To the surprise of no one, Entergy recently told the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) that it has no plans to close Vermont Yankee for at least another five years.
Entergy also informed the NRC that the company would not submit an update on VY's decommissioning fund.
Entergy's logic is that if the plant is going to keep running, there's no need to let Vermonters know whether we have enough money to dismantle the reactor, dispose of the radioactive waste, and decontaminate the site.
Doubling down on its arrogance, Entergy has also failed to make a scheduled $625,000 payment to the state's Clean Energy Development Fund.
While the NRC gave Vermont Yankee a 20-year license extension last year, the plant never received from the Vermont Public Service Board the required state Certificate of Public Good (CPG), which it needs to operate legally.
Entergy is suing the state in federal court, challenging Vermont's authority to close the plant. Meanwhile, Vermont Yankee is still operating under the now-expired CPG while the case makes its way through the court system.
Under the terms of that previous CPG, Entergy must make payments to the energy fund.
The state contends that if Entergy wants to the plant to keep running, it has to honor its prior agreements. Entergy, of course, has no intention of doing so.
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These actions are those of a rogue corporation, unbound by the law and previously signed agreements. Entergy will run the plant as long as it derives economic benefit from it, and it will close it down as soon as possible when it no longer is profitable.
And what is Vermont getting out of the deal?
The two biggest electric utilities - Central Vermont Public Service and Green Mountain Power - no longer buy electricity from Vermont Yankee. In case you haven't noticed, the lights are still on, and the electric bills are more or less the same.
As for the economic impact of Vermont Yankee, supporters can talk all they want about the 600 jobs at the plant.
And while the loss of those jobs will have significant impact on individual families and the local economy, what will the cost be to Vermonters if Entergy decides to renege on its agreement to fully fund decommissioning the plant, a cost conservatively estimated at roughly $1 billion?
But will the state and the electric ratepayers be prepared to pick up the tab for the hundreds of millions of dollars to make up for the current shortfall in the fund, a fund that Entergy has not contributed to in years?
And remember, that scenario is downright rosy compared to the human and economic costs of a Fukushima-style nuclear meltdown at VY.
In its words and its deeds, it is clear that Entergy cannot be trusted. Unfortunately, in a nation increasingly dominated by corporate power, what Entergy is doing is just standard operating procedure.
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Over and over, for years and years, supporters of Vermont Yankee have stepped up to defend Entergy as a good corporate citizen that does right by its employees and the community.
Even though a number of Vermonters find the logic repugnant, Entergy has made a legal case for its contention that federal law affects - and supersedes - Vermont law in a way that invalidates the two acts that provided legislative approval of the CPG process.
But let's accept, for the sake of argument, that reasonable people can disagree - strenuously - about the legal merits of Entergy's federal claims.
This rogue company's latest actions are something else altogether and take this debate into new and uncharted - and wholly unnecessary - territories. The company is setting up a dangerous precedent for engaging in any sort of behavior.
What would prevent Entergy from deciding that it's not in its corporate best interest to pay its property taxes to the town of Vernon? Who or what entity could, or would, force it?
And what would prevent Entergy from stopping the flow of hundreds of thousands of dollars to area nonprofits?
All of us who live and work in southern Vermont - and in large chunks of New Hampshire and Massachusetts - are stakeholders in the VY issue.
Entergy is not only a corporate entity doing its own business; it is entrusted with our lives and our livelihoods. As such, it is accountable to us all.
But the company really also needs nothing more from Vermont isn't already taking anyway - legally or otherwise - and that does not bode well.