Compiling latest press releases, rumors, information and reactions:
- RUMOR: Democratic Senator and gubernatorial candidate Susan Bartlett may have as many as 14 votes for delaying any Senate vote on relicensing VY,although one insider puts the count at 10-12.
- If she forces a tie, Republican Lt. Governor and anointed Douglas successor Brian Dubie will get tie breaker vote. No points for guessing correctly which way he’d vote.
- Dubie would then get a huge headline for his vote, and likely Bartlett will lose the Democratic base and the primary (unless many R’s jump party lines to vote in the D primary).
- If she forces a tie, Republican Lt. Governor and anointed Douglas successor Brian Dubie will get tie breaker vote. No points for guessing correctly which way he’d vote.
- PRESS RELEASE: Senate Majority Leader John Campbell, considered one of the more conservative Democrats in the legislature, accused “Entergy officials and lobbyists” of “distorting the truth” regarding a forthcoming report characterized as “commissioned by the Joint Fiscal Office.” It is one of the reports that proponents of delaying the vote suggest is “imperative” to review before voting. Campbell says the report was “commissioned and paid for by Vermont’s two largest utilities.”
- The JFC agreed to let its economist and its economic consultant work with the utilities’ report writers.
- “This is not a legislative initiative and the legislature did not pay for this report.”
- The legislature’s report was on “electricity price forecasts” and “was delivered to the legislature on January 7, 2010.”
More on the flip
- The JFC agreed to let its economist and its economic consultant work with the utilities’ report writers.
- Of the VY workers, fewer than half (40%) are Vermont residents.
- The rate being offered by Entergy for VY power from 2012- 2032 is a 50% increase over the current rate.
- The amount of electricity Vermont will see from the plant (assuming it continues to operate) amounts to half of the amount Vermont currently receives from the plant. The majority of the plant’s output is sold out of state, while Vermonters face the majority if not the entirety of the risk of a catastrophic event or slow degradation.
- “Reckless behavior, deliberate cover-ups, and unfruitful internal investigations from officials at Vermont Yankee have rocked the trust of New Hampshire families living just a stone’s throw away from this plant,” said Hodes. “If we are going to get serious about public safety, the reactors at Vermont Yankee should be shuttered until this leak is resolved.”
- “While the plant is closed, Entergy must continue to pay the full salaries of workers who were not involved in the leak. … I will fight to make sure middle class plant workers are not punished for wrong decisions made by others.”
- NH owns to the high water mark on the VT side of the Connecticut river. Hinsdale, Chesterfield, and Winchester, NH are also in the evacuation zone.
Wednesday’s vote will be one hell of a piece of political theater — although theater usually doesn’t have such a serious impact on the future. In any case, it won’t be the last scene in this play, either, it’s just the opening act.
And Bartlett comes in straddling the center!!…
Keep it comin!
Entergy’s desperate last minute sweetener of low electric rates(for select power and limited time only) is pretty slim fig leaf for any of the 10-14 wavering senators to use for cover.
What State Senator will offer their yes vote up in this covering with a straight face?
It wouldn’t take much money to influence the VY vote. A typical single seat house campaign costs between $3,000 and $5,000 dollars (according to quotes from the majority and minority leaders prior to the last election). If Entergy identified just 50 important seats (of the 150 total) and spent $5,000 on each, effectively doubling the funding of those candidates, it would cost only $250,000. They could easily spend about the same in selected senate races and have a more profound effect in that small (30 seat) body. Heck, a quarter of a million dollars in each legislative chamber and a half million in the governors race would provide a tremendous advantage, at a total investment of just a million dollars.
That’s the real problem with Citizen United. Although the case was about huge money in presidential elections, the effect is even more pronounced in small state races. In 2008 I ran an unsuccessful campaign to unseat a 10 year house incumbent who spent about $15,000 on his own campaign, eclipsing what any reasonable candidate could possibly raise locally. He did it by drawing most of his funds from out of state vacation homeowners looking to slash their property taxes in ski area towns. In that campaign, contributions were primarily individual in nature, but with Citizens United as the guide a candidate can now draw even bigger money from homeowners associations or the owners of the ski areas (or other huge businesses) looking to shift the burden from business and vacation property taxes to local homeowners.
Vermont Yankee is an interesting case to illustrate what Citizens United does to corporate power in elections, but we should be fully aware of the other parties looking to influence elections.
Since Vermont energy issues are front and center, I really hope someone will ask the governor if he now regrets his opposition to purchasing the hydro dams many years back. Doug Hoffer is right to be reminding people about this idiotic decision by Douglas. Douglas is the main reason Vermont is where it is in terms of our state’s energy direction.