While interest is focussed on Governor-elect Peter Shumlin and his nascent administration, outgoing Jim Douglas (“Governor Sissorhands,” as he has been widely known) wanders the state in a sort of farewell tour, sloshing with jocularity and tepid humor.  According to the Messenger, at a Rotary toast in St. Albans today

“Douglas…joked that his next career goal is as a greeter at the St. Albans Town Walmart.”

It may look like the Douglas administration, now a “lame duck,” is backing harmlessly away from the table, but don’t count your giblets before they’re gravy.  Only today, we learn that a couple of Douglas appointees are hurriedly concluding negotiations on an obscure matter that may have greater influence over the fate of Vermont Yankee than either the determinations of the legislature or the will of the people.  Now this is pretty wonky stuff which, rest-asssured, both Entergy and the Douglas Administration very much hope will not engage the majority of Vermonters.  Vermont Digger has the story, and you’d best read the whole thing very carefully.

It seems that, back in 1998, when VY’s “sell-by” date was still fourteen years in the future, Vermont made a compact with Texas

“to establish a permanent repository for low-level radioactive waste generated by nuclear power plants and medical and research facilities in Vermont and Texas. The compact was set up for the two states’ exclusive use. (Maine was originally a part of the agreement but dropped out).  In 2009, Waste Control Specialists received a license to open a radioactive waste landfill in West Texas for the compact that is now under construction.”

Between 1998 and the present, I think we can fill in the blanks.  Time went by; the economy of both states got dicey; and someone decided it might be a good idea to offset the cost of constructing and operating the landfill by admitting a “few more” member states into the compact. Appointed by Douglas, Vermont’s only two representatives to the Texas commission, Uldis Vandis and Steven Wark, are among those supporting the move to admit more states.  Several Texas commissioners apparently disagree.

“Critics say the new rules could transform the landfill into a national repository for low-level nuclear waste and that it could fill up quickly because demand for landfill space is high. Thirty-six states are not currently part of a radioactive waste disposal compact.”

The upshot is that, after a 30-day period allowed for public comment that is set to expire on December 27, the commission will make its final decision before Peter Shumlin takes office and has the opportunity to replace  Vandis and Wark as Vermont’s only voices on the Texas commission.  If the commission votes to allow more states to join the compact and the predictions of critics are born-out, capacity at the landfill may be consumed before Vermont has had the opportunity to decommission Yankee and move all of its contaminated materials to the Texas site.  

This would be just fine with Jim Douglas and Co., who favored the so-called “SAFSTOR” alternative which would delay decommissioning for sixty years, keeping Yankee contaminants locally contained on the site at Vernon.  Why deal with nuclear waste in a timely manner when we can simply kick it down the road for another generation to deal with?  As explained in the Digger piece, there are plenty of reasons not to “love” this scenario; and the fact that the Texans, little-known for their environmental sympathies, are doubtful about the wisdom of opening-up the compact to more members should give anyone pause.

Nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen, who serves as a member of the Legislative Public Oversight Panel, believes that the SAFSTOR plan is not the most prudent way to deal with decommissioning, and maintains that VY should be decommissioned in just ten years, requiring access to the planned landfill space in Texas.  He fears that opening-up the compact to the 35 other states who would be likely to take advantage of the opportunity, would quickly exhaust the site and make it impossible to decommission Vermont Yankee.

Gundersen believes that Vanag underestimated the cost of decommissioning Vermont Yankee in his 2009 testimony to the Public Service Board, because his calculations assumed that decommissioning would be completed by 2020.  If the landfill site in Texas is exhausted by other states, Vermont would be forced to adopt the SAFSTOR approach which Douglas favors, and which would ultimately be far costlier and potentially damaging to the state.

A word to the wise: Douglas seems to have no intention of going “gentle into that good night.”  His appointees are stepping up the pace to ensure that everything is in place to perpetuate his agenda with regard to VY well-beyond his administration.  What a good friend Entergy has had in Gentleman Jim Douglas.

Buzzing around the internet is the story of a couple of House Republicans who, perhaps emboldened by their new majority, have cast common sense to the wind in a united front against last weeks’ decision by the USDA to compensate farmers who were harmed through discrimination by that agency in the 1980’s and 1990’s. Joined by perennial space-cadet Michele Bachman (R-Minnesota), Steve King (R-Iowa) is equating the payments to compensation for slavery, saying that the U.S. will never pay such “slavery reparations.”  

Never mind the fact that even the worst student of American history would be unlikely to confuse discriminatory practices in the late twentieth century with the slave era, which ended more than a hundred years earlier…or that their remarks,  like this from Rep. King:

“We’ve got to stand up at some point and say, ‘We are not gonna pay slavery reparations in the United States Congress,'” he continued. “That war’s been fought. That was over a century ago. That debt was paid for in blood, and it was paid for in the blood of a lot of Yankees, especially. And there’s no reparations for the blood that paid for the sin of slavery. No one’s filing that claim.”

exhibit a level of ignorance and insensitivity most people would be embarrassed to admit to.  You have to wonder why it is becoming acceptable for political figures to openly parade their worst prejudices while serving in the name of the American people.

Look at what King had to say on March 8, 2008, as he announced his run for a fourth term, which coincided with the presidential race that was then in progress:

I’ll just say this: When you think about the optics of a Barack Obama potentially getting elected President of the United States — I mean, what does this look like to the rest of the world? What does it look like to the world of Islam?”

if he is elected president, then the radical Islamists, the al-Qaida, the radical Islamists and their supporters, will be dancing in the streets in greater numbers than they did on September 11 because they will declare victory in this War on Terror.”

Even after expressing such an unsavory view, the guy got re-elected; and he’s still going strong! So now I guess he feels invincible to broader public opinion.

Michelle Bachman goes so far as to allege fraud on the part of the farmers and ex-farmers whom the USDA proposes to compensate.  As is usual for Bachman, she makes this claim without offering any supporting evidence whatsoever, and despite the fact that the USDA has already conducted reviews of the 15,000 claims involved in the first phase of the Pigford discrimination claims process and found only 3 to be fraudulent! She proposes that Congress begin cutting the federal budget by eliminating the USDA’s discrimination settlements entirely!  Shades of the Acorn witchhunt?

I read these things in disbelief and alarm to think what the coming sessions of Congress may visit upon us.    

As the first holiday hang-over begins to clear it’s nice to see evidence that some good old habits don’t die hard.  Today, Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s, the state’s biggest corporate success, joined that other icon of Vermont exceptionalism, Bernie Sanders in calling for an end to the Bush-era tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans.  With development of a hugely successful corporation in his personal history, Ben Cohen has repeatedly demonstrated his ongoing commitment to social justice.  

Senator Sanders had this to say:

…at a time when this country has a $13.7 trillion national debt it would be a huge mistake, over a ten year period, to add another $700 billion to that debt by providing more tax breaks for the wealthiest people in this country.

Citing the growing income inequity in this country and the desperate need of many on the lowest rungs of the economic ladder,  Sanders insists that we simply cannot afford to continue this largesse to the rich:

For people earning more than $1 million a year, the continuation of the Bush-era tax cuts would amount to an average tax break of about $100,000 a year. With the top one percent already earning, in 2007, 23.5 percent of all income in this country – more than the bottom 50 percent makes, that would be morally unfair and economically unwise.  Lastly, if we provide these tax breaks to people who don’t need them and drive up the national debt, the demand to cut spending on programs of importance to the middle class and working families of our country would only accelerate. That means cuts in health care, education, nutrition, housing, LIHEAP, etc.

Senator Sanders is also proposing that in lieu of a cost of living adjustment (COLA), seniors and veterans be given, “at the very least,” a one-time emergency check of $250.

The issue of extending the Bush-era tax cuts is likely to come up in the next week or so, says Sanders. One can only hope that, with the Blue Dogs largely a memory in the upcoming Congress and Republican obstructionism looming as an even harsher reality,  the Democrats will take this one last chance to address the ugly reality that we are slipping into the economic habits and profile of a third world country.  

How about this, just in from the St. Albans Police Dept?

On November 23, 2010 the St. Albans Police Department initiated a criminal investigation regarding a threat of violence against the building occupants and State employees at the Vermont State Office Building on Houghton Street in the City of St. Albans. The actual threat was posted on Facebook by a client who was identified as Robert McMillan, age 31 of Fairfax Vermont. McMillan was upset about perceived slow services and a lack of speedy financial assistance that he was seeking.

It would appear that Mr. McMillan has encountered the log-jam in state services that we have been discussing here.  This is what the police report that he posted on Facebook:

“This message is too anyone who is friends with the workers at the state building, tell them to stay home if they don’t want to be in the middle of a riot… if people don’t get their benifits and I find enough people, let’s just say, columbine was nothing.. Hunger, will make people do crazy things..”.

McMillan was apprehended in Fairfax and will face a charge of False Public Alarm.

While Mr. McMillan’s threats may not have been genuine, they bring to the table the reality that, when cutbacks in public services that would normally be extended to unstable people are joined by failure to deliver relief to the desperately poor, the combination can have terrible implications for civil society as a whole.

More troubling news on the home-heating front. Always a challenge in Vermont’s bitter climate, economic hardship may force many more elderly and low-income families to choose this winter between food and heat.  

Thanks to legislation sponsored by Senators Sanders, Leahy and Congressman Welch, federal funding for heating assistance more than doubled in the last two years; however, according to a release from Bernie Sanders’ office

“Because Congress has not yet approved spending bills for the coming year…initial allocations by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for the energy assistance program were about 40 percent less than last year’s levels….Vermont was allocated $15 million instead of the more than $25 million the state would receive if the program was fully funded.”

So despite the fact that poor Vermonters’ need is growing, there will likely be less help to go around this year; and we already know how hard it is proving to be to get any assistance at all.

Senators Sanders and Leahy have sent a letter to leaders of the Senate Appropriations Committee pleading the case for fully funding the program for seniors and low-income families. If Congress does not recognize the urgency of approving the additional funds for the coming year, the average benefit to needy households will be reduced from $1,100. to $660.

“During these very difficult times, we have got to make sure that not one Vermonter goes cold this winter or has to make the unacceptable choice between heating their homes and feeding their families,” Sanders said.  “LIHEAP is a lifeline to dignity for thousands of Vermont senior citizens on fixed incomes, the disabled, and families with children.  Fully funding this program is essential this winter.”

It seems like a cruel joke that even after they successfully run the gantlet of endless waits and bureaucracy to finally get approved for assistance, poor Vermonters are likely to get substantially less than is needed.  

Great!  “Shades of things to come,” thought I, as I read the news of poor Vermonters being left on endless hold when they sought assistance with food and fuel following the implementation of new technology by the Department of Children and Families. Yes, that same Department of Children and Families where an employee famously embezzled nearly half-a-million dollars over a period of five years.

In theory, the “streamlining” of various state processes through advanced technology interfaces sounds like just the ticket to cut the fat from state budgets; but like everything in the man-made universe, technical systems are only as good as the planners, programmers and operators who are entrusted with making them work.  We are told that modernizing efforts in the Department of Children and Families that have culminated in a bottleneck of epic proportions actually began several years ago; and that the system, initiated  “on a shoestring,” was intended to be fully operational by last June.  

“When you change a system, there are growing pains,” (Governor) Douglas spokesman David Coriell said.

Tell that to an elderly fuel assistance applicant, sitting in the November cold, as she is informed by an automated voice that she has a wait-time of over 1,000 minutes before someone will get to her call!

What gets me is that this is all so very predictable and speaks volumes of what we might expect in the wake of the Challenges for Change initiatives.  So much future thought has been invested in the confidence that massive amounts of data can be easily collected from service-seekers through the internet, stored securely, and efficiently dispersed as needed to every office and agency in the state.  Sounds great on paper; and if the human element could just be eliminated everything would run like clockwork.

But we all know what it’s like dealing with badly planned voice-mail systems that never offer an option that “fits;” where one finally hammers desperately at “0” in the faint hope of getting a human being…ANY human being.  This isn’t a fault of the technology; it is a fault of the programmer; and it happens time and again when systems are rolled-out without sufficient attention to the practical workability of the interface when confronted with random and unpredictable demands.   The assumption is always that every task and demand will neatly fit some planned digital template.

The need to find opportunities for savings in every corner of government is understandable, but to rush those efficiencies on the assumption that technology will make them happen seamlessly, may be counterproductive in the long-run, and downright harmful in the short.  If the efficiencies are designed only with cost-savings in mind and not primarily to improve service to the public they  are probably going to result in even greater pain for the taxpayers.  I would urge the new administration to observe the old carpenter’s adage to “measure twice before cutting once” as you pursue your own “Challenges for Change.”  It’s always the least among us who suffer the most when government paints efficiencies with too broad a brush.

It’s the usual suspects talking down Vermont while wheedling for a tax break.



A “study” conducted by Art Woolf on behalf of the Vermont Chamber of Commerce and an assortment of Vermont retail associations has concluded that the state’s sales tax is driving eastern Vermont shoppers to New Hampshire.  Of course the “report” doesn’t fail to take a swipe at other environmental initiatives practiced by Vermont:

The study acknowledges that other factors – Vermont’s bottle deposit bill and strict land use provisions in Act 250 -may also be to blame, but it says sales tax disparity between the two has been the principal driver in the trend.

Of course no mention is made of the shared services enjoyed by all Vermonters that are funded through sales taxes; nor of that unquantifiable “quality of life” that most people seem to agree favorably distinguishes Vermont from New Hampshire.

But, what a coincidence!  Today was also the day that

state Attorney General William Sorrell is set to release the findings of a “healthy weight initiative” and is expected to recommend a penny-per-ounce excise tax on sugar-sweetened drinks…

Among the retail associations co-sponsoring Woolf’s “study” are the Beverage Association of Vermont and the Vermont Wholesale Beverage Association.  These are the folks that make pretty darn sure that our kids never lack opportunities to hold up their end of that retail market.  Someone should ask these guys how they plan to offset the future tax burden represented by lost productivity and health issues as our sugar-addicted children grow into obese adults.

For me, the issue is not so much the regressive nature of any sales tax.  Personally, I’m all for raising income taxes on the top 1% of earners, since they are reaping the most benefits from all the consumption that goes on beneath them; and then raising the threshold for income tax liability considerably for everyone else who is stuck in the broad consumer class that supports the ultra-rich.

What gets me is the way the sugar industry (represented in this case by the Chamber and beverage associations) works both sides of the street so thoroughly, making out like bandits while conceivably doing more damage to our national health than alcohol and drugs combined.

( – promoted by Jack McCullough)

UPDATE: I’m bumping this because I think the issue needs more discussion than it got. I also (finally) got around to reading not only the Circuit but also the District Court decision, which  explicates the reasoning much more fully.

I’m passing along the District Court decision on the use of a Taser to force trespassers in Brattleboro to comply with police demands. You have probably already heard of the Circuit decision, but the District Court decision is much more detailed in its discussion of how the decision was reached.

The background is that two people living in Brattleboro placed themselves on a piece of vacant property to prevent the owner from building a gas station there, and chained themselves to a barrel filled with concrete and other heavy materials to prevent the police from

physically removing them. They spent the night there, but the next morning, acting on directions from the property owner, the police unsuccessfully tried to get them to leave voluntarily and eventually applied a Taser to get them to comply. They sued the police alleging a

variety of torts, including the use of excessive force.

The decisions both come down in favor of the police, applying a two-step test in which the court must first evaluate whether the action taken by the police violated the plaintiffs’ constitutional rights, and second, if there was a violation of a constitutional right, whether the

constitutional right was so well established that the plaintiffs are entitled to recover damages for the violation.

Both courts determined that the police did not violate any constitutional right of the plaintiffs, and this is where the district Court decision is most instructive.

Some basic points are not at issue, or are easily disposed of: the protesters were trespassing on the property; the police were acting within their authority in ordering them to leave; the police lawfully arrested the protesters; the police pursued an approach of trying less invasive methods, such as telling them to leave, asking them to release themselves from the barrel, and warning them that they were about to be hit with the Taser and it would “hurt a lot” before actually doing it.

The basic question is whether, under these circumstances, the police were permitted to use the Taser, and the analysis of the District Court

is troubling for our work. In the public debate, the police and other Taser supporters are constantly claiming that they need the Tasers

because they save lives by avoiding the need to use guns or other more deadly weapons.

You know how it goes: if the Brattleboro police had had Tasers Robert Woodward would be alive today.

As you follow the reasoning in this decision, thought, it appears that avoiding the use of other deadly force is not the sole legal

justification for using a Taser. The court reviews two other decisions in which a person’s act in resisting a police order was justification to use a Taser as a pain compliance technique. It quotes another court decision which characterized the use of a Taser as “moderate, non-lethal force”. In this case the court finds that the plaintiffs’ refusal to release themselves from the barrel or tell the police how to do it

constituted active resistance to the police’s lawful commands.

This is apparently the same rationale by which the Barre police decided their use of a Taser against the person at Cumberland Farms who wouldn’t leave when they told her to was justified.

I can see some real problems for us here, but one of the big ones is that we’re not even talking the same language that they are. We are making our arguments in part on the presumption that the Taser is deadly force and can only be used when deadly force is justified, whereas the argument the police are using is that they’re entitled to use force to enforce their orders, whether that means a pain compliance hold, a physical takedown, a baton, or a Taser. Legally I think they win that argument.

In debates about whether Tasers should be deployed, however, they’re going to keep using the “Tasers save lives” argument. I think we need to be prepared to convince policy makers that Tasers are deadly force, and that they’re too dangerous to use merely for pain compliance.

Jack McCullough

_____________________________________________________________

Today, it was announced that a federal court upheld the decision to dismiss charges against Brattleboro police who used stun guns on two protestors in 2007.  Raise your hand if this decision makes you feel safer in Vermont. Nobody?

Appeals Court Judge David Larimer wrote that even if the officers’ actions weren’t reasonable, they were still entitled to qualified immunity for their good faith actions.

What exactly will be the effect of that decision on future encounters between peaceful protestors and police remains to be seen, but it does raise the question of where “good faith actions” end and arbitrary brutality begins.  One would think that whether or not these officers’ actions could be deemed “reasonable” would be highly relevant to their culpability.  With this decision, the court seems to be saying that if police think their actions are justified, then they are. Period.

Nevermind all the attendant issues like whether or not  use of a stun-gun should be regarded as “non-lethal force,” this federal decision represents yet another blow against civil liberties.

Once every year, on a Saturday in November, green activists gather at Vermont Technical College in Randolph to share their experiences, learn skills to make them more effective, and to celebrate little landmarks and big victories in the ongoing struggle to protect our natural environment.  Co-sponsors of the event include Toxics Actions Center,VPIRG, VNRC, DFA, True Majority and The Vermont League of Conservation Voters: a veritable cavalcade of  good-doers in the Green Mountain State and beyond.

Last year, the event hosted the first public forum of the Democratic gubernatorial primary campaign.  This year, with the 2010 election behind us, the results became something to celebrate for Vermont’s green lobby; but not without a sober look at the rest of the nation.  No one could put the significance of the recent election in better perspective for Vermonters than keynote speaker Pat Parenteau of the Vermont Law School who reminded the assembly of the extraordinary opportunity and responsibility Vermont has to lead by example as the one island of forward-thinking environmental activity in a rising sea of reactionary chaos.

Citing the statistical evidence of significant job creation in the wake of the Clean Air Act of 1970, Prof. Parenteau framed the arguments for a clean energy future with two simple questions:  

“How many jobs?  What’s the carbon?”

Parenteau reminded the audience how the U.S. has lost leadership to China in the development of clean air industries,  and how this translates to lost jobs.  As a nation, the only hope we have of correcting the downward trajectory of the American middle class is to recognize that simple reality and reclaim our environmental leadership.  

With a Democratic governor and majorities in both houses of the Legislature, Vermont has the unique opportunity to lead by example, and to further reinforce the economic advantage we already have over most other states, thanks to the valuable cooling effect of Act 250 during the development bubble.

If I am able to obtain a link to Prof. Parenteau’s remarkable address, I will most certainly add it to this post; but more about the event after the jump…

As a representative of the Northwest Citizens for Responsible Growth, I have attended these events in Randolph for perhaps five or six years running.  I remember the electricity  leading up to and following the 2008 election.  

The tone this year was different, cautionary despite the exhilaration.  Governor-elect Peter Shumlin sent a recorded speech which reiterated his commitment to the green initiatives he had endorsed throughout his campaign, to which the audience responded enthusiastically; but we all know better now what regional and national obstacles lie ahead.  In casual encounters throughout the day, activists visiting from Maine and New Hampshire expressed angst over the uncertain future their efforts now face at home.  These worries joined the usual complaints of unsympathetic local officials, conflicted administrators of public services, slow regulatory and enforcement initiatives, and simple lack of funds.

Then there were the little reminders that the green “highway” may have many detours.  Book-ending the exhibition hall were displays from two opposing views on bio-mass,  their proponents nervously eyeing one another across a sea of potential converts.  There were debates in other corners over whether or not there would ever be the possibility of truly “green” nuclear energy.  

While Tea Party activists enjoy the luxury of a simplistic flat world view that allows them to rest on their platitudes, environmental activists know that nothing in this complex and changing world is ever “simple.”  Like I used to say to my husband when he’d reply to a question with the seventies toss-off, “I’m easy:” simple isn’t easy.

At the risk of being thumped by the naysayer club, and before the ugliness of the Lame Duck session puts more gristle in our gruel...

I’ve just gotta say it did my heart good to read in the FP that Burlington College will sell its old facility to COTS for conversion into housing for the homeless rather than cash in on some developer’s dream of luxury condos.  There in the accompanying photo was COTS director Rita Markley  and President of Burlington College, Jane Sanders,  a.k.a. Mrs. Bernie Sanders.  No decorative dilettante is this Senator’s wife.  Mrs. Sanders is an urban educator with a  plain grasp of her community’s needs:

“When we went into the process of selling our property, we talked to a number of community agencies, because we did want our building to continue to serve the population of the city’s Old North End.”

It struck me that this was  symbolic of the authentic spirit of social justice that continues to prevail in Vermont despite a decidedly selfish wind that blows through much of the country. Jane Sanders and Burlington College doing a good thing for COTS;  Bernie Sanders on the Senate floor; both represent what I like best about Vermont.

Time and again we elect our champions not just to bring us money for roads and infrastructure projects, but also to tell DC that Vermont values social justice.  For the most part, they do not disappoint (yeah, I know…ACORN.)  That, in itself, is a remarkable thing given the cynical and grasping forces that all but control the agenda in Congress these days.  Still our guys persist…in Senator Leahy’s case, for literally decades.  They carry with them the collective wisdom of Vermont voters who seem to “get” that positive change doesn’t happen overnight, and that, much as we’d like to think otherwise, no good deed goes unpunished.   We may call our reps out every so often, but we know they stand head-and-shoulders above the rest.

Even when much of the country stampedes to the right, we have the good Yankee sense not to toss out the baby with the bathwater.

Lame ducks? Not our guys.  They’re in it for the long-haul.