Email I got from Progressive Majority:

Are you passionate about economic and social justice? Think you can do better than your elected officials?

Then Progressive Majority needs you to run for office!

If you have ever signed a petition or marched in a rally, you should consider running for office. Our team can help you decide if public service is right for you and if you'll make a strong candidate.

Let us help you decide where you'll make the biggest difference!

Progressive Majority is here to help if you agree to work hard for your own election. Our political team will give you complete support throughout your campaign:

• Shape your overall campaign strategy
• Develop a campaign plan, fundraising plan and message
• Set clearly defined benchmarks to stay competitive and on track to win

Run for the school board.  Run for dogcatcher.  Run for something.  

Seriously.  That's how the conservative movement gained sway.

ntodd

Thankfully, we still have an adversarial press that does its job on occasion:

Federal regulators have been working closely with the nuclear power industry to keep the nation's aging reactors operating within safety standards by repeatedly weakening those standards, or simply failing to enforce them, an investigation by The Associated Press has found.

…

Examples abound. When valves leaked, more leakage was allowed — up to 20 times the original limit. When rampant cracking caused radioactive leaks from steam generator tubing, an easier test of the tubes was devised, so plants could meet standards.

Failed cables. Busted seals. Broken nozzles, clogged screens, cracked concrete, dented containers, corroded metals and rusty underground pipes — all of these and thousands of other problems linked to aging were uncovered in the AP's yearlong investigation. And all of them could escalate dangers in the event of an accident.

Yet despite the many problems linked to aging, not a single official body in government or industry has studied the overall frequency and potential impact on safety of such breakdowns in recent years, even as the NRC has extended the licenses of dozens of reactors.

Industry and government officials defend their actions, and insist that no chances are being taken. But the AP investigation found that with billions of dollars and 19 percent of America's electricity supply at stake, a cozy relationship prevails between the industry and its regulator, the NRC.

Records show a recurring pattern: Reactor parts or systems fall out of compliance with the rules. Studies are conducted by the industry and government, and all agree that existing standards are “unnecessarily conservative.”

Regulations are loosened, and the reactors are back in compliance.

“That's what they say for everything, whether that's the case or not,” said Demetrios Basdekas, an engineer retired from the NRC. “Every time you turn around, they say `We have all this built-in conservatism.'”

Despite a radioactive cloud of security and safety concerns at our own Vermont Yankee, the state is barred from being involved with plant operations.  Fortunately we can still consider economic issues–the cost of storing spent fuel, how to create more jobs–when deciding whether to allow VY to continue operating past its expiration date.

Yet one has to wonder at the rhetoric that I heard a lot during the last campaign about leaving it all to the NRC.  If they say it's safe, then who are we to shut down the plant?  Well, we might not be able to look at plant reliability per se, but we can certainly have the veracity of its operator and the regulatory body who oversees Entergy in mind when we decide not to issue a Certificate.  At this point, their claims about anything related to Vermont Yankee's continued operation ring hollow.

ntodd

Poor people hit the jackpot with [Social Program X]!

 – Anonymous VT businessperson

Indeed, the Lucky Duckies catch all the breaks, don't they?  That's why we need to kill Medicaid and gut other programs that help out the poor, lest they live their lives in the lap of poverty at the expense of the wealthy whom God himself has granted massive fortunes beyond the wildest dreams of avarice.

They don't even pay taxes!  While the rich shoulder the entire load!  And those oppressed corporations!  It's so unfair!

It's getting to the point that the uberwealthy are having a hard time buying elections because poor people are squashing their free speech…Okay, I can't keep that going any longer.  Allow me to quoteJames Otis from 1764:

The very act of taxing exercised over those who are not represented appears to me to be depriving them of one of their most essential rights as freemen, and if continued seems to be in effect an entire disfranchisement of every civil right.

That's often paraphrased as “taxation without representation is tyranny.”

Now it's true that the poor and middle class ostensibly are represented in DC and state capitals, but when wealthy citizens and corporate persons dominate the political process, that theory is trumped by reality.  The proof is in the policy results, wherein those in power cannot even contemplate capturing additional revenues from the rich and instead trip over themselves to cut taxes on those who can afford it, all while destroying the social safety net that more and more Americans depend on as the economy for regular folks remains in shambles thanks to a massive wealth transfer over the last 30 years.

That's the US today: come for the plutocracy, stay for the tyranny!  And if you don't want to end up being foie gras for the Selfish Prime Movers, look for opportunities to fight back, like in Wisconsin and the recall drive, or in Vermont and our push for single-payer…

ntodd

Just got back a little while ago from a healthcare forum in Burlington's City Hall, sponsored by the Chittenden and Franklin County Democrats.  The panel featured Anya Rader Wallack, PhD, Shumlin’s special assistant for health reform, Dr Deb Richter from VT for Single Payer, H.202's sponsor Rep Mark Larson, and Senators Sally Fox and Hinda Miller (Dr George Till, Rep from Underhill, was unable to attend).

All participants were strong advocates for “a universal and unified health system” as the bill's title establishes, with a couple panel members explicitly dedicated to single-payer and Dr Richter especially providing excellent, animated explanations on the key issues.  The audience was primarily supportive of SP and H.202, though a couple questions submitted had some anti-reform bias and/or misinformation.  Overall I thought it was a fair presentation of the legislation and realities of reform.

I wanted to focus on one issue that came up during the sausage making process in the Senate.  AsJames Haslam from the Healthcare Is A Human Right campaign noted, Senators Brock (one of mine from Franklin County, and a Republican) and Sears (Democrat from Bennington) introduced a floor amendment just before the 3rd reading: 

An individual shall not be considered to be a Vermont resident if he or she is 18 years of age or older and is…not lawfully present in the United States.

It passed 22-8, with my friend Philip Baruth and our other (Democratic) Franklin County Senator amongst the courageous few voting against.  The two Senators present tonight voted for it and I wanted an explanation.  The moderator read my question, which I honestly don't remember precisely but essentially asked if they supported the amendment and would they work to remove such a discriminatory policy from the legislation.

The long and short is that nobody on the panel likes the provision and hopes to excise it in conference.  Senator Fox gave the longest answer and admitted that she was not proud of the vote but, having voted against it in committee, was concerned the entire bill would be scuttled if it didn't pass (Sears in particular was adamant).  After chatting with Deb, Mark and Sally after the forum, I do feel like we have a good shot at “clarifying” the language–part of the issue is compensating providers in the event that an undocumented worker gets care.

The underlying problem as I see it is that denying coverage–not care, mind you–violates the whole concept of universality and flies in the face of a fundamental human right.  Beyond that, it's fiscally irresponsible to create a system that, through discriminating against certain people, ultimately increases costs to us all as they will not receive care until requiring costly emergency interventions.  It also ignores the fact that undocumented residents do pay taxes as well as giving their sweat and other contributions to our community.

And let's not forget our state constitution.  The first chapter is entitled: A DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF THE INHABITANTS OF THE STATE OF VERMONT.  It's not about rights only for “people who meet Federal legal qualifications” or anything else restrictive.  It is universal and if you inhabit our state you have:

certain natural, inherent, and unalienable rights, amongst which are the enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.

Rep Larson made an important point: one way to delay progress is to make people afraid.  He specifically mentioned some ridiculous scaremongering heard in the Senate's debate about the Green Mountain Care board outlawing smoking or skiing.  

I think the tack regarding legal status of residents is in a similar vein.  If we can convince folks that their hard earned dollars are being taken from them to give to those people who shouldn't even be here, maybe we can derail reform.  That's one big downside to this process being way slower than I would like, though I appreciate Mark's other observations about moving ahead responsibly and with plenty of opportunity for participation in the process (which I think does counter the “we're rushing” canard).

Anyway, I think we've got some excellent stewards of the sausage factory working hard and in good faith on this.  We've got a lot of work to do ourselves to keep the pressure on and show our elected employees that we have their back.

Speaking of which, don't forget the May 1st rally in Montpelier!  Should be a nice day to get outside and demonstrate your support for healthcare as a human right for ALL.

ntodd

The only way to close the revolving prison door is to open another one.

 – Senator Joe Biden

While I am quite tired of the “War on [insert social problem]” formulation, it's still good to see the governor working on an issue he spoke about on the campaign trail:

Shumlin joined lawmakers and judicial branch officials to highlight efforts to lower the number of people who return to prison after being released by stepping up addiction treatment, mental health counseling and other services for nonviolent offenders.

Shumlin's opponent last election tried to demagogue on this, and barely failed to scare enough Vermonters overall though he handily won our county, where there is a correctional facility, by roughly 2:1.  I appreciated the governor's not-entirely-original idea to reduce costs in corrections by reducing the nonviolent offender population and reinvesting savings in early education.

Reducing recidivism saves us a great deal of money in the short- and long-term.  As the Freep article I link to notes, it costs about $48k/yr to incarcerate versus $6500 for supervision.  Fiscally-responsible governance demands we do all we can to keep offenders from returning to prison.

And from a moral and security perspective, it also makes a great deal of sense.  How can any citizen exercise their full measure of human rights if we set them up to fail after releasing them?  And how can our communities be safe if we have ticking timebombs wandering around with no moderating, mitigating forces to help them walk the straight and narrow?

Adm. Lewis L. Strauss has found himself in political turmoil more than once since he became chairman of the atomic energy commision, and he says that out of his troubles he has distilled enough experience to justify formulation of a new law of knowledge. “I hope it will be known as Strauss' law,” he told a group recently. “It could be stated about like this: If anything bad can happen, it probably will.“

 – Chicago Daily Tribune – 12 Feb, 1955

When people talk about nuclear accidents, three generally leap to mind: Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and now Fukushima.  But there have actually been about 100 accidents of varying severity since we started using atoms for peace, with more than half of those since Chernobyl and several Level 3s or worse.

But nuke apologists try to focus very, very narrowly in the safety realm:

Apart from Chernobyl, no nuclear workers or members of the public have ever died as a result of exposure to radiation due to a commercial nuclear reactor incident.

It's kind of like saying other than Columbine, there haven't been any school massacres by kids named Harris and Klebold.  It means we can ignore long-term effects from TMI and even Chernobyl.  It means we can ignore the health impact of uranium mining.  It means we can ignore the dangers of transportingand storing nuclear waste.

It also means we can ignore deaths directly caused by the operation of nuclear facilities in a variety of incidents.  There was, for example, the SL-1 accident:

A United States Army experimental nuclear power reactor…underwent a steam explosion and meltdown on January 3, 1961, killing its three operators.

The 3 men did not, in fact, die from radiation exposure, but:

The bodies of all three were buried in lead-lined caskets sealed with concrete and placed in metal vaults with a concrete cover. Some highly radioactive body parts were buried in the Idaho desert as radioactive waste.

…

Radiation exposure limits prior to the accident were 100 röntgens to save a life and 25 to save valuable property. During the response to the accident, 22 people received doses of 3 to 27 Röntgens full-body exposure and three doses above 27 R. Removal of radioactive waste and disposal of the three bodies eventually exposed 790 people to harmful levels of radiation. In March 1962, the Atomic Energy Commission awarded certificates of heroism to 32 participants in the response.

But none of that counts because it wasn't a commercial reactor and the men didn't die from radiation, despite leaving behind intensely radioactive remains and the AEC giving out awards for heroism to rescue workers.  Then there's the Tokaimura nuclear accident in 1999:

The criticality accident occurred in a uranium reprocessing facility…Dozens of emergency workers and nearby residents were hospitalized and hundreds of thousands of others were forced to remain indoors for 24 hours. At least 667 workers, emergency responders, and nearby residents were exposed to excess radiation as a result of the accident…The three operators' doses were far above permissible limits at 3,000, 10,000, and 17,000 mSv; the two receiving the higher doses later died. The most severely exposed worker had his body draped over the tank when it went critical. He suffered serious burns to most of his body, experienced severe damage to his internal organs, and had a near-zero white blood cell count.

But that wasn't at a reactor, so also doesn't count.  Nor does this one at Mihama in 2004:

On 9 August 2004, an accident occurred in a building housing turbines for the Mihama 3 reactor. Hot water and steam leaking from a broken pipe killed four workers and resulted in seven others being injured. The accident had been called Japan's worst nuclear power accident before the crisis at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant.

Just another non-radioactive accident, so nothing to see here.  Besides, those last two were in Japan, and the NRC is totally on top of the safety thing.

Vermont Yankee. The NRC ignored regulations requiring that all releases of radioactively contaminated air be via controlled and monitored pathways—regulations that had been grounds for shutting down a Baton Rouge plant two years previously.

Oh, well, I'm sure the owners of Vermont Yankee will spend their time and energy making sure everything is safe instead of, say…using the courts to attack the very community they pretend to serve.

There was a dream once of nuclear power generating electricity that was too cheap to meter.  Are human lives and the environment also too cheap?

ntodd

6. The question presented by this case is whether the State of Vermont, either through a state administrative agency (the PSB) and/or the state legislature (the General Assembly) may effectively veto the federal governments authorization to operate the Vermont Yankee Station through March 21, 2032. The answer is no.

7. Vermont’s attempt to shut down operations at the Vermont Yankee Station through regulatory or legislative denial of a CPG is preempted by the federal Atomic Energy Act(“AE.A”), 42 U.S.C. § 2011 el seq.

8. Under the AEA, a State may not interfere with the federal government's exclusive authority over the operation of a nuclear power plant. A State’s regulation of the “construction or operation of a nuclear powerplant[,] … even if enacted out of non-safety concerns, … directly conflict[s] with the NRC’s exclusive authority over plant construction and operation.” PacificGas & Elec. Co. v. State Energy Res. Conserv. & Dev. Comm 'n, 461 U.S. 190, 212 (1983)(“PG&E”). Vermont’s CPG scheme, whether administered by the PSB or the General Assembly interferes with exclusive federal authority over the continued operation of a nuclear power plant.

It's interesting to me that they choose to cite PG&E v State Energy Comm'n because I find much that undermines their argument therein:

From the passage of the Atomic Energy Act in 1954, through several revisions, and to the present day, Congress has preserved the dual regulation of nuclear powered electricity generation: the Federal Government maintains complete control of the safety and “nuclear” aspects of energy generation, whereas the States exercise their traditional authority over economic questions such as the need for additional generating capacity, the type of generating facilities to be licensed, land use, and ratemaking.

…

[A State moratorium on plant certification] does not conflict with federal regulation of nuclear waste disposal, with the decision of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) that it is permissible to continue to license reactors, notwithstanding uncertainty surrounding the waste disposal problem, or with Congress' recent passage of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 directed at that problem. Because the NRC's decision does not and could not compel a utility to develop a nuclear plant, compliance with both that decision and [A State moratorium on plant certification]is possible. Moreover, because the NRC's regulations are aimed at insuring that plants are safe, not necessarily that they are economical, [A State moratorium on plant certification] does not interfere with the objective of those regulations. 

…

[A State moratorium on plant certification] does not frustrate the Atomic Energy Act's purpose to develop the commercial use of nuclear power. Promotion of nuclear power is not to be accomplished “at all costs.” 

The Supreme Court noted that States can make decisions about nuke plants based on non-safety, including economic, considerations.  But notice the broad fudge word in Paragraph 8 that Entergy uses to condemn our Legislature's role in certifying the plant: operation.  

They claim that a “State may not interfere with the federal government's exclusive authority over the operation of a nuclear power plant,” and I guess that's true as far as it goes.  But they rely on the logical fallacy of ambiquity.  Does 'operation' in this context mean day-to-day activities that are clearly in the NRC's demesne, or simply whether a plant can operate or function at all per a State's certification requirements?

Clearly the Legislature is not attempting the former.  Nobody is asserting the State has power or responsibility for safety or generation at Vermont Yankee.  However, we have the right to decide whether to allow the plant to continue operating in our state in the first place, as the SCOTUS held:

[T]he legal reality remains that Congress has left sufficient authority in the States to allow the development of nuclear power to be slowed or even stopped for economic reasons. 

The Court affirmed that if we'd rather shut down VY and invest heavily in sustainable energy, for example, which will create more jobs and cut our electricity costs, we can do so without violating the AEA.  Our Certificate of Public good, per Act 160, must be issued under the auspices of precisely the same language as the AEA, if the Legislature determines it promotes “the general welfare”.  It is not predicated on any safety determination.

So, Vermont does, in fact, have an “effective veto” over the NRC's authorization to operate VY after its sell-by date.  I even confirmed that interpretation with the NRC itself:

Todd, 

The holding of an NRC license does not guarantee operation of a facility.  The facility may have other requirements, such as permits with the state, which preclude operation of the facility.  

Diane Screnci

Sr. Public Affairs Officer

USNRC, RI

610/337-5330

NRC approval is a NECESSARY, not a SUFFICIENT, condition for continued operation.  In other words, Vermont could not say VY's license will be extended if the NRC said no, because we need uniform minimum standards to keep other states safe (imagine if we had a Fukushima-esque event where highly radioactive water spilled into the Connecticut River), but the mere possession of the NRC's blessing does not compel a utility or the State to actually run the plant.

I'm sure clever lawyers can make hay with just about anything in the PG&E decicion or AEA or Constitution or common law or whatever else, but my read is that Entergy's argument is radioactive poppycock and their case will melt down like an exposed fuel pellet.  And VY is neither necessary nor sufficient for Vermont's energy future.

ntodd