I see that the legislature is beginning to consider new screenings for senior drivers, which are common in other states.

As someone who is getting “up there” in years, I wholeheartedly support this measure.

My sister’s mother-in-law drove a little longer than she was competent to, and wound up with her Mercedes lodged half-way through the back wall of her garage.  She had to sit there, perched precariously over a canyon, until someone rescued her three hours later.  No cell phones in those days.

There are worse things than losing one’s driving privileges before you have a chance to die at the wheel.

Still, if we are going to consider this safety screening, isn’t it about time we lay down the law on active cell-phone use while driving?

It used to be that many of the near misses one had as a pedestrian were with huge cars piloted by shrinking old people who couldn’t see well over the steering wheel and were down to the reaction time of a snail.

Not anymore, though.  The vast majority of these encounters, and they seem to be increasing rather than decreasing, are associated with inattentive younger drivers (that is under the age of 60) who cannot stay unplugged even long enough to drive to the local grocery store.

I don’t live in a major metropolis, yet the problem of inattentive drivers is so pervasive that, after dusk, I have taken to wearing a  yellow safety vest and putting an orange safety collar around the waist of my very little, very black dog just so we can startle motorists into noticing we are there.  We are certainly an arresting sight, picking our way across the frozen streets; and fortunately my advancing years preserve me from the vanity that might have earlier restrained me from such an eccentric display.

We used to actually plan ahead before we hit the road, and that worked pretty well.  Cell phones were a great help when things went wrong because we didn’t have to go hunting for a pay phone.  Then, with that usual sense of entitlement that accompanies technology as it passes into the commonplace, we just came to demand instant gratification of all our communication needs.

Deprived of his own personal phone as a small child, by the end of college my son was so plugged-in that he often didn’t know ten-minutes ahead of time whether he was going to the movies in St. Albans or joining a gang headed to Burlington.  He and his friends would decide what to do that evening, and even where to meet, on the spur of the moment.

Now, with multiple communication platforms competing for users’ attention at every moment, the average guy’s cerebral cortex is lit up with more distractions that Shinjuku at rush hour.

So, let’s make a cross-generational deal.  We aging motorists won’t grouse at new testing retirements if everyone else will seriously consider a ban on active cell-phone use while driving.  I don’t just mean texting or watching clips of  a cat doing the hula; I mean the whole shootin’ match.  If you’ve got to talk, pull over.  Period.

As Entergy clings to ever more absurd arguments before the PSB, insisting that its pattern of misrepresentations does not constitute “unreliability,”  fibs and distortions are also making nuclear news in California.

The San Onofre nuclear power plant, was moth-balled in 2012 due to  

unusual degradation of the plant’s steam generator tubes.

As you may  recall, an investigation by Vermont’s own Fairewinds Associates, conducted on behalf of Friends of the Earth “persuaded” the NRC to put an indefinite hold on efforts to restart the facility.

Now we are learning that  Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Southern California Edison knew that there were serious design flaws even before the equipment was installed.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and U.S. Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) obtained a leaked copy of the report and wrote to the head of the NRC last week alleging that the report “indicates that Southern California Edison (SCE) and MHI were aware of serious problems with the design of San Onofre nuclear power plant’s replacement steam generators before they were installed.”

It appears that Edison has been trying to pass along the expense associated with this corporate screw-up to the rate-payors.  While it is still uncertain what sort of penalties the company might face for the cover-ups, it has already submitted proposals for restarting the least damaged of the San Onofre reactors.  

An interesting aside is the fact that rate payers have already been paying decommissioning costs to the tune of $3 billion, as of September 2012.  At that time, managers of the decommissioning fund were looking to change the manner in which the decommissioning nest egg was invested for the possibility of a greater yield in a shorter time.  This of course would involve a great deal more risk in the face of market fluctuations, and, with total costs estimated at 3.7 billion and ten years to decommissioning, it seemed an imprudent idea.

The KPBS piece I found on the proposed investment shift suggested that the proposal might be risky for the rate payers, but would definitely be lucrative to investment managers who could charge higher fees for “new categories of investment.”

Then there is the small matter of San Onofre’s location near a seismically active fault line, and in uncomfortably close proximity to dense populations.

The overall picture of the San Onofre operation does not inspire confidence, but Southern California residents are left entirely to the tender mercies of the NRC as they have no real power to prevent a restart.  

Well… it happened again.

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The past week or so has seen several stories emerge that, while not related in any usual sense, are necessary to consider in conjunction for the overarching questions they raise.

First, there was the rescue of the kidnapped six-year old in Alabama, through the unconventional devices  of the FBI.

From this, we were given to understand that the same technology that aided in the location and capture or liquidation of America’s foreign enemies was now entering the toolbox of domestic law enforcement.  Good news for the child who was safely freed, but somewhat chilling to some of us who recall J. Edgar Hoover’s unhinged vendettas against those he saw as his enemies.

Then came revelations about the Administration’s drone policies, and it crossed my mind that a spectacular rescue like the FBI had just completed, demonstrating the real benefits of related technologies of war, might just be the spoonful of sugar to make news of further compromises to our presumed liberties go down a little better.

Then yesterday, as a tense manhunt gripped LA, we had an object lesson in human failure that only served to deepen my concerns.

The L.A.P.D., understandably on edge as crazed ex-cop and trained sniper, Christopher Jordon Dorner, eluded capture after issuing a threatening manifesto against the entire department and murdering three people, became a little trigger happy and shot up a van with two innocent women inside!

As the vehicle approached the house, officers opened fire, unloading a barrage of bullets into the back of the truck. When the shooting stopped, they quickly realized their mistake. The truck was not a Nissan Titan, but a Toyota Tacoma. The color wasn’t gray, but aqua blue. And it wasn’t Dorner inside the truck, but a woman and her mother delivering copies of the Los Angeles Times.

Apart from a real concern with the threat these new stealth capabilities pose to national values of justice, privacy and  personal freedoms, I think there is good reason to distrust the human factor of simple operator error.

“Boom goes London, boom Paris…”

Boom goes the homeless guy who lives up a tree.

It comes as little surprise to Vermonters that equipment provided by Entergy Louisiana’s sister division, Entergy New Orlean’s, has finally been identified, conclusively, as the reason for the Superbowl blackout.

Entergy New Orleans announced Friday that an electrical relay failed in the third quarter of the game between between the Baltimore Ravels and San Francisco 49ers. The game was delayed more than 30 minutes until power and lights were fully restored to the stadium…The energy provider said the device was installed to protect the Superdome equipment in the event of a cable failure between the switchgear and the stadium.

Looks like the power giant has some explaining to do.

Will Entergy succeed in persuading the New Orleans City Council’s Utility Committee, with whom it meets on Friday, that it was just an innocent mistake that anyone could make; or will the Committee decide Entergy’s past record represents a culture of greed and unreliability, and so, demand compensation?  

Stay tuned.

Note from jvwalt — I had the chance to interview Doug Hoffer about his initial list of audits, which was nicely summarized by Sue Prent. I’ll add Hoffer’s comments in italics below, and also after the jump. To begin with, he wanted to point out that these are not “financial audits,” which are now done by an outside firm; these are “performance audits,” which try to determine whether a program is achieving its goals and spending its money wisely.

State Auditor, Doug Hoffer, announced today that the office has launched four audits representing its most immediate priorities; among them:

Department of Corrections:

Correct Care Solutions…for verification of cost and performance consistent with the terms of the contract. …the current three-year contract is (for) $53 million.

This is the contract to provide health care services to prison inmates. Hoffer: “I have no reason to believe there’s a problem, but with a contract of this size it never hurts to take a look.”

Agency of Transportation:

(two large contracts to be identified in the planning phase)

The questions? Were they completed on-time, within budget, and did the contractor “meet the performance specifications.”

Two large-scale AOT contracts will be chosen, as something of a representative sample. Hoffer says such audits have “not been done in some time.”

Agency of Administration’s Workers’ Compensation and Injury Prevention Program: The Auditor’s office will organize and review data related to worker’s claims over the past five years in order to

…identify trends and evaluate whether the Program has focused its resources on preventing the most common causes of claims. The amount paid in claims in FY12 was $7.3 million.

Hoffer notes that this is not an audit of workers’ comp itself, but of the state’s injury-prevention and education programs, to see if they are producing results and if there’s anything more that can be done.

State-Issued Cell Phones:Are existiing state-issued phones being “underused,” and where do efficiency opportunities exist that might reduce the cost? (“about $2 million in FY12”)

… we will engage with Buildings & General Services, which manages the cell phone contracts.

Hoffer: “We know in our own lives how challenging it is to find a plan that makes sense. With so many state employees now having cellphones, do they all need them? Are they in the right plan for their needs? What about cellphones that are lost or damaged? A whole range of questions.

“When [our staff] tried to collect preliminary information on the cost of cellphone use in state government, there were several different estimates of the cost. So there’s no serious final number on this. So that’s one of the things we’re looking at, is whether the accounting on cellphones makes sense.”

A fifth area of focus will be prep work (“background research and analysis”) in anticipation of audits of the “Last Mile” telecom program, and the state’s investment in health information technology related to the health care initiative.

More detail on this after the jump.

All in all a valuable and ambitious slate of priorities.

With the uber-capable Hoffer at the helm, this is gonna be good!

All material below is by jvwalt, based on an interview with Doug Hoffer earlier today.

Regarding the prep work for audits of the “Last Mile” telecom program (the effort to bring broadband service to every Vermonter) and health IT, Hoffer says the two audits are so complex that he wants to take time to lay the groundwork so he can more effectively define the parameters of an audit. “The worst thing you can do is tackle a job like that without determining a scope of work with specific objectives.” Expect those two audits to be launched later this year.

You can also expect more audits of IT contracts in the future, since this has been a problematic area for state government.

Finally, it’s now possible to keep track of audits in progress on the Auditor’s website. For each audit currently underway, you’ll see a start date and a projected completion date. Those end dates are set conservatively; if anything, the reports should be done earlier.

Checking the webpage now, I see that the workers’ comp and cellphone audits will be first across the finish line, with projected completions in June. The AOT and Corrections healthcare audits will be done by mid-summer.

Also, there’s one more audit listed for launch this summer with completion by early 2014: an audit of the state’s Sex Offender Registry. According to the webpage, this will be a follow-up to an audit done in 2010: “Due to the findings of that audit, a second audit is required.”

There’s one more piece of news from my conversation with Hoffer, which I will post in a separate diary later this evening or tomorrow morning.  

BP just handed me a link to this Fast Company story which lays out a history of Entergy failures and alleged corruption in “service” of its Louisiana customers.  ‘Seemed more than worthy of inclusion here on GMD.

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There’s nothing like the Super Bowl to command media attention.  

That’s why CEO’s will sell their firstborn to buy ad time, and Madison Avenue touts outdo each other to make their multi-million dollar seconds the ones everyone remembers.

But this year’s Superbowl standout had to be the 34 minute power outage, sponsored by none other than Entergy New Orleans.  

Yes, that same Entergy; or at least its evil twin.

Of course, Entergy has blamed a failure of equipment at the Superdome for the outage, and insists power was flowing to the stadium at the time the lights blinked out.  Nevertheless, at least at my house, there were knowingly raised eyebrows.

So what is the take-away from this blockbuster power poop-out?  Maybe it’s just a reminder that we all had better be prepared for some spectacular failures as consumption inevitably ticks up with the return of economic vitality, and aging transmission infrastructure continues to decline under the questionable stewardship of “private enterprise.”  

It’s only a coincidence that Entergy New Orleans played a role in the Superbowl blackout just as we revisited the whopper told by Entergy Louisiana to our own Public Service Board; but it did my heart good to imagine Entergy executives fanning away palpitations up in their mink-lined sky box, knowing full well what the coming week has in store for them.

This significant tidbit came to my attention yesterday, just after the key snapped off in the front door, the kitchen sink backed-up, the gas meter packed in, and my husband got a flat without a spare tire.

Now that the dust is beginning to settle on the wreck of our material lives, I am returning to the incontrovertible evidence, reinforcing mere memory, that, way back in 2002, Entergy not once, but twice gave its  guarantee, it’s“100% promise,” to shut down operations in 2012, should the facility not be issued a certificate of public good to continue operating.  

There it is in black and white: embedded in the testimony given before the Public Service Board, on February 6, 2002 by one Mr. Michael Kansler, self-identified as

employed by Entergy Nuclear Operations, Inc. as Senior Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer. I am also Senior Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee, LLC, owned by Entergy Nuclear Vermont  Investment Company.”

Feb. 5, 2002; p. 216… Our intent here is obviously we have to get permission from the NRC for renewal, but also is to get basically Vermont’s permission to continue to license also, and so at this point we don’t envision that we would turn this into a battle, say we’re going to continueoperations again the wishes of the State of Vermont.

Chairman Dworkin: Are you making a commitment that you won’t do that?

Mr. Kansler: I won’t say one hundred percent sure it’s nota possibility, but right now I would say our intent is not to turn this into a battle. If the State doesn’t want it, we wouldn’t go forward with it.

Feb. 6, 2002; p 25

Mr. Kansler:… I guess what I would say is that the commitment in the deal is that we will get your approval, therefore we would get your approval. If we don’t get your approval we won’t get life extension.

Chairman Dworkin: That sounds like a hundred percent guarantee.

Mr. Kansler: That’s a hundred percent guarantee.

Board Member Coen: It’s a change in your position?

Mr. Kansler: Yes.

(Michael Kansler’s technical testimony in  Docket 6545 (in 2001-2))

Chairman Dworkin goes on to repeat to Mr. Kansler exactly what he has committed Entergy to doing, ie. respecting the decision of the PSB; and asks Mr. Kansler to confirm that he has understood correctly.  Mr. Kansler replies that he has.

Chairman Dworkin: I want to just tell

counsel that this obviously is an issue of

major significance. And the specific drafting

of it in such a way as to ensure that it is

extraordinarily likely to be effective is a

matter to which we will want careful

attention. If it turns out that, you know,

one form is more subject to challenge as a

regulatory matter under which there might be

preemption, and another form is more likely to

be sustained as a contractual commitment, we

want people to consider that possibility. But

I want the substance of it which is that

Entergy has no expectation and no reliance on

any chance to preempt this Board’s decision on

it. And that the commitment is, as you said a

few minutes ago, a hundred percent to be

understood as substance, and the text to lock

that in as well as any lawyer can lock it in.

Is that Entergy’s understanding at this stage?

Mr. Kansler: That’s my understanding. Yes.

I’d like to know at what point Entergy will be on the hook legally for having lied to the Public Service Board in order to obtain permission to own and operate Vermont Yankee?  ‘Seems to me that the state ought to be the entity bringing suit against Entergy!

Mendacity would appear to pervade the industry, as this bit of further fibbing seems to confirm.

Apparently, the NRC has finally concluded that Exelon, which has reportedly been interested in acquiring Vermont Yankee from Entergy  

Deliberately provided incomplete and inaccurate decommissioning estimates.  Enforcement action pending (January 13, 2013)

You can file that under “Closing the Barn Door After the Cow Got Loose.”

Does anyone want to bet that the underestimates are not industry wide?

Coming soon to a front page near you:  the really, really bad news about the true cost of decommissioning Vermont Yankee, and how poor Entergy just can’t be expected to shoulder that financial responsibility.

Okay; let’s try this again.

The NRA is saying that background checks won’t work because criminals will get the guns somehow anyway. They still insist we should arm every school in the nation.

I suppose an extension of this idea would be to require all movie theaters to have armed guards.  How about churches, daycare centers, and mega-super-grocery stores?

How far does this idea extend, and who pays for all of this arming-up?

We know who profits if this proposal is adopted.  It’s a win-win for the gun industry.

Let’s set aside, for a moment, all of the Second Amendment discussion that accompanies any proposal to limit access to guns; because the NRA and its manufacturing backers are successfully using that hot-button topic to distract us from who really holds control over the guns in this country.

As I wrote before, I think there is a better way to go about reducing gun violence in America: manufacturer liability.  

Why is there no push to make manufacturers responsible for ensuring that their products do not wind up in the wrong hands?  I see it mentioned here and there by other writers,  but the NRA seems to have succeeded in deflecting everyone’s attention to the unwinnable Second Amendment debate.

They know well how to divide and conquer.

Weapons manufacturers have no skin in the game.  They profit no matter who gets hurt. Sometimes even more so when a mass shooting like Connecticut sets off a weapons buying frenzy.  

With the threat of liability restored among gun-makers, I guarantee that they and the NRA will come up with some cunning new ways to limit the industry’s exposure to risk, which will, collaterally, serve to reduce gun violence.  I don’t know how they’ll do it.  I just have every confidence that they will.  

Why is the American public staked-out to assume all of the risk associated with a manufacturer’s extremely profitable product?

Senators Leahy and Sanders; Congressman Welch: how about it?

Radioactive water is still being generated by the thousands-of-gallons at Fukushima, and where it will all go nobody knows.  

Except we really do know.  It is seeping and will continue to flow into that great planetary toilet and food reserve, the Pacific Ocean. Even after the amount held in retaining ponds is processed to remove as much contamination as is possible, that, too, will end up in the ocean.

Much as the nuclear industry would like us to move on to a plutonium-fueled future,  it cannot escape the nagging evidence that there is no resolution in sight to the enormous risks from nuclear waste.

They can bury it deep, if a willing repository site can be found; and just hope that seismic changes in the planet won’t unexpectedly disgorge the grave in a spectacular fountain of death.  

They can make plans to “recycle” spent fuel for use in hotsy new reactor designs that promise to reuse much of the remaining energy in the form of plutonium; but stockpiling that dangerous substance as fuel will

further open Pandora’s box to terrorists.

It is a puzzlement.

Now, just to remind us that there is something even more deadly than guns out there to worry us, here are a few tales of nuclear waste and contamination that illustrate the grim legacy of our relatively brief worldwide infatuation  with nuclear energy.

In Japan the volume of waste water overwhelming collection tanks at Fukushima is expected to triple over the next three years.

This piece of news about fish caught inside the Fukushima Daiichi harbor brings the point home.

In the U.S., our own Nuclear Regulatory Commission faces the likelihood that existing waste storage facilities will be exhausted for space by 2015.

No matter how successfully proponents deflect attention from the gaping hole in the bottom of our nuclear energy boat, it will just continue sinking under the weight of its growing mountain of waste.

Kudos to Bill Borcher of Green Mountain Gun Shows for gracefully demonstrating how people associated with gun sales are not all hot-headed reactionaries.

According to the Freeps, Mr. Borcher is voluntarily beefing up the screening he was already applying to private vendors at his shows, by requiring background checks for all private sales made at any future event.

Borcher also says the news of multiple-death gun incidents in recent years solidified his view that society ought to make sure only responsible, reliable people get their hands on firearms.

Mr. Borcher is holding an event at the Holiday Inn in South Burlington this weekend and says private security will be on hand to enforce the new rules.

Give that man a ci-gar for saying the magic word: “society.”  

On the same page of the Freeps, but decidedly on the other hand, Robert Boivin II, Chairman of the Board for the Lamoille Valley Fish and Game Club came across with pure petulance when, acting on behalf of the entire membership, he suspended access to the club’s shooting range for Burlington City police.  

The ban was conceived as a punishment for the City Council, which has proposed a ban on semi-automatic rifles and large-capacity magazines; and it certainly did the trick.  Suspension of privileges at the club means that City Police do not have any place to take target practice.  

Mayor Weinberger and the City Council called the suspension “unfortunate.”

Explaining the reason for its decision, the Club wrote that it was withdrawing its support from the City Council because the Council’s action showed

…such prejudice against our club and its members.

No mention of “society” here.

The club’s punitive behavior qualifies for one of my mother’s favorite scolds:

“You’re just cutting off your nose to spite your face.”

Handicapping the local constabulary, who are entrusted with the safety of all residents, will really make the public more sympathetic to opponents of gun restrictions