It's been a frequent observation here on GMD and elsewhere about how much Jim Douglas is really one of the worst spokespeople we currently have to promote the state of Vermont, simply because he seems to never miss an opportunity to let everyone know how awful it is to live here. It seems that not a day goes by where he's complaining about the tax burden, the regulatory climate, and a plethora of other things. I often joke that even though things are pretty decent for me personally, I'm thinking of moving away just because Douglas' blather is rubbing off on me, and maybe things are pretty bad for me here and I just haven't figured it out yet. I can't think of a better way to attract businesses and skilled workers than to tell them how bad it is here, can you?

In yesterday's Seven Days, Jon Margolis took a look at this phenomenon echoed by Douglas and his allies, and came to the conclusion that it's a big lie. Go below the jump for more.

Margolis op-ed' piece is called “What's So Bad About Vermont?”  Like many of us, he's made that same observation:

You’ve no doubt noticed how awful life is here in Vermont. Awful and getting worse, what with wages so low and prices so high — especially the sale price of a nice house, or the rent on a decent apartment. You’ve noticed because the newspapers and the radio and television keep telling you. Across the political spectrum, important people keep proclaiming our woes, especially Gov. James Douglas, who has made “affordability,” or lack thereof, the dominant theme of his tenure.

Then there are all these fancy reports concluding that Vermonters are in a terrible fix, barely able to survive after paying their bills or — increasingly — unable to pay their bills. These reports come from prestigious organizations. They are artfully bound and printed, and have well-designed graphs and full-color illustrations. They are chock-full of statistics. They have endnotes. Ergo, they must be true.

Or so seems to be the assessment of Vermont’s news media, which transmit the conclusions of the reports, usually on the front page or at the start of the broadcast, as though they were unassailable truth.

They are not. They are politics.

He then points out the falsehoods in the myths, such as that we have an ever-shrinking population, or the BIG doozy we hear all the time: we're the most heavily taxed state in the nation. The latter is a good example of how out-of-touch Douglas is (as he was last year when he was complaining the legislature “spent too much time” on global warming while at that very same time his own commission on climate change was practically screaming how important it was and the challenges and opportunities it presents). Once again, the state's very own Joint Fiscal Office's tax study (h/t to Doug Hoffer) last year blew that one out of the water. From page 7:

Summary Findings – Individual Taxpayers
The individual taxpayer case studies suggest that among the 12 comparison states Vermont as a highly progressive overall state tax structure. This is largely the result of relatively low taxes on lower-income taxpayers and relatively higher taxes on upper-income taxpayers in Vermont. Driving this finding is the individual income tax, which comprises a majority of the overall tax liability calculated for most taxpayers. Although many of the other comparison states have progressive tax structures, Vermont’s tends to be the most progressive. Washington and Florida demonstrate the most regressive traits of state tax systems among the comparison states. The trend for some states is less obvious, most likely the result of mixed tax policy goals and actions. The difficulty in drawing unambiguous conclusions when analyzing comparative state and local taxation is among the most important findings of this study and is illustrated by the fact that for each of these conclusions, outliers among the case studies contradict these assumptions. Key findings are summarized below:

• Total Tax Liability – For 19 of the 24 individual tax case studies, Vermont ranked ninth or lower in total tax liability among the 12 comparison states. The highest Vermont rank was sixth out of 12 for three of the cases.
• Income Tax Liability – Income tax levels for Vermont taxpayers ranked in the middle or lower half among the comparison states for nearly all of the case studies. Vermont ranked sixth or lower among the 12 states in income tax liability for 20 of the 24 case studies. Theonly cases where Vermont ranked higher than sixth are those where most of the states
have tax liabilities that are nearly identical, and the rankings are not indicative of significant differences between the states compared and analyzed.
• Sales and Use Tax Liability – Vermont ranked ninth among the 12 comparison states in sales and use tax liability, up from 10th a decade ago. Although Vermont’s tax rate fell in the middle of the 12 comparison states, its low actual liability is due in part to a relatively smaller tax base and limited use of local option sales taxes.

More than likely he was too busy complaining to bother reading it. Not only are we not the highest, we have one of the most progressive tax structures in the country (which will always give the folks at VT Tiger something to whine about). Hardly sounds awful to me,

Now, back to Margolis. He's not dismissing the fact that life is not increasingly harder for a number of Vermonters. But the point he makes is that it's getting that way everywhere in this country, and for Douglas and his ilk to pass it off as some problem unique or more prevalent in Vermont is a lie:

Asked for evidence that Vermont is less affordable than other states, Jason Gibbs, the governor’s spokesman, obliged with emailed links to several government and private studies about health care, taxes, housing, utility rates and the economy. The information was interesting and informative. It did indicate that some necessities cost more in Vermont than in much of the country. But not all of them, and these costs are usually not higher than elsewhere around our region.

The Northeast is generally more expensive than most of the rest of the country. It’s old. It’s cold. It’s crowded. Its people believe in, and insist on, a fairly high level of public services. Nothing in the information Gibbs sent me provided a persuasive case — much less conclusive proof — that Vermont is unusually unaffordable because of anything the state government does or doesn’t do.

In fact, the preponderance of the evidence — the statistics on economic growth, median income, poverty rates, health coverage and education levels — suggests that Vermont is one of the more prosperous and livable states.

There' definitely an agenda here, but it's not about “affordability”. As Margolis reveals, its about loosening regulations. It's either always about that or lowering taxes, consequences be damned. No wonder Douglas is endorsing John McSame… his economic plan is more of the same-ol' same-ol' GOP groupthink that's helped decimate the middle-class for the last 20 years. 

Now, regardless of the prospects of the next guv's election, we need to keep hammering these points home. Jim Douglas is out-of touch (except, of course, with certain business interests), pushing the same old failed policies from the GOP playbook, is creating horrible PR for the state, and at the heart of it, cannot be trusted to tell the truth.

In yesterday's Times Argus there is an intriguing drama between the Secretary of Administration and State Treasurer developing in the economic stimulus proposal.  Interestingly, it's on a topic of directed investments of state pension funds, which has been discussed here on GMD in heated debates.

I'm all for directed investments so long as they meet fiduciary requirements.  And this is where the battle line is drawn.

I think we're all familiar with Jeb Spaulding's headshot.  Here's one of Mike Smith:

Secretary of Administration and former Deputy Treasurer, Mike Smith.  He was appointed Deputy State Treasurer for the State of Vermont under Treasurer James H. Douglas, serving from 1995-99.

My letter to the Times Argus below the fold.  Your thoughts, business/finance experts Doug Hoffer, Curtis Cairn, SPS, et al?

Editor:

I appreciate Peter Hirschfeld's report, “Stimulus Investment Plan Decried” in Wednesday's Times Argus, as well as State Treasurer Jeb Spaulding's attention to Federal law requiring prudent investment of state pension funds.

The stimulus proposal to require a $17 million investment in VHFA bonds from the pension fund would have been in violation of fiduciary law under ERISA.  The discussion about rate of returns between Treasurer Spaulding and Secretary of Administration, Mike Smith, seems to miss a more relevant point when it comes to a question of prudent investing.  That is, for the administration to require a specific investment at a specific moment in time for any reason other than for the benefit of pension fund investors is a breach of fiduciary responsibility and against Federal law as written in ERISA.

What is most surprising about this discussion is the argument made by Secretary Smith, who has served as Deputy Treasurer in the past.  His comparison of the requirement to buy VHFA bonds during a mortgage crisis to a broad investment policy excluding general types of securities, such as tobacco related companies, demonstrates Smith's fundamental misunderstanding of fiduciary law.  Additionally, his statement, “The governor isn't going to allow people to not have access to these programs,” as a rationale for purchasing VHFA bonds suggests that Smith has forgotten that the state pension fund, just like private pension funds,  must be managed for its beneficiaries and not for the benefit of either a sitting governor nor VHFA home buyers.  In the same way that a CEO cannot force corporate pension administrators to buy a particular investment for the benefit of the company or its customers, the Governor cannot require the State Treasurer to buy VHFA bonds because it may help the state's economy and first time home buyers.

Conversely, the Treasurer may draft broad policies allocating a percentage of investments in the state of Vermont.  It happens that Treasurer Spaulding is already at work in this area.  This kind of investment practice is acceptable because it allows the pension to purchase types of securities based on geography, as versus requiring an investment in a specific bond offering.  It is one thing to allocate a percentage of the pension fund in a broad range of Vermont investments; it's entirely different to require the pension to invest in VHFA.

It is an unfortunate precedent when leading state officials attempt to overstep the Treasurer's fiduciary responsibilities as appears to be the case in Governor's stimulus plan.  It is even more disconcerting when it appears that the fundamental concepts of ERISA are not understood by someone who has served as Deputy Treasurer not so long ago.

Among people that I talk to, one of the main reasons they give for supporting Clinton over Obama is his lack of experience. They reason that she's been around the block a time or two and he barely has. Another part of it is that she's had a lot more experience with hardball political campaigns, which should also make her more electable than he is. One example of why people are continuing to support (shall we say “clinging to”?) Clinton is this clip from a diavlog in which Glenn Loury explains his positions, including his view that she is just more competent.

Many of us Obama supporters, however, tend to question the relevance of her experience, or argue that his cross-partisan appeal, combined with the deep wells of Clinton hatred across the country, make him more electable than she is. Not only that, part of his appeal is that he has the ability to be a transformational leader in a way that Clinton does not. 

Now we have some more data points from recent weeks, and I'm afraid they don't seem to look very good for Obama. We do have the Jeremiah Wright thing, and we also have the clinging to guns and religion thing (which probably doesn't look as bad if you know what was going on when he said it), but these things still seem to demonstrate a political tin ear, which probably makes him look like a weaker candidate than he originally did.

In addition, some of his complaints about the Clinton campaign seem to be in the “Mom, she's being mean to me!” vein, which aren't much fun to listen to coming from your three-year-old, and are much worse coming from a professional politician.

Then, yesterday, he probably did worse than we were expecting. Clinton started out 20 points ahead, he chipped away at her lead, last week people were saying he was going to come within five points or so, and yesterday she won by almost ten. 

I will concede that the long hiatus since the last primaries, and the fact that Pennsylvania was the only game yesterday combined to make yesterday look bigger than it otherwise might have. Still, though, if anyone has momentum now, it's not him. (Remember back in 2004, when the Red Sox came back from a 3-0 lead in the playoffs to beat the Yankees? It was a big deal even when the Red Sox won their first game, even though they had to win three more in a row.)

So where are we? Obama is still the leader, but there are certain defects appearing that we hadn't seen before. We also know that the R's are going to be ten times as mean and dishonest as any Clinton can be, and they're going to make up as many lies about Obama as they did about Kerry four years ago.

I still hear people say that it doesn't matter, McCain just can't win. I think those views are clearly wrong. I think he can potentially win, and I am thinking more and more that the D's can boot this one.

So what do we do? Is anyone thinking that it's time to jump off the Obama band wagon? 

And, in an inside-baseball kind of way, does the deflation of Obama provide the justification of the superdelegate system that people have been criticizing all primary season? 

That title is only slightly a joke, as apparently our honorable and distinguished president, in a pre-recorded video appearance on the game show Deal or No Deal (which, admittedly, seems kinda familiar but I certainly have never seen it)  actually did ask host Howie Mandel that question.  According to the UK Guardian, Bush joked to the show’s host:

Howie, I don’t know if you’re free to come to Washington any time soon but I have to reach an agreement with Congress on the federal budget. How’d you like to host a $3 trillion ‘Deal or No Deal

I guess it could have been sorta funny, if not for the fact that Howie could almost certainly put together a better Federal budget than Mr Bush.

What was much more interesting to me from the article (which you can read here) is the fact that the people at Gallop just yesterday announced that Bush now has the lowest approval rating of any president since they began tracking such things, back in 1941 with FDR.  Bush even said he was thrilled to be on the show:

Come to think of it, I’m thrilled to be anywhere with high ratings these days.

Go ahead, laugh; I’m laughing.  The previous disapproval rating record was set by Truman in 1952 at the hight of the Korean War.

Bellow the fold, Gallops record of presidential approval highs and lows for as far back as records have been kept:

The highs and lows of US presidents (courtesy of Gallup)

George Bush

High 89% approval (September 2001)

Low 69% disapproval (April 2008)

Bill Clinton

High 71% approval (December 2000)

Low 53% disapproval (September 1994)

George HW Bush

High 89% approval (March 1991)

Low 59% disapproval (July-August 1992)

Ronald Reagan

High 71% approval (January 1986)

Low 56% disapproval (January 1983)

Jimmy Carter

High 74% approval (March 1977)

Low 59% disapproval (June 1979)

Gerald Ford

High 70% approval (August 1974)

Low 46% disapproval (November 1975)

Richard Nixon

High 66% approval (January 1973)

Low 65% disapproval (July 1974)

Lyndon Johnson

High 79% approval (March 1964)

Low 52% disapproval (August 1968)

John F Kennedy

High 79% approval (November 1961)

Low 30% disapproval (November 1963)

Dwight Eisenhower

High 77% approval (January 1956)

Low 35% disapproval (March 1958)

Harry Truman

High 91% approval (August 1945)

Low 67% disapproval (January 1952)

Franklin D Roosevelt

High 79% approval (January 1942)

Low 26% disapproval (August 1941)

UPDATE: Bill Passed.

Peter Welch’s brief, but intense 6 week campaign to close a loophole allowing taxpayer fraud committed by overseas contractors to go unreported and unaddressed is about to bear its first fruit (in record time) through the expected passage of H.R. 5712 – the “Close the Contractor Fraud Loophole Act” – by later this afternoon. When it passes, it will place Welch among a very special minority of lawmakers; ones who have actually pushed back against a Bush administration excess and won (in fact, the only comparable unqualified victory I can think of was Senator Leahy’s success in removing legal provisions allowing for the Bush Administration to seize control of State National Guards and deploy them across the country, which makes the case that Vermont is wielding legislative clout beyond its tiny size).

The story is well-covered in the most recent issue of 7 Days, as Ken Picard does his usual thorough job, saving me some writing in the process:

…last November that the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) proposed regulations that would require contractors to adopt a code of professional conduct and ethics and implement internal controls to detect and report waste, fraud and abuse.

Two months ago, someone in the executive branch – Welch won’t say who – tipped him off to an overlooked provision in the OMB’s proposed rules: Firms operating overseas were exempt from that requirement. In effect, government contractors working domestically would be held to a higher ethical standard than those working abroad – a curious distinction given the largely lawless and unregulated environments in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Welch, who serves on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, brought the loophole to the attention of committee chair Henry Waxman of California, who demanded in writing that the White House produce all documents related to the loophole by April 4. That deadline came and went. In the meantime, Welch had introduced H.R. 5712 – the “Close the Contractor Fraud Loophole Act.” Within days, Waxman scheduled a hearing of the Subcommittee on Government Management, Organization and Procurement for April 15.

The Bush administration claims the loophole was an honest mistake. Welch and Waxman aren’t so sure.

So, why the loophole, which was slipped in quietly and under the radar screen before coming to Welch’s attention? It’s fodder for conspiracy theorists for sure, who may be expecting to find some sort of massive Halliburton fraud feeding into a Dick Cheney offshore account. Most likely, though, is that the contractors have become so wild west with fraud, lack of legal oversight, and full-blown corruption that its a potential can of worms the administration would rather not open. Their quick backpedaling underscores how little they wanted Welch and Waxman to be successful in codifying the involvement of Congress, and good on them for moving forward regardless.

Of course, the devil will be in, not the details, but the implementation of actual fraud reporting requirements.

 The next step – as with any legislative oversight on this president, will be some sort of meaningful enforcement and oversight, which is where Congress has generally come up short. Even with law to back them up, catching fraud in that morass will still depend largely on whistleblowers, and whistleblowing is not a sport for the faint of heart these days:

Despite this staggering mess, there are no noble outcomes for those who have blown the whistle (on contractors in Iraq), according to a review of such cases by The Associated Press.

“If you do it, you will be destroyed,” said William Weaver, professor of political science at the University of Texas-El Paso and senior advisor to the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition.

“Reconstruction is so rife with corruption. Sometimes people ask me, ‘Should I do this?’ And my answer is no. If they’re married, they’ll lose their family. They will lose their jobs. They will lose everything,” Weaver said.

They have been fired or demoted, shunned by colleagues, and denied government support in whistleblower lawsuits filed against contracting firms.

So while kudos are in order for Welch, here’s hoping he stays on this, as the story of fraud and abuse among overseas contractors – and its full implications – has barely begun.

Just an FYI to Pollina supporters that there is a fundraising event in Waterbury coming up.

Where:  Alchemist

When:  Sunday, April 26th

Time:  9:30am 

Chef ('cause food makes the event):  Jeff Lang 

In case you haven't checked out Maureen Dowd this morning — who's taken her turn beating on and defending both Clinton and Obama — it's Clinton's turn to see the sexism charge being called out against her.

He’s never going to shake her off.

Not all by himself.

The very fact that he can’t shake her off has become her best argument against him. “Why can’t he close the deal?” Hillary taunted at a polling place on Tuesday.

She’s been running ads about it, suggesting he doesn’t have “what it takes” to run the country. Her message is unapologetically emasculating: If he does not have the gumption to put me in my place, when superdelegates are deserting me, money is drying up, he’s outspending me 2-to-1 on TV ads, my husband’s going crackers and party leaders are sick of me, how can he be trusted to totally obliterate Iran and stop Osama?

Her message?  Obama isn't “man enough” to beat her.  More on-the-money quotes below the fold.  Here's the teaser:

“The Democrats are growing ever more desperate about the Attack of the 50 Foot Woman.”

All quotes are from Maureen Dowd in today's NYTimes (the green quotation background is more difficult to read): 

*********** 

“They also cringe as Bill continues his honey-crusted-nut-bar meltdown. With his usual exquisite timing, just as Pennsylvanians were about to vote, Hillary’s husband became the first person ever to play the Caucasian Card. First, he blurted out to a radio interviewer that the Obama camp had played the race card against him after he compared Obama’s strength in South Carolina to Jesse Jackson’s. And then, with a Brobdingnagian finger-wagging on the screen, he denied it to an NBC News reporter.

“You always follow me around and play these little games, and I’m not going to play your games today,” he said, accusing the reporter of looking for “another cheap story to divert the American people from the real urgent issues before us.”

***********

…Not to be one-sided in her critique, Dowd says of Obama:

“As the husband of Michelle, does he know better than to defy the will of a strong woman? Or is he simply scared of Hillary because she’s scary?”

***********

…And finally, a really great bit of wisdom a la Dr. Suess:

“Before they devour themselves once more, perhaps the Democrats will take a cue from Dr. Seuss’s “Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now!” (The writer once mischievously redid it for his friend Art Buchwald as “Richard M. Nixon Will You Please Go Now!”) They could sing:

“The time has come. The time has come. The time is now. Just go. … I don’t care how. You can go by foot. You can go by cow. Hillary R. Clinton, will you please go now! You can go on skates. You can go on skis. … You can go in an old blue shoe.

Just go, go, GO!”

**********

Thanks, Maureen.  Well said.

And so it drags on… I suppose we're off to Guam.

Like all sane people, I am mightily weary of this primary – but in my case its not so much of the actual campaigning as its unfortunate side-effect, let's call it Internet Derangement Syndrome. It's what happens when you mix candidates that get people very excited (as both Obama and Clinton do), a protracted, expensive, nasty campaign – and a communications medium that allows for huge amounts of information and interpersonal exchanges to be cross-transmitted in the blink of an eye, and all disembodied from actual tactile human contact.

The result is like some ugly virus. Mass media have famously had the effect of turning people into mindless shambling zombies, but this new media seems to have the power to turn them into scary, crazed wild-eyed zombies, like the”Rage” virus in 28 Days Later.

Consider in the buildup to Pennsylvania just how bad it had gotten, not just among the commenters of these sites, but even among the lead bloggers. At Daily Kos, DHinMI penned an anti-Clinton diary that can at best be called gender-baiting, and spent the rest of the day furiously castigating and insulting any who raised objections. And then there is the bizarre and unnerving phenomenon mockingly dubbed “fingergate,” on display at pro-Clinton sites such as MyDD, in which Obama is purported to have given Clinton the finger during a stump speech. In recent days, this on-beyond-ridiculous notion has received as much scrutiny and absolutist pronouncements springled with phrases like “the facts are clear” and “there is no denying” as the Kennedy assassination. It's as though nobody even remembers the issues sometimes, and it would all be laughable if it weren't, at the end of the day, a disturbing glimpse into the anatomy of the mob mentality and the human tendency towards irrational, enraged hysteria.

So I can't wait til this is over, because I think its doing us damage – not because we on the netroots aren't all going to get over it. We will, although not because we'll magically rediscover our better selves. Rather, because the internet allows so much communication so quickly that things simply happen fast. Whole social movements can rise and fall in amonth, where in the past it would have taken a decade. We'll all have made up and had a dozen more fights between now and Election Day.

No, what worries me is how ugly the blogs, citizen journo sites – all the new media sites have become. They're so toxic, I can barely stand to visit them anymore, and I live for this stuff. The influence we've built – and continue to build – depends on having an audience of outside the netroots faithful. We can't influence the traditional media and the political conversation if we make the place so nasty, people stop visiting… and lord knows we're going to need every bit of the influence we've accumulated (and more) come November, and into the next administration, whoever is running it. 

(Press release from the ECFiber.Net governing board.)

EC FIBER IS ALIVE AND WELL!

The headline and article in Saturday’s Valley News about ECFiber (“VT Telecom Panel Snubs ECFiber”) left a seriously misleading impression that the fate of a grass roots effort that won near unanimous community support on town meeting day depended on the VTA. It does not. Instead, it is, as it always has been the case, up to private sector financiers and the growing numbers of Vermont citizens who have eagerly indicated a readiness to subscribe to world class fiber-based services.

At VTA’s request, and after the Chairman’s public statement that VTA could only bond for a minimum of $10 million, ECF submitted a proposal for discussion for two-tier financial support, of which only $4 million (not $8 million as reported), was direct lending, with the balance in escrow as a contingency fund.  Further, ECF continually expressed willingness to accept any sum, no matter how small, since the purpose was only to attach some financial gesture to the letter of moral support VTA had already provided. Once VTA took the position that it could only fund a project with near-AAA credit rating, ECF withdrew its request, since no start-up venture can meet that standard.  Private financiers understand this.

By its decision, the VTA refused an invitation to contribute toward creating a more favorable investment climate for ECFiber. In so doing, its actions – unwittingly or not –have had exactly the opposite consequence.  This is evidenced by a wide spread impression created by VTA’s actions and subsequent press coverage in the Valley News and other regional media that VTA had not just snubbed but “killed” the project.

Reports of ECFiber’s demise” are dead wrong.  On Monday, April 21, 20 towns presented their signatures to the Interlocal Contract that establishes the venture as a legal entity.  An Executive Committee of delegates was elected, by-laws adopted, and a committee structure for carrying the project forward in association with ValleyNet, the non-profit operating partner, was established.  

Concurrently, ECF has also concluded an agreement with Atlantic Engineering Group (AEG), one of the foremost design/build telecommunications engineering firms in the country, for a fixed price construction contract covering 75% of the projected capital expenditure. AEG has successfully built 65 Fiber-to-the-Premises networks including 16 municipally-owned ones.  The balance of the capital expenditures includes the “pole make-ready” which work must be done by the utilities that own the poles, and is governed by Vermont law and regulation, and the design and construction of the network hub, which ValleyNet prefers to do on its own. AEG reviewed the same data presented by ECF to VTA, and found: “AEG considers the ECFiber network design to be sound and has tested the ValleyNet cost figures using its own proprietary pricing models … and has concluded that ValleyNet’s figures … are reasonable and achievable. AEG believes that the execution schedule…is reasonable and will commit to meet that schedule.”

Providing future economic opportunity and security for the towns of our region is not an exercise for the faint of heart or for those fearful of failure.  Inaction will condemn communities and businesses in our region to a far more ominous set of social and economic risks.

ECF now has all the elements in place to go out to the private capital markets with a prospectus, and has already received encouragement from a number of interested investors.  Nonetheless, given the turmoil in the capital markets, this is expected to be a much longer process than would have been the case a year ago.

However, ECF is confident that it will secure the municipal capital lease financing upon which its business model is based, with the continued and growing grassroots support  that has made this project possible.

( – promoted by odum)

(UPDATE: After much heated debate, the House passed the bill.  -odum)

When Entergy Nuclear bought the Vermont Yankee reactor, they also got about $300 million in a fund collected from Vt electric ratepayers for the eventual cleanup of the Vernon site.

The total cleanup cost is estimated by Entergy at twice the amount now in the cleanup fund. (The final costs will probably be three times the current balance, when tritium contamination is included.)

The Senate, and the House Commerce Committee, have passed a bill requiring Entergy to pay up the fund before spinning off ENVY to a new “limited liability corporation”.

THIS BILL NEEDS YOUR HELP TO PASS.

S.373

AN ACT RELATING TO FULL FUNDING OF DECOMMISSIONING COSTS OF A NUCLEAR PLANT

We need calls to state representatives today and tomorrow!

Don’t know what to say? Here are some suggestions:

Tell them you want them to pass the Vermont Yankee Decommissioning Bill, S.373.

Tell them you want Entergy Nuclear to guarantee the full cleanup amount.

Tell them you don’t want the state of Vermont or electric ratepayers to be burdened with the costs of cleaning up a risky, old, costly reactor.

Then get your friends to call their representatives!

TWO WAYS TO CALL

1. Call the Sergeant-at-Arms in the State House to leave a message for your Rep. “VOTE YES FOR ENTERGY CLEANUP FUNDING, S.373.”

802-828-2228 Sgt at Arms

2. Vermont Legislative Directory – http://www.leg.state.vt.us/leg…

to find your representatives’ phone number.