HODES OPENS UP VERMONT YANKEE MEETING TO THE PUBLIC
As News Of New Radioactive Leak Further Rocks Trust In The Plant, Hodes Successfully Opens NRC Briefing To The Public
Hodes: Yankee Needs To Be Shut Down Until All Leaks Are Found And Fixed
Washington D.C. – Today, Paul Hodes announced that he has successfully opened to members of the community the publicized “non-public” meeting which was scheduled between officials from local governments, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), and executives from Vermont Yankee. Hodes has worked with the NRC to ensure that area families are able to access the same health and safety information that government officials receive. New reports of radioactive cesium-137 leaking into the soil have created even more concerns surrounding the troubled plant and further underscore the importance of a public dialogue.
[…] The NRC briefing, which had previously been slated to be non-public, has been opened to the community after Hodes put pressure on meeting organizers to make this meeting open to the public. The meeting will be moved to April 12th. Details on the time and location will be determined.
Normally I don’t like to redistribute press releases, but this was too important and I’m with limited access throughout the day and just wanted to get it up.
Crossposted from Border Jumpers, Danielle Nierenberg and Bernard Pollack.
Full disclosure: We had never heard of the Republic of Mauritius until the day we bought a ticket to go there.
Our pathetic excuse: Lonely Planet doesn’t list it in their Africa book.
When we arrived people seemed shocked to meet two people from the United States – hotel clerks, cab drivers, and street vendors who’ve worked on the island for years said they never met Americans before.
Yet, this is clearly America’s loss because sitting in the middle of the Indian ocean is one of the most incredible islands we’ve ever visited.
We always try to reduce our carbon footprint by traveling via public buses, but in this case a boat didn’t seem like a good option and flights from Johannesburg were extremely cheap. We resisted the urge to splurge on an all-inclusive beach holiday and opted for the more budget hostel pay-as-you-go experience.We had only four days and wanted to make the most of them and interacting with people seemed more interesting than lounging forever on a beach.
While English is the official language, few people spoke it. Bernie’s upbringing in Montreal came in handy as we interacted with people using French. Our cab driver from the airport to Grand Bay, Shivan, told us how safe the country was and how people co-exist harmoniously, “we are different colors, with different cultures, but we live together peacefully here. People are all the same, and we all treat each other that way.” The more we interacted with locals, the more people echoed the same sentiments. The traditional foods we ate reflected this multi-ethnicity melting pot, blending Indian, Creole, Chinese and European influences.
“It’s not like most places in Africa,” another cab driver told us. “You can walk anywhere at night. You can leave your stuff unattended. We don’t have much crime here, people will help you – not bother you – and its very rare that they will steal anything from you.”
We asked another local named Richard why he thought it was so safe and he told me that the government took care of it’s people. “Everyone gets a good pension, no matter how long or where you worked; all people get access to health care and free education; and if you’re too poor to own a house then the government builds one for you with electricity for free (and after paying basic rent for seven years, you own it).”
Another person we asked, named Marie, said that Mauritius lacked the government corruption of most African countries, citing it as the reason people visit there over nearby islands such as Madagascar and Comoros. “We have a real democracy,” she said.
In Mauritius, the government is elected on a five-year basis. The last general elections took place on July 3, 2005 in all the 20 mainland constituencies, as well as the constituency covering the island of Rodrigues.
The British left the country after they attained independence in 1968, and became a republic in 1992. According to the 2009 Ibrahim Index of African Governance, which measures governance using a number of different variables, Mauritius’ government earned the highest rank among African nations for “participation and human rights” and “sustainable economic opportunity”, as well as earning the highest score in the index overall. Mauritius came second in “rule of law”, and fourth in terms of “human development” (source: Wikipedia).
Our hostel (Grand Bay Beach Residence), booked via Student Flights (affiliated with Liberty travel in the United States), was terrific value. It is located in short walking distance from the town of Grand Bay and the ocean. The price was around thirty dollars per night, but considering the fact that free 3G WiFi worked on the outdoor deck and taking into account the hours we spent uploading video files and talking on conference calls to the United States on Skype – we got lots of unexpected value. Things like restaurants and tourist destinations are very expensive on the island, but buying groceries and having drinks in the hotel room before heading out dancing allows budget travelers to enjoy everything without a hefty toll on your wallet. All the beaches everywhere in the country are public for both locals and tourists and that was something we enjoyed taking advantage of.
We drove across the Island learning more about the country’s agriculture, which, next to tourism, is their biggest source of income. Sugar cane is the largest export, and the plots of land growing them stretched for miles. We were told that this crop accounted for a quarter of all exports from the country. We also saw lots of pineapple and coffee being grown.
Yet, an industry that surprised us was the booming hi-tech sector. We certainly didn’t expect coast-to-coast wireless internet (3G) when we arrived (it covers 60 percent of the island and is cheap and widely assessable).
We also played tourists and visited Triolet Shivala, the biggest Hindu temple of the island. The temple is dedicated to the Gods Shiva, Krishna, Vishna, Muruga, Brahma and Ganesha. This place is also the longest village on the island.
We also saw the “Coloured Earths of Chamarel,” among the oddest sites of the island. There are seven-coloured dunes at Chamarel, the result from the weathering of volcanic rocks. And a short drive away, we relaxed, eating spicy pineapple near the breathtaking Chamarel waterfalls. And we admit, we visited the beaches there as well.
As we boarded the plane, we looked at each other, and said we hoped to visit this magical island again.
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After more than a year of debates and votes and town hall meetings and demonstrations, on the very day of the final House vote on the health care reform bill, Auditor Tom Salmon decided to weigh in on the issue with his Congressman. He wrote a letter that has been circulating in some circles since, and it constitutes one of the more bizarre, nonsensical – and sometimes disturbing – rants one will ever see from a major elected official. Here are some highlights:
As we know, in addition to fundamental flaws in oversight, the flaws in Medicare (spot-addressed by 208 billion Dr Fix) and continued problems with Medicaid spell a boondoggle. Please don’t buy into the promise of fraud savings. They don’t exist in this current delivery system (bowl of spaghetti) and the bill doesn’t foster a structure to facilitate that oversight model.
Why has the number of uninsured gone up a million a year in California? Senator Feinstein said 8 million plus? Because of cost? I was once a California uninsured preparing to pay cash for the birth of our son. $1600 to the Chinese born doctor and $1000 to Children’s hospital. If you wish to address this by pushing millions into Medicaid, where doctors are getting a 66% payment of the private marketplace, do you think this is going to work? I say no.
"Spaghetti" rambling notwithstanding, its hard to come up with a positive spin on his need to identify his doctor as "Chinese born," as it reads for all the world that he is pronouncing his resentment of payments to someone not quite American enough for him.
It's a hard letter to excerpt, replete as it is with vacillations between high praise of Welch and tea-party-esque doomsaying, along with Salmon's personal opinion of what Bobby Kennedy would say if he were alive (Huh? Did he mean Ted?). There is also the odd matter of Salmon's challenges with his own recent history, or perhaps simply a lack of thought or proofreading:
My September 2008 letter informed all -explaining why I left the Democratic Party and references my view on Healthcare reform.
Since even before his party switch, it seems virtually every time Tom Salmon draws attention to himself, he raises further concerns over his fundamental competence. Yet, there is still no sign whatsoever of any Democrat considering a run against him.
The 2010 Primary election filing deadline is July 19. If the Democrats do not run a challenger, it would constitute a monumental point of shame for the party's rank and file. GMD is absolutely committed to insuring that doesn't happen out of principle – even if it means one of us filling the ballot line ourselves. If the VDP knows what's good for it, it won't let it come to that.
Salmon's complete letter is reprinted in the extended entry in its original, eclectic formatting. It simply cannot be fully appreciated for the train wreck it is without reading it in full.
(NOTE: Diaries posted under the GMD user represent collaborative efforts of multiple admins.)
Dave Gram of the AP has the scoop on that Cesium-37 found at Vermont Yankee in February, which Entergy had tried to fob off on background radiation from 1950s nuclear tests, or Chernobyl, or anything other than that oh-so-reliable plant on the banks of the CT River (enphasis mine). Well, all I can say is “Surprise, surprise, surprise!”:
The Health Department statement on Tuesday said the cesium-137 found in the Vermont Yankee soil samples was three to 12 times as high as the background levels attributed to the other causes, meaning it “appears likely the Cs-137 comes from Vermont Yankee reactor related sources.”
Vermont Yankee spokesman Larry Smith said he was not surprised by the finding, and that plant officials believe the cesium can be cleaned up as part of their already planned effort to remove some of the soil around plant buildings and ship it off for treatment as low-level radioactive waste.
Anyone else surprised at this latest chapter from the Purveyors of TruthinessTM. It seems, some days, that Yankee’s owners ought to consider a new motto: perhaps something along the lines of “more spin, less honesty”….
Matt Dunne responded personally to my invitation to appear on VTblogosphereTV and then handed scheduling over to the able David Babbott. We determined a date to shoot easily and David kept me apprised of a potential conflict but did some shuffling so that Matt could fit the interview in between a luncheon at Dealer.com and a discussion with the UVM College Democrats. I was left with an impression of a kinetic, conscientious and connected campaign. A kinetic, conscientious, and connected governor could take some getting used to.
Matt Dunne explicitly relates his understanding of the internet to the challenges of governing in the twenty-first century. Transparency and connectivity are essential to transforming our state government. In discussing his issues website Vermont’s Future, Matt states “I believe that democracy on the web works.” On one level, he simply means that it is important to trust that dialogues on the web concerning politics need not devolve into shouting matches, but can actually result in bringing new ideas to light.
On another level, though, Matt is suggesting that by smartly moving some of the functions of governance to the web, we will ultimately live in a state that is more responsive and more representative.
He expands on these twin themes of transparency and connectivity throughout the interview, so stay tuned for Parts 2 and 3.
[Note: No endorsement implied. Just continuing the VTblogosphereTV tradition of showcasing the qualities of the guest.]
(Continuing the policy of promoting diaries from officeholders and officeseekers – promoted by GMD)
One way of demonstrating accountability is conducting public business in public for everyone to see. Entergy has put the safety of Vermonter's at risk as well as the jobs of more than 600 in our community. I have always taken the position that safety comes first and that is why I have strongly opposed the re-licensing of Vermont Yankee.
We saw on Green Mountain Daily last week that Entergy really doesn't like inviting the public to its briefings. Now, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Entergy plan an out-of-state, closed-door meeting. This only reaffirms Vermonter's worries about Entergy's intentions. As Secretary of State, I have fought to keep Vermont government open and accountable.
This move continues to erode the little faith Vermonters have in an aging nuclear plant and the company that operates it until 2012.
While the safety of the plant continues to be a top priority as long as it operates, we still haven't heard a plan for the job loss that really concerns me.
I still await emergency plans from the administration and the legislature to address the impact throughout the state. I have laid out steps I think should be taken but these steps cannot wait until I become governor in January 2011.
Today, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) called on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to reconsider its plans to hold a private meeting regarding NRC oversight of Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee (ENVY), ENVY’s tritium releases, and other issues questions from attendees. The closed meeting for invitees the NRC deemed to be stakeholders is scheduled for April 14 at the Keene Country Club in Keene, NH.
March 30, 2010
The Honorable Gregory B. Jaczko
Chairman
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Washington, D.C. 20555-0001
Dear Chairman Jaczko:
We write to follow up on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s invitation to participate in a closed-door “Government-to-Government” meeting on April 14 in Keene, New Hampshire.
We are committed to open and transparent government and to honoring both the letter and spirit of Vermont’s open meeting laws. Avoiding Vermont’s open meeting laws by holding this meeting in New Hampshire will only add to the growing public skepticism about the handling of oversight at Vermont Yankee, and could curtail participation from Vermont officials.
While we recognize that the discussion of information relating to security considerations often requires confidential briefings, the discussion of broader issues surrounding this facility is of great interest to Vermonters and is a discussion that should be conducted in a public setting.
We urge you to reconsider, and to hold the April 14 meeting in Vermont so that Vermont’s federal, state and local officials can fully participate. We look forward to hearing from you regarding this request.
Sincerely,
Patrick Leahy Bernard Sanders Peter Welch
U.S. Senator U.S. Senator U.S. Representative
I deeply appreciate this letter from our Congressional Delegation. Safe and reliable nuclear power are not issues to be discussed behind closed doors. Entergy has not met its burden of proof on ENVY’s reliability to the State of Vermont or its burden of proof on safety issues to the NRC, now matter what public claims are made by NRC spokespersons.
More on this and on Secretary of State Deb Markowitz’s comments will be added below the fold.
By the way, government-to-government secret meetings do not exist in any statute. I have always found the NRC to be unique, in that it writes it own rules and regulations. While Congress gave it the authority to promulgate its own regulations, that was done in order to support itself in meeting its primary statutory authority to protect public health and safety.
I delve into this process in my book. Here is an excerpt:
“Congress considered the concept of protecting “public health and safety” so critical that it
stated “public health and safety” 80 times in its original 1974 enabling legislation that disbanded the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and created the NRC. Furthermore,in the second paragraph of the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974 entitled Declaration of Purpose it is stated,
The Congress hereby declares that the general welfare and the common defense and security require effective action to develop, and increase the efficiency and reliability of use of, all energy sources to meet the needs of present and future generations, to increase the productivity of the national economy and strengthen its position in regard to international trade, to make the Nation self-sufficient in energy, to advance the goals of restoring, protecting, and enhancing environmental quality, and to assure public health and safety.
In fact, Congress had determined that “public health and safety” were so critical and that a clear separation must be established between the nuclear industry, its government proponents, and those who regulated the industry that it took the critical step of disbanding the AEC, which had originally been created as part of the Atoms for Peace program in 1954.
It took only 20 years for the American people and their elected Congressional representatives to realize the impossibility of the AEC charter to simultaneously promote and regulate nuclear power. Unfortunately, simply changing the name over the door did not alter the culture or nomenclature created by the NRC.
In 1976 when I was first employed in the nuclear industry, because I was a writer, part of my job grew to include writing nuclear technical information for the local American Nuclear Society (ANS) Chapter in lay terminology so that non-nuclear engineers could understand its statewide newsletter. As an engineering aide in Reload Core Design [analyzing and calculating the optimum configuration for fuel reloads] for Combustion Engineering (CE), I was good at explaining nuclear technical facts in plain English, so good in fact that I was asked to be a member of an organizing team for a nuclear advocacy grassroots training workshop, and I was encouraged by my supervisor and CE’s management team to apply for three positions as a nuclear information specialist with three nuclear utilities that were CE clients.
I was hired by NYSE&G (New York State Electric and Gas) as the public information specialist at a proposed nuclear power plant site in upstate New York. I was the friendly feminine face of the utility in contrast to the nuclear suits NYSE&G had been sending out into the community. When I joined NYSE&G in 1977, I honestly did not realize that the games played by the industry and the NRC were part and parcel of the obfuscation we see continued by the industry today.
The Union of Concerned Scientists, UCS, said it best in its 1985 report Safety Second: A Critical Evaluation of the NRC’s First Decade,
“In the change from the AEC to the NRC, has the agency transformed from a promoter of nuclear power to a tough regulator of the industry? … Given the unique legacy of the AEC, the NRC should have taken extraordinary measures to separate itself from the taint of industry dominance.
Regrettably, it did not do so. In the NRC’s license proceedings the agency’s staff has consistently served as an advocate for the utility. As a result of inadequate NRC review, design and construction defects have often
surfaced so late in the construction process that huge cost overruns, delays or even cancellations have become inevitable.
The NRC’s investigatory practices — which have included sharing drafts with those being investigated, arbitrarily restricting the scope of investigations, and undermining probes by the Department of Justice — sadly reflect the
agency’s lack of independence from the industry it regulates.”
Federal statute enables most government agencies the ability to promulgate their own regulations, and the NRC is no different. While Congress gave the NRC the authority to write all of its own laws and regulations, it never envisioned the NRC would invite the Nuclear Industry in to help.
Consequently, the NRC’s methodology of promoting the industry rather than protecting “public health and safety” has become the NRC’s mantra with its own cleverly disguised Playbook. The NRC, which was created by Congress in order to assure distance from the nuclear industry it is chartered to regulate, instead considers the Nuclear Industry as a stakeholder in the regulatory process. For that matter, the entire regulatory process created by the NRC systematically disenfranchises the very public it was created to protect.
In Profiles in Power, authors Jerry Brown and Rinaldo Brutoco cite members of the President’s Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island, who
“condemn federal regulators (first in the Atomic Energy Commission and later in the NRC) for consistently permitting the industry to compromise safety in order to cut costs.”
To me, it is incredulous that anyone might believe that the NRC is at all capable of meeting its legal federal contract to protect “public health and safety” when both the industry is not only considered a stakeholder, but given more rights than the public who are the victims of illegal radiation releases, extensive cost overruns, astronomical utility rates, and thousands of tons of carcinogenic material left to rot in the environment. I ask you, when crimes are committed, are police, the offenders, and the victims all equal stakeholders?
Couched in challenging language that the layperson and general public cannot understand
and regulatory meetings and processes unavailable to the public, the NRC uses its terminology and regulations to shroud itself in secrecy. This portion of my as yet unpublished book was written in 2008.
Now in addition to the no longer secret misnamed government-to-government meeting, the NRC has created an open workshop for interested parties to sit down and speak with members of the NRC staff about any concerns they may have. You may read the invitation to the public April 12 meeting here http://greenmountaindaily.com/…
Lastly, yesterday in an update to my post on this secret government-to-government meeting the gubernatorial candidates were challenged to staff this meeting and bring their notes forward as formal meeting notes.
This meeting must be recorded in accordance with Vermont’s Open Meeting laws. If these four Vermont government officials send their staff, then all records. . . are public documents. . .
I want to see all four elected candidates commit to upholding open government on one of the biggest liabilities the Douglas administration is hoisting on Vermont’s taxpayers and all of us rate payers.
In response, GMD received a press release and accompanying statement from Secretary of State Deb Markowitz’s campaign in which she said,
One way of demonstrating accountability is
conducting public business in public for everyone to see. Entergy has put the safety of Vermonters at risk as well as the jobs of more than 600 in
our community. I have always taken the position that safety comes first and that is why I have strongly opposed the re-licensing of Vermont Yankee.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Entergy’s
plans for an out-of-state, closed-door meeting only reaffirms Vermonter’s worries about Entergy’s intentions. As Secretary of State, I
have fought to keep Vermont government open and accountable. This move continues to erode the little faith Vermonters have in an aging nuclear plant and the company that operates it until 2012.
Almost two months ago, I led with a vision for
green energy incubators in Windham county to create a “Green Zone” to jumpstart job growth, retrain workers and help the families affected by the plant’s closing. I still await emergency plans from the administration and the legislature to address the impact throughout the state. I have laid out steps I think should be taken but these steps cannot wait until I become governor in January 2011.
Senator Doug Racine also wrote to GMD and said,
Maggie, thanks for the post and the information. My field director, Amy Shollenberger, will attend the meeting. We sent the RSVP today.
I’m going to cross-post on the other story about this issue, too.
Thank you Senator. I will be curious to see if the NRC actually allows your field director Amy Shollenberger to attend.
The invitation list I saw seemed to be exclusively select board members, mayors, and Uldis Vanigs from DPS. The list I saw seemed to leave out all the legislators as well as the Congressional delegation unless an additional list has surfaced belatedly like the new public workshop for April 12.
The other story to which Senator Racine refers is my original post on GMD about the NRC’s secret government-to government-meeting, which you may read here: http://greenmountaindaily.com/…
This week that is the question being asked by Vermont’s joint legislative healthcare committees. We say Yes! The current version of S.88 calls for implementation in 2012 of a real universal healthcare system (see our breakdown of the bill here: http://www.workerscenter.org/n… ). The new federal health bill will set up healthcare insurance state exchanges in 2014 which could mess this up. But the new bill does establish the right of state’s to make their own universal single-payer healthcare system in 2017. But Sen. Bernie Sanders and and others are pushing to pass new legislation to move that date up until 2014.
From David Reynolds, Senior Health Policy Advisor for Senator Bernie Sanders, who is speaking today at a joint meeting of the Senate-House health committees:
“Since last week, the one question I have been repeatedly asked in various forms by single payer advocates, legislators, and policy makers in VT is:
Should Vermont continue to pursue a single payer system given that the earliest date for waivers is 2017 and, before then, Vermont would have to set up an exchange?”
ANSWER: Yes, Vermont should proceed with legislation. We intend, before 2014, to seek a change in the waiver date to 2014. If Vermont and other states pass legislation to set up a single payer system, it will provide added leverage for us and our allies in the Senate to get this change adopted. ”
For the sake of the millions of people like us who suffer and die each year in our broken market based healthcare system, Vermont must continue moving forward to lead the country. We must not let the vested interests in the current system, may they be those directly profiting under the current system or those acting on their behalf, get in the way of real progress.
We must pass a strong version of S.88 which develops implementation plans of how Vermont would navigate the federal programs and receive waivers where we need them. The bill calls for this to be designed for January 2011 and implemented in 2012. We can start putting our system in place prior to the state exchanges and work with Sen. Sanders and the rest of our delegation to get any additional waivers we need to make it work. We cannot let this be an excuse to preserve the status quo.
James Haslam is the Director of the Vermont Workers’ Center, who coordinate the Healthcare Is A Human Right Campaign in 2008. Check out: www.workerscenter.org
Full disclosure: We had never heard of the Republic of Mauritius until the day we bought a ticket to go there. 
While English is the official language, few people spoke it. Bernie’s upbringing in Montreal came in handy as we interacted with people using French. Our cab driver from the airport to Grand Bay, Shivan, told us how safe the country was and how people co-exist harmoniously, “we are different colors, with different cultures, but we live together peacefully here. People are all the same, and we all treat each other that way.” The more we interacted with locals, the more people echoed the same sentiments. The traditional foods we ate reflected this multi-ethnicity melting pot, blending Indian, Creole, Chinese and European influences.
Another person we asked, named Marie, said that Mauritius lacked the government corruption of most African countries, citing it as the reason people visit there over nearby islands such as Madagascar and Comoros. “We have a real democracy,” she said.
We drove across the Island learning more about the country’s agriculture, which, next to tourism, is their biggest source of income. Sugar cane is the largest export, and the plots of land growing them stretched for miles. We were told that this crop accounted for a quarter of all exports from the country. We also saw lots of pineapple and coffee being grown.
