Governor Pot, meet Kettle

by: Jack McCullough

Fri Jul 04, 2008 at 14:04:09 PM EDT

Did you catch Douglas's complaints about the Vermont Yankee audit panel? I did, and you just have to conclude that they don't have any sense of irony.

The background: the Legislature created a new panel to look at Vermont Yankee and its operations.

Douglas got to appoint somebody, Gaye Symington got to appoint somebody, and Peter Shumlin got to appoint somebody.

Gaye appointed Peter Bradford, who used to serve on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and Peter appointed Arnie Gunderson, a nuclear engineer (they don't give out licenses to operate a nuclear power plant out in cereal boxes) who got a lot of exposure when this picture was taken.

Naturally, Douglas attacks these two appointees because they're enemies of nuclear power.  

"These appointees today clearly have a bias against nuclear power," said Stephen Wark, director of consumer and public affairs at the Department of Public Service. "This is not a referendum on nuclear power."

Oh, but wait a minute, who did Douglas appoint? This guy:

 Not a familiar face? That's Larry Hochreiter, a professor at Penn State since 1997. Apparently a pretty smart guy. He's got a Ph. D. in nuclear engineering, he's a member of the American Nuclear Society. He undoubtedly knows a lot, probably including how to pronounce "nuclear" which gives him an edge over Douglas's buddy in the White House.

But, and you'll like this, you know what he was doing from 1971, the year he got his Ph. D., until 1996?  According to his resume he was a:

Senior and Advisory Engineer, Westinghouse Energy Systems Business Unit

And what do they do?

Westinghouse Energy Systems helped pioneer the commercial nuclear power
business and today holds the premier position for nuclear fuel, services and    
technology in the $9 billion annual global market.

 I'm not saying Hochreiter will be anything but professional and unbiased in this work. 

What I am saying is that Douglas has to be kidding if he thinks he can appoint a guy to this study panel who worked for the nuclear industry for twenty-five years, and then get away with attacking people who have sometimes been critical of nuclear energy for being biased.