(Late breaking add: Entergy has agreed to continue paying the $6 million. Thus thoroughly destroying whatever was left of the business leaders’ complaint.)

Somebody call an amberlamps! Vermont’s business leaders got it bad, and that ain’t good.  A mass outbreak of BKS (Bunched Knicker Syndrome, an inflated sense of discomfort experienced by the high and mighty), as reported by Vermont Digger:

Business groups took a stand Wednesday against a provision in a miscellaneous tax bill that would require Vermont Yankee to pay $6 million in taxes to fund education, the Clean Energy Development Fund and a fund to help Windham County plan for the plant’s closure.

…At a press conference on Wednesday, the Vermont Energy Partnership and Associated Industries of Vermont said the tax was “arbitrary.”

“Arbitrary”, you say? Let’s see now… the tax replaces Vermont Yankee’s pre-March 21 obligation to pay money into the Clean Energy Development Fund. That obligation was part of its state license, which of course expired on March 21. But the plant keeps humming along (at a reduced rate, thanks to those gummed-up condensers). So the tax bill re-establishes an existing payment. What’s the opposite of “arbitrary”?  

William Driscoll, vice president of the Associated Industries of Vermont, which represents manufacturing businesses, said the tax is going after a captive industry in Vermont that cannot move its business elsewhere.

Oh, would that it could!

After the jump, more baseless whining and a Tiger tale.  

“To very quickly and with relatively little debate or consideration propose a new tax is poor policy,” Driscoll said.

He said doing so could hurt the state’s reputation as a place to do business.

Ah, the sound of the business community’s favorite dog-whistle! You know, Mr. Driscoll, what really hurts the state’s reputation is the business community’s constant yammering about how it sucks to do business in Vermont.

Quick story. Back in the 1990s, then-Detroit Tigers owner Tom Monaghan (yep, the Opus Dei nutbar) was campaigning for a new ballpark. He and his minions were constantly slagging Tiger Stadium as decrepit beyond repair, and complaining that the nearby area was unsafe and crime-ridden. You think they might have hurt attendance? Just a little bit? (Also his team sucked, which didn’t help any.)

Eventually the Tigers got a new, bland, ballpark. Hooray. They could have, and should have, done what the Red Sox did: promote their legendary stadium as a unique baseball shrine, and renovate it.  Likewise, our business leaders would do well to embrace the quirky charms of Vermont rather than trying to turn it into, say, New Jersey.

Thus endeth the lesson. As for Mr. Driscoll’s other point — about passing the tax “quickly and with relatively little debate” — I seem to recall that this issue has been on the Legislature’s plate throughout this entire session, and has been widely discussed and reported on. This isn’t something that Shap Smith pulled out of his pocket and decided to ram through.

Also, as VTDigger reports, the House-passed bill now goes to the Senate, where the Finance Committee has sought an Attorney General’s opinion on the propriety of the tax.

Sounds like the issue is getting a thorough and proper vetting. Not at all arbitrary or quick or with relatively little debate.

In short, the business community has no complaint whatsoever. But then, this isn’t really about a $6-million tax on Vermont Yankee. It’s about raising the same stink they always do whenever there’s talk about a tax increase of any kind anywhere anytime. “Bad for business,” “job killer,” “stifling free enterprise.”

These guys don’t seriously believe what they’re saying about the VY tax. They cannot possibly think that it will hurt VY to continue making the same payments it’s made since it opened forty years ago. They’re just beating their usual drum in service of their usual cause: making it as politically difficult as possible to raise taxes under any circumstances.