Vermont Senate Denies Vermont Yankee

Over 250 Vermont Yankee opponents gathered at the State House on February 24 for the Senate's vote to decide the future of Vermont's sole nuclear power plant. They asked lawmakers to retire Vermont Yankee in 2012 - as planned. In an overwhelming, bipartisan vote, the Vermont Senate yesterday chose to do so, sending one loud, clear message: “The time is now to retire Vermont Yankee.” The vote was 26-4.
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VNRC Appeals St. Albans Walmart Decision

A month after a Vermont Environmental Court judge ruled in favor of a Wal-Mart proposed for a corn field in St. Albans Town, the Vermont Natural Resources Council filed a motion to alter Judge Thomas Durkin's Jan. 20 ruling, citing several errors in the decision.
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VNRC Moves to Intervene in Vermont Yankee Proceeding

As elevated levels of radioactive isotopes continue to leak into groundwater surrounding the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant - and potentially into neighboring drinking water wells - VNRC today filed a motion to intervene in the docket before the Public Service Board on Vermont Yankee. VNRC cited our interest in protecting the state’s groundwater – a resource legally held in trust for the common good of all Vermonters – and the critical need to assure the state interprets the new groundwater public trust law correctly.
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Dispatches from the Statehouse, Feb. 3, 2010

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Violating the Public's Trust, and the Public Trust

The recent news that Entergy officials misled Vermont regulators about the existence of underground pipes at the company's aging nuclear reactor in Vernon demonstrates a major breach of trust. Even people within the Douglas administration, which has supported relicensing the plant, say the development is "very disturbing" and have said they will not support the relicensing of the plant until the questions are cleared up.
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Why Risk Our Economy for Vermont Yankee?

The Vermont seal of quality carries with it a cachet that few other states can claim. Over the years we've done a great job leading the country on issues that affect the common good, such as land stewardship, energy efficiency and environmental conservation. We've set the bar high — from the passage of Act 250, Vermont's comprehensive land use and development law, to the nation's first feed-in tariff, designed to jumpstart the in-state generation of renewable energy; and from the creation of Efficiency Vermont, the country's first energy efficiency utility, to the 2008 legislation that took the visionary step of declaring groundwater a public trust resource.
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VNRC Supports Anti-Idling Efforts

Anti-idling initiatives have been gathering steam across the U.S. - as well as in Vermont - yet the Green Mountain State remains the last New England state without an idling ordinance on the books. In January, VNRC testified in support of H.97 - an anti-idling bill that "has the potential to take Vermont one more small but important step forward to help save energy and meet our greenhouse gas emission reduction goals." Read VNRC's initial testimony on this bill and find out more.
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Vermont Yankee Misleads Vermonters

Yesterday news broke that Entergy Nuclear, the parent company of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, misled Vermont regulators — under oath — when it denied the existence of underground pipes beneath the plant. Within the context of other recent news — the fact that a dangerous radioactive isotope called tritium has been leaking into the groundwater around the plant — Entergy’s ‘mischaracterization’ represents an egregious breach of the public trust.
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Dispatches From the Statehouse for January 19, 2010

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Tom Slayton on the Proposed Rule Allowing ATVs on State Lands

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