have easily identified heroes as the race to the moon. A massive shift in public attitudes will need to be lead by whomever wins in November .

The idea that we must wait until it’s easier is illustrated by this Congressman’s remark

“I think the American public will be much more receptive to arguments about climate change when gas prices aren’t so critical,”

said Rep. Zack Space, a freshman Democrat who represents a mostly rural district in Ohio.

But Gore cited the foolish irony of the situation

This speech may(will)get lost quickly in the headlines as Obama travels to Iraq and Congress debates expanding oil leases but at least  Al Gore took the time to tell us what we need to hear .

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worl…

http://thehill.com/leading-the…