The Power of ACT 160
Even if the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in Washington, DC has decided to authorize a new 20-year license for the aging, mismanaged reactor, the representatives of Vermont’s citizens still have the authority to say “NO!” The Vermont legislature’s decisive vote will likely take place during the 2009 session. Prior to the vote, Act 160 requires the state’s Department of Public Services (DPS), in consultation with the Senate-House Joint Energy Committee, to arrange for studies that will inform the public and the legislature regarding:
In addition to the studies, the DPS is required to arrange a “public engagement” process. While VCAN and other groups vehemently opposed the holding of these meetings prior to the release of any studies, the DPS held four public meetings and an online discussion in the Spring of 2008. Results show a majority of Vermonters wish Vermont Yankee to close and be replaced by 2012. The act authorizes the state to bill Entergy for the costs of the studies and engagement. A copy of the act can be accessed online: http://www.leg.state.vt.us/docs/legdoc.cfm?URL=/docs/2006/acts/ACT160.htm No other state legislature has ever claimed the right of its citizens, through their elected representatives, to make a decision that could over-ride the powerful interests of a major nuclear corporation and the NRC. While Vermonters were successful in passing Act 160, we understand that it will take a far greater effort to win the decisive vote in 2009. One part of that effort is to monitor the DPS (which under the Douglas administration, has favored Entergy) as it carries out the required studies and public engagement that are to inform the state legislature. Vermont citizen advocacy efforts have already helped block a DPS plan to subsume the public engagement activities within another process that took place in the fall of 2007. Additionally, citizens successfully challenged the department’s A coalition of citizen and advocacy groups will continue to provide constructive input about what constitutes an adequate combina-tion of economic, health and environmental studies and meaningful public engagement, as well as to hold the DPS publicly accountable for any failure to provide these. In so doing, Vermonters from around the state will continue to work with the visionary legislators who introduced the Act 160 bill and continue to provide leadership in the Senate, House and various committees. On the other hand, we realize that the Entergy Nuclear Corporation will use the full force of its wealth and power in an effort to convince of legislators that Vermont’s economy cannot do without the reactor’s electricity and make them believe that the production of that electricity is safe, clean and reliable. The key to our success will be people power: citizens organized in legislative districts throughout Vermont who speak truth to power. This is specially crucial in those parts of the state furthest from the reactor. The residents of the evacuation zone in Vermont, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, who live in the shadow of the reactor, will need to reach out to our fellow citizens. We will succeed in closing the Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor. And we will make history by providing a model for citizens of other states who are equally endangered by the nuclear reactors near them. |
In May 2006, after intensive citizen advocacy efforts, the Vermont legislature passed a law of truly historic proportions. Titled Act 160, the legislation determines that the Entergy Nuclear Corporation may not operate the Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor after its license expires in 2012 without “the explicit approval of the General Assembly expressed in law after full, open, and informed public deliberation and discussion with respect to pertinent factors . . . .”