The bill passed Tuesday evening 11-0. The full Vermont House plans to pass the bill soon and then it moves to the Senate, where lawmakers are also pledging quick action because for legislative leaders this bill is a priority.
See WCAX for the whole story:
http://www.wcax.com/Global/sto…
“It is 100 percent the primary issue to protect Vermonters from having to pay the cost,” said Rep. Tony Klein, D-East Montpelier.“You have a promise to green field with not one penny in an account to accomplish that point. We now know that the waste is going to be stored there for decades if not 100 years and there is not one penny set aside to manage that waste, so that’s why we need to do this bill,” Klein said.
The decommissioning bill assures Vermonters that the corporate parent, whatever firm that may be, Entergy or if sold another firm, has enough money to decommission to NRC standards and also enough money to meet Vermont’s more rigid greenfield requirements. This requires that the parent company post a guarantee covering decommissioning to a greenfield standard of Entergy’s current estimate of $40 million. I personally believe this estimate is too low; discussion follows.
Fairewinds Associates testified on Friday April 5 to the House Natural Resources and Energy Committee regarding the discrepancy on decommissioning costs as projected by TLG Services, now a wholly owned subsidiary of Entergy. See report entitled Fairewinds Cost Comparison TLG Decommissioning http://www.leg.state.vt.us/JFO…
It certainly had to reach quite an extreme before the priority was recognized.
To Fairewinds and all the other groups that have worked so hard to ensure Entergy can’t walk away from its responsibilities, saddling us with billions of dollars in costs.
This is such an important bill. Congratulations to all those who made it happen!
It’s a pretty good bill, but could use some improvements.
First. The decommissioning trust is designed to fund “restoring the site” following decommissioning “of the plant.” That leaves a remaining issue with the restoration of the proposed dry fuel storage facility when (if) the federal government removes the fuel. As I read the bill, there must be sufficient funding to restore the site following closure, but the dry fuel storage component will still be operational for many years after that restoration is complete. There should be clarification in paragraph (b) that greenfielding includes removal of the DFS facility as well. Alternatively, the restoration of the DFS facility could be included in the budget for the dry fuel storage, and listed as an expense in paragraph (c). In any event, it should be listed as a specific requirement.
I think that the intent of the legislation is to provide for greenfielding of everything, but I also think the DFS facility will be spun off and managed separately. Spent fuel management could even be taken over by the federal government at some point, and we should be sure there is private funding in trust for the ultimate decommissioning of the DFS facility. Entergy has budgeted for the restoration of the DFS facility in their current decommissioning cost analysis, so they do plan to do that, but it shouldn’t be left to future generations to sort out. I’d like to see this issue clarified with a simple amendment.
Second, the requirement allows for a phase in such that the funds do not need to be whole until 2022. Thus, if the plant were to shut down in 2012 (or 2014…) it appears it would still need to roll into SAFSTOR until the owner made the fund whole. When Entergy bought the plant in 2002 they promised to decommission to greenfield status as of 2012, allowing only limited use of SAFSTOR. Honoring that commitment should be required as of March 22, 2012. The extra 10 years granted by this bill only serves Entergy’s interest, not the interests of the State of Vermont. This looks like a concession to Entergy supporters, so it might be hard to change, but an effort should be made to require full funding by 2012.