Category Archives: Business

Vermont Yankee Entergy: wading in the shallow end of safety

Business, local/regional, , , ,

This may be a sign of just how responsibly and seriously Entergy intends to take safety concerns while the plant prepares for what the NRC calls SAFSTOR (SAFe STORage)for up to 60 years.

From VtDigger.com: The Intex “Easy Set” swimming pool retails for anywhere from $35 to $500 depending on its dimensions and it’s billed as one of “the easiest family and friend-sized pools to set up in the world.”

But in Vernon, the Easy Set is serving a much different purpose than the one advertised on the manufacturer’s colorful website: It’s being used to help manage a complex groundwater-intrusion problem at Vermont Yankee.

That news about Vermont Yankee will likely not surprise anyone who remembers how Entergy let the operating boiling water reactor’s wooden cooling tower deteriorate so badly that that by 2007 it collapsed into a pile of timber leaking water.vermontcoolingtower

Well give them credit; rushing out to Home Depot to buy a bunch of cheap plastic swimming pools for this is better than just mops and buckets.  However they might want to use the term SOTASAFSTOR (SOrT Aa SAFe STORage) to be more accurate about Vermont Yankee’s condition.

The NRC reports the kiddie pools are located in the lower level of the turbine building and are “[…] placed such that any leakage would drain into the plant’s radioactive waste treatment system,” And no need to worry: the low level radioactive kiddie pools are only temporary — until the technicians come up with a better plan.

No worries. Entergy Vermont Yankee spokesman Marty Cohn echoed that, saying “there is no health or safety impact to the public or employees from this issue.” The swimming pools are a temporary measure, he added.

“The integrity of the pools was found to be adequate and the water found to be acceptable for those types of pools,” Cohn said. “Drains near these pools lead to sump pumps, which in turn lead to a waste-processing system.”VYkidpool

And while they mop up the contaminated water, Entergy and the plant’s surrounding town are “condensing” their emergency plan capacity. Beginning in April the emergency zone shrinks to the nuclear power plant site’s boundary, and one person on site is trained to extinguish basic fires and act as liaison to local agencies

Only a “catastrophic” event — like if all the water is released from the cooling pools and the fuel then reheats — would require a response from outside towns. And even then, according to plant owner Entergy, an emergency would unfold slowly.

“We’d have anywhere from 10 hours to 10 days to react,” said Brattleboro Fire Chief Mike Bucossi, “and reverse the process of those fuel rods.”

Yes VY, fill up the pools! Even in a catastrophe — according to Entergy — there is “anywhere from 10 hours to 10 days to react” — time enough to wade in the shallow end.

Ground Hog Day: De-Bugging the F-35

Business, National, , , ,

It seems the F-35 fighter; aka the most expensive weapons system ever, hasn’t been in the news too often lately. And most of the news out that is out there is awful, according to reports in early February. If or when the jet fighters do fly on a regular basis, at some point in the future some will be used by the Vermont Air National Guard and based at the Burlington airport. This is over objections from residents in nearby towns over possible noise levels during take-off and landings — so, here’s a heads up for Vermonters. f-35model

If you care to read more details, that can be done here. But these three descriptive headlines provide a more than adequate, quick summary: The Version That the Marines Are Using Is Very Buggy;  ALIS [Autonomic Logistics Information System] Is Still Terrible, Perhaps Even Getting Worse; and my favorite,  Lockouts, Confusion, etc.

From Lockouts,Confusion,etc.:

  • The F-35 fails to detect if it’s been flying too fast or what effect that might have. “The Integrated Exceedance Management System, designed to assess and report whether the aircraft exceeded limitations during flight, failed to function properly.”
  • The plane “randomly prevented user logins into ALIS.
  • The plane doesn’t know how broken parts are: “The maintenance action severity code functionality…designed to automatically assign severity codes to work orders as maintenance personnel create them—did not work correctly.”
  • The plane’s crews need to phone Lockheed Martin tech support because the plane can’t handle the data it needs to process in order to run missions. “Managing data loads associated with mission planning required extensive contractor support.”

I think it was on Ground Hog Day that the Pentagon’s office of testing’s recent evaluations made their way into the news. So if the report sees its shadow and tax money is allowed to flow on and on, there will likely be six more months of testing for the most expensive weapons system ever. One does wonder how many crashes and injured or killed pilots will it take to ground this hog.

 

Criminal history and all, Vermont loves captive insurance companies

Business, local/regional, , ,

How much are they loved? Well, a former head of the Vermont Captive Insurance Association once called captives the “crown jewels in the state’s tiara” and swooned “There is maple syrup and skiing and cheddar cheese and captive insurance. What more could you want from life?”VT captive

The State of Vermont licenses more than one thousand captive insurance agencies (which exist to insure their parent companies). Once almost alone, but now one of eight states and the District of Columbia that currently have legalized captives in the US, the state fights for a share of the pie. “Vermont’s focus will always be licensing quality companies and regulating them in an appropriate manner commensurate with their risk.” says Dave Provost, Vermont’s Deputy Commissioner of Captive Insurance.

This isn’t car insurance. These are complex companies set up by (and captive to) a larger business in order to handle their own liability risk insurance needs. Essentially, an enterprise forms and manages its own insurance company as a subsidiary, and the enterprise’s other operating subsidiaries purchase insurance from the captive. 

For modest licensing fees, a small tax on premiums, and a friendly regulatory climate, Vermont provides a host of advantages for large corporations and wealthy families toward forming captives. Corporations can substantially lower their insurance costs, and captives provide shelter from certain federal corporate taxes. Premiums on small captives, also known as “cell” captives, hold special tax benefits for corporations. The benefits are so good, in fact, that in 2015 captive insurance was on the IRS’ “Dirty dozen” list of abusive tax scams

So then, how friendly are Vermont’s captive regulators? Well, only one member of each captive insurance board of directors is required to be (or become) a resident. And only one in-state meeting per year is required. But even that small demand is “waived” away by regulators : We do understand that the annual meeting requirement can be a hardship and have made many allowances over the years […] for last minute health or weather problems that made travel difficult.

In 2015 there were 33 new captives who chose to take shelter in Vermont. One notable captive with a colorful criminal history is Marubeni, a large Japanese commodity trading corporation.

Between 2012 and 2014 Marubeni paid $88-million and $56.6-million in US criminal penalty violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. This bit of unpleasantness is part of a long line of scandals going back to accusations of hoarding rice to profit on the black market in the 1970’s. In the 1980’s Marubeni executives were arrested and charged with bribing Japanese government officials to favor Lockheed Aircraft in Japan. These arrests lead to several suicides and the resignation of the prime minister. They followed that up with a round of bribery scandals involving Philippine President Marcos and several national development funds.

Every year the Vermont Captive Insurance Association hosts a weeklong conference. This gathering is attended by those directly associated with captives. It is also a magnet for the likes of Governor Shumlin and Lt. Governor Phil Scott, both of whom never seem to tire of reminding the captive insurance visitors that we are the kindest, warmest, most wonderful regulators a captive could ever want.

Conference attendee Lt. Governor (and gubernatorial candidate) Phil Scott said our captive regulator model should be expanded to all Vermont’s regulated sectors.“Imagine if we had a governor’s office that treated every sector in the same way” said Scott recently.

Sure, can’t you see Killington or Stowe welcoming Marubeni Corporation, perhaps advertising as the new second home to criminal “captives”? And is this vision of a corporation-colonized Vermont a place you want to live, when we’re paying the taxes they’re avoiding?

EB-5 extended despite “constantly evolving” schemes

Business, National, ,

Critics and some supporters of the EB-5 investment and immigration program agree it needs improvements in oversight to avoid fraud. Yet with the passing of the Congressional omnibus spending bill in December, the program was extended without changes for the next nine months. This is in spite of the fact that the Government Accounting Office raised doubts about regulators’ ability to keep up with “constantly evolving” schemes to defraud investors.

However, according to one business publication there is rejoicing. Congress’ extension without changes is welcome news for all participants of the program— investors, regional centers, developers, and marketing agents alike—for the time being.

The Immigrant Investor Program grants permanent residency to foreigners who are willing to invest $500,000 in certain approved businesses that promise to create at least 10 jobs. Vermont’s Regional EB-5 Center has several such programs, including developments at Mt. Snow, the Trapp Family Lodge, and Sugarbush. The largest by far is Bill Stenger’s $750-million Northeast Kingdom Economic Development Initiative which includes Jay Peak, AnC Bio and Q-Burke.EB-5 map2

A year ago this February, the state of Vermont was sufficiently worried about security fraud allegations that they shifted oversight of the program (in VT.) to the Department of Financial Regulation. Nationally, the SEC reportedly subpoenaed Jay Peak’s EB-5 records and conducted interviews with development associates.

Alarms and warning bells have been going off nationally for a while.

As of May 2015, the Securities and Exchange Commission and other federal law enforcement agencies had 59 open investigations relating to EB-5 projects, 35 of which “primarily involved securities fraud issues,” according to the report. The SEC received more than 100 “tips, complaints and referrals related to possible securities fraud violations” between January 2013 and January 2015.  

EB-5 supporters Senators Chuck Grassley and Patrick Leahy hoped a proposed series of reforms would tune up potentially fraud-ridden programs. Among the changes that made it to a compromise bill (but which eventually proved to be sticking points) were rules to narrow definitions of employment areas, closer supervision of regional centers, impose filing fees for investors and increase the investment requirement to $800,000. The powerful US Chamber of Commerce and the Real Estate Roundtable, along with large developers, opposed the changes.

But none of that was destined to happen. And EB-5 developers, lawyers, and marketing agents now have until September 2016 to drive stakes into future reforms. Are they really the  stakeholders, or are they the vampires sucking in money from investors seeking a return in addition to green cards?

Church Street Marketplace “free” WIFI, fo,fum

Business, , ,

“Free” WIFI was installed at the Church Street Market place in the summer of 2015. The $50,000.00 system, with support from Burlington Telecom, was paid for by private donors, and the largest chunk chipped in by L.L. Bean.

Now, six months later, WCAX News reports the WIFI network shows 20,000 people visited the Burlington shopping destination on its busiest Saturday.

“We started collecting data in June, so once we start to have a full year of data, we’ll be able to say we we’re up or down in terms of pedestrian traffic. That’s going to help us measure how we’re doing,” said Ron Redmond with Church Street Marketplace.”Sometimes they’ll be thinking it was a bad day, and we can show them, well actually there were 12,000 people on the street that day. It provides them with a little sense of security.”

free wifiNot to go all paranoid but privacy concerns are an ongoing worry with “free” WIFI areas. Data storage and collection from WIFI devices is a relatively new area, not subject to uniform privacy protections as cell phone data is supposed to be. In 2014 a California coffee shop ran into privacy complaints when it was discovered that it used tracking analytics that could locate a device as being unique from others in the area. In that way specific conclusions could be drawn from the data:  how long an individual device user stayed in an area, in a store, or even where an individual stood. Because of public pressure the coffee shop stopped using the software. Do you get Free WIFI in Burlington and a bell on your collar too?

The goal at Church Street Market Place is to monitor foot traffic and individual store sales. With this data, individual retailers can better analyze the effectiveness of their current and future sales promotions and advertising.

It is too bad it never occurred to WCAX, Vermont’s [self-proclaimed] “best news source” to probe a little deeper and ask about what else might be gained by those businesses that put up $50,000.00 for “free” public WIFI. It is a surprise just plain curiosity wasn’t enough for WCAX News to ask who owns and stores the data collected: the city-owned Burlington Telecom or a private entity. And could whoever does control the data be able to profit from it by sharing (for a price)  the stored shopping and traffic marketing information?

The common claim is that most Americans are willing to give up some privacy for discounts and sales. But in a report called the Trade off Fallacy: How Marketers Are Misrepresenting American Consumers and Opening Them Up to Exploitation the Annenberg School of Communications found it may actually be a simple matter of resignation.

Americans, the report contends, aren’t happy that they have to give their name, phone number, email address, and other data to get discounts. They do it because they believe marketers will get the data anyway. “Rather than feeling able to make choices, Americans believe it is futile to manage what companies can learn about them,” co-author Joe Turow says.

And should we be equally resigned to WCAX News missing some obvious follow-up questions that would have made a fluffy item into a local news story?

Coke stops funding obesity study group

Business, ,

It is good to keep an eye on the giant sugary soda company, as they currently own 16% of Keurig Green Mountain. sucrecola

Coca Cola has pulled the cork on its Global Energy Balance Network. The GEBN was an effort bankrolled by Coke designed to influence academic research into obesity and blunt criticism of big-time sugary drinks.

Public health groups said the company was promoting “scientific nonsense” through research partnerships. And on Monday the GEBN removed all content from its website “due to resource limitations.”
Public health authorities complained that Coke, the world’s largest producer of sugary beverages, was adopting tactics once used by the tobacco industry, which for decades enlisted experts to raise doubts about the health hazards of smoking. Last month, the University of Colorado School of Medicine said it would return a $1 million grant that Coca-Cola had provided to help start the organization.
“I think ultimately the Global Energy Balance Network was a megaphone for Coca-Cola,” Yoni Freedhoff, an obesity expert at the University of Ottawa who first raised questions about the group’s funding, said. “And now that Coca-Cola is no longer providing the funds to support that megaphone, it’s shutting down. I think that speaks to the purpose of the establishment of this group.”

For months, the group denied that it was allowing Coke to influence its message or the work of its scientists.

Coca Cola is no stranger to this type of thing. In 2009 the company formed a controversial funding partnership with the American Society of Family Physicians “to develop consumer education content on beverages and sweeteners for FamilyDoctor.org.” Some ASFP members in California resigned in protest. And three years ago under pressure of a product boycott the Atlanta-based corporation stopped its longtime funding of ALEC, the “corporate bill mill.”  In addition, Coke is one of six companies that together spent $12.6 million lobbying against state and federal legislation dealing with GMO labeling in the first half of 2015.

While GEBN has obviously fizzled out, Coca Cola’s CEO said, “Clearly, we have more work to do to reflect the values of this great company in all that we do.” I’d guess they’ll be back reflecting the company values after a pause to refresh.

B&M: the other Milne business

Business, ,

Scott Milne, the Republican Party-endorsed candidate running for governor (the un-endorsed one being Emily Peyton), is a businessman who is most often linked in the media with the family travel business Milne Travel. We’ve all heard the family business name here in Vermont. However he also is partners in B&M Realty and Development. The “M” is of course for Milne, and the “B” is for David Boies III, Milne’s business partner and former college roommate. [Five members of the Boies family each donated $2,000 to Scott Milne for Governor. Dad David Boies II is a renowned trial lawyer who argued on the Gore side of the Bush v. Gore case, won a pro-marriage equality case against Prop 8 in California, and is now, with Republican lawyer Ted Olson, fighting the Virginia ban on same sex marriage.]

At least in the Town of Hartford I would guess B&M has had more interaction with the state and local government than the Milne family travel agency has. In the Upper Valley B&M Realty and Development has been struggling to get approval for a project called Quechee Highlands. A major blow occurred last year to Milne’s plan for the Quechee Highlands development:

…when the District 3 Environmental Commission denied it an Act 250 permit for its first phase, citing concerns about traffic along Route 4 and the fact that it didn’t comply with the Two Rivers regional plan.

The proposed 168-acre mixed-use development  next to I-89 on the outskirts of downtown White River Junction (WRJct. and Quechee are parts of the Town of Hartford) has had a problem with Hartford. Hartford has worked and planned hard to preserve and take advantage of the unique old railroad-centered downtown. White River Junction, in recent years has experienced a modest revival.

At a meeting in March the Hartford planning commission approved a measure that will make it more difficult to include retail space at the proposed Quechee Highlands area. The Valley News reported that Milne warned the board that if they passed those changes, it would make Quechee Highlands project “dead.”

After the planning board approved the measure, an angry-sounding Scott Milne really let it rip:

“Their zoning is going to kill that village, which is designed to have retail as a minor but important aspect of it,” said Milne, who said B&M Realty has already invested about $4 million in the project, including land acquisition, engineering and design, as well as other fees.

“I’m going to try to figure out if I’m going to do anything, and if I do, it’s probably going to involve more lawyers, and it’s just going to continue to brand Vermont as a bad place to do business,” said Milne, a moderate Republican who has also recently considered a run for governor. [added emphasis]

Whew Scott, really? Get me “more lawyers” and “brand Vermont as a bad place to do business”. You mean bad for the un-built businesses, the ones along the highway?

For now Scott Milne looks like a last-resort Vermont Republican candidate for governor. It appears that no big VT Republican money was donated to kick-start this campaign. His campaign is (so far) half funded by the out-of-state family of his real estate development partner. And that family is renowned for a couple high profile liberal/Democratic legal cases. A couple months ago Milne was just the “M” in B&M Realty, an angry, frustrated developer, not a politician. Maybe he’ll become one on the campaign trail. We’ll wait and see what develops for Scott Milne.

F-35 engine burns and the economy of scale

Business, National,

Keep an eye out for progress, or lack of it on the new F-35 jet fighter. The world’s most costly jet, which someday may be seen and definitely heard in the skies over Burlington, ran into more trouble recently, an engine fire and continued cost problems, to be specific. Preliminary results into what caused an F-35’s engine to rip apart and burn on take-off report:

…excessive rubbing of fan blades in a certain section of the Pratt & Whitney-made F135 engine, […] rubbing was far more severe than normal and led to higher temperatures, cracking and fatigue, “That’s what caused that engine to come apart,” said Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan, who manages Joint Strike Fighter program. [added emphasis]

Last month’s malfunction and fire resulted in orders to temporarily ground all F-35 jets. This will prohibit any from showing themselves off at the prestigious Farnborough Air Show. A much hyped appearance at the industry sponsored exhibition in Britain was hoped to impress potential buyers of the plane. Maybe a video of the runway engine fire and fleet-wide grounding demonstration could suffice.

Late Tuesday the F-35 was cleared to fly.But the BBC is reporting that only a life-sized model will make it to the Farnborough Air Show. Maybe the world’s most expensive sales display. Well plywood or inflatable I bet it very quiet.

The world’s most expensive real fighter jet and sweetheart of the Vermont’s GBIC may be caught in a budget vise. Eventually bulk purchases of the F-35 are the goal set forth to drive down the cost of the world’s most expensive fighter jet. However everyone isn’t on board.

The cost of the F-35 itself increased $3.1 billion, according to the report — a number Bogdan said is primarily attributed to DoD jets from its budget plans between 2015 and 2018, when the purchase of 33 aircraft, mostly Navy, were delayed. As of April 2014 the total cost to procure and develop the F-35 is pegged at $398.6 billion. [added emphasis]

The economies of scale don’t work when Congress (as they did recently) cuts or delays the number of jets to be purchased. And I imagine the major contractors will hold out for long-term ironclad purchase guarantees to someday make back the development dollars they are investing now to produce cheaper parts.

It looks, from a glance at the sleek F-35 webpage, as if they sliced the development pie dollars up between more than a few aerospace/defense contractors and congressional districts – Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems, and Pratt and Whitney. Smaller slices of the massive dollar pie are being served to more than 1,400 suppliers from 46 U.S. states and companies from 10 other countries around the world. It’s an ongoing boondoggle Vermonters will hear plenty more from later.

 

“…now they are coming after our ceiling fans” – US Rep. Blackburn (R-TN), moving more hot air

Business, National, ,

We’ll add this to the long list of crazy from the US Congress. A reasonable bipartisan Bush-era regulation enacted with industry buy-in is now being targeted by Republican representatives. The goal, as part of a larger right wing battle with all regulation, is apparently to slow and perhaps stop progress.

Several years back a coalition of manufacturers and retailers including Home Depot successfully lobbied congress for uniform regulations to regulate fan efficiency. The new law was signed by George W. Bush in 2005. With industry buy-in the national rules were designed to clean up a maze of varied statewide efficiency rules that made it difficult for manufacturers. A compromise was arranged exempting decorative ceiling fans, and the law requires standards to be reviewed and updated every six years.

New efficiency standards for decorative ceiling fan are now on the horizon. And US Republican Representatives Marsha Blackburn from Tennessee and Indiana’s Todd Rokita – both with decorative ceiling fan manufacturers in their districts – have offered amendments to defund and disrupt the entire process. Rep. Rokita is moving plenty of hot air:

“The disregard the Obama Energy Department bureaucrats have for the practical implications of their red tape is outrageous…”

And not to be outdone, Tennessee’s Blackburn heads to the barricades for her local ceiling fan makers.

“First, they came for our health care,” she said on the House floor. “Then they took away our light bulbs, and raided our nation’s most iconic guitar company – now they are coming after our ceiling fans. Nothing is safe from the Obama administration’s excessive regulatory tentacles.”

All this Republican hot air even though, in order to amend the Bush era “regulatory tentacles,” the Energy Department has to find that improved standards are technologically feasible and economically justified.

Oh, wait, maybe those of us trying to slow or reverse global climate change have it all wrong! Maybe this is about future beachfront property in Tennessee and Indiana!

Private Funding for US Border Patrol

Business, , ,

To insure prompt service.

Over half of the Northeast Kingdom’s Jay Peak customers are from Canada. But border crossings are troublesome and Jay Peak owner Bill Stenger is willing pay for quicker crossings for his customers. To that end a new pilot program will allow private companies to provide supplemental private funding for  personel and customs terminals at the border. Facilities at the Miami airport, and areas of the US/ Mexican border in Texas and Northern Vermont are pilot areas for “alternative private supplemental funding.”

The money could be used to cover salaries of additional staff, overtime and services such as inspections. Customs and Border Protection is reviewing submissions from more than a dozen places around the country and expects to choose five ports of entry this summer.

 

Stenger is reported to be willing to pay an estimated cost of $1,000.00 per day but not for “long-term”. He says he has a “good relationship” with border officials, is sympathetic to their budget constraints and willing to “buck up and help pay for it”.

“On the one hand I don’t think we should have to pay for this extra care, but I’m willing to do it because it just means so much to us,” said Bill Stenger,[…] “I cannot afford to have our guests unnecessarily delayed at the border.”[emphasis added]

The NEK’s Bigfoot businessman Stenger has extensive business interests in NEK development that involve international trade. Currently, along with Jay Peak partner Ariel Quiros he is developing an aircraft manufacturing facility at the Vermont state owned airport in Newport. In April it was reported this manufacturing business will import fuselage components from Russia and around the world. The existing runway will be expanded by 1,000 ft. to accommodate private jets pending FAA approval.

The plane manufacturing company also builds float planes, said Quiros’ partner Bill Stenger of Newport City, who is working on a waterfront hotel and conference center project.

Stenger said he has talked with U.S. border officials about creating a port of entry for float planes on international Lake Memphremagog so they could tie up at the hotel.

Should be no problems there: after all, some of the Border Patrol/Customs/Immigration staff at the crossing will already be on Stenger’s payroll.