I hear people talk about supporting the state of Vermont as we campaign to shut down Vermont Yankee.
I see no reason to support the state of Vermont regarding shutting down Vermont Yankee. For the past 40 years, some branch of the state government or another has historically allowed VY to operate with impunity, lies, and poisoning the water, air, and life of its surrounding area.
When Entergy bought VY and quickly petitioned the state for a 20-percent increase in power (translation, an increase in profits) and then for additional on-site storage (despite the testimony and objections of notable citizen watchdog groups like the New England Coalition, the Conservation Law Foundation, scientists, and nuclear engineers), the state gave VY the licenses that allowed the company to continue to poison citizens and the environment.
Although the Vermont Senate did vote overwhelmingly not to allow the Public Service Board to issue Entergy a certificate of public good to operate beyond March 2012, the state has done nothing to prosecute the 11 top executives of Entergy who lied under oath about the existence of pipes leaking tritium under the reactor. The state did nothing to shut down Vermont Yankee when a tremendously-over-the-legal-limit amount of tritium was discovered in the groundwater and now the Connecticut River.