Union bosses lobby for Vermont Yankee
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By DANIEL BARLOW Vermont Press Bureau - Published: January 5, 2010
MONTPELIER – Representatives of 15 unions urged lawmakers Monday to allow the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant to continue operating beyond 2012, setting the stage for an expected dramatic showdown as the Legislature's new session begins.
Opinions vary on what to do with the state's aging and only nuclear power plant, with lawmakers and union split on whether to relicense Yankee for another 20 years. The debate brings together disparate issues: nuclear safety, the lack of a contract for future Yankee power and the cost and availability of replacement power if Yankee is shut down, as well as a proposed spinoff of Yankee to a new corporation, and the impact of a shutdown on employees at the facility.
The issue Monday was clearly jobs.
The unions, which included IBEW Local 300 and Teamsters Local 597, represent about 160 staff and contracted employees at the Vernon nuclear facility, which is scheduled to shut down in less than three years.
"We already have enough people unemployed," said George Clain, the president of IBEW Local 300 at a Statehouse press conference Monday afternoon. "We are all for green jobs, but we already have a large number of members looking for employment."
Monday's press conference did not include anyone who works at Vermont Yankee, although Entergy Nuclear Vermont, the company that owns the power plant, has launched an advertising campaign called, "I am Vermont Yankee" that focuses on stories of its workers.
Clain, who told reporters that all of the more than half-dozen officials with him at the press conference were union officials, said their Vermont Yankee workers could not make the event because they were on the job.
"Our people are working," he said. "We don't have the luxury of pulling them off the clock."
Vermont Yankee opened in 1972 and its license to operate expires in 2012. Entergy wants to run the facility for an additional 20 years and sell it and five other nuclear power plants to a spinoff company called Enexus.
Lawmakers in Vermont have the unusual power of voting on whether or not Vermont Yankee will shut down in 2012 or continue running. Authority also lies with the Vermont Public Service Board, a quasi-judicial state body, which now needs to wait until lawmakers vote before issuing their ruling on relicensing.
Clain said the benefits of 20 more years of Vermont Yankee are clear: The plant employs 620 people, provides millions of dollars in local and state taxes each year and offers high wages, pension plans and health benefits.
"The average Vermont Yankee worker, as of January 2009, makes about $81,000 a year," Clain said. "Just do the math. It makes sense to keep this plant open."
Senate President Pro Tem Peter Shumlin, D-Windham, represents the county where Vermont Yankee is located and is a 2010 gubernatorial candidate. He said Monday that he's not sure yet if the Legislature will vote on continued operation in the 2010 session.
He said the Senate Finance Committee will take a close look at the price offer of 6.1 cents per kilowatt hour offer that Entergy has placed on the table to determine if it is a good deal for Vermont. That is roughly 2 cents more than the current contract Yankee has with the state's utilities. But he stressed that many lawmakers also have strong concerns about Entergy's plan to sell the facility to a spin-off company.
Shumlin said he believes Vermont's economic future is in green jobs, not nuclear ones.
"I'm convinced that the next economic boom in America will happen when we shift off of our addiction to foreign oil and move to renewable energy," he said. "Vermont needs to be part of that."
Clain said he believes that lawmakers should vote on Vermont Yankee even though Entergy has not reached a new contract agreement with the state's utilities. Lawmakers have held firm that a power purchase agreement – a document detailing exactly how much Vermonters would pay for energy from the plant past 2012 – is an essential element in their decision.
Failing to vote in 2010 would "drive us back into the dark ages … it would drive us back into a Great Depression," Clain said.
Jay Thayer, the vice-president of operations for Entergy Nuclear Vermont, said the company and the utilities are "evaluating each other's proposals" when asked if they are still negotiating on a contract. He agreed with the union that Entergy's best-offer price is enough information for lawmakers to vote.
"I think there is more than enough information out there to make a decision," Thayer said.
Not all union officials agree that Vermont Yankee should remain open. Traven Leyshon, the district vice-president of the Vermont AFL-CIO and the president of the Green Mountain Labor Council, said Monday that both Entergy and Enexus are not fit to run a nearly 40-year-old nuclear plant.
Leyshon said his comments were his own and do not represent the AFL-CIO, which does not have workers at Vermont Yankee.
"The problem is that Entergy just doesn't seem to care much about its workers," he said. "They are using them right now. But if the plant closed, they would leave these workers behind in a second."
Bob Stannard, a lobbyist for the anti-nuclear group Citizens Awareness Network, said Monday that a majority of the jobs at Vermont Yankee go to New Hampshire and Massachusetts residents.
"Of the 200 or so Vermonters who work at the plant, just how many of them are in the union?" Stannard said. "Forty? Fifty, maybe? Yes, we're sensitive to anyone losing their job in this economy, but maybe the effort would be better spent ensuring that Entergy will invest in transitioning these folks, instead of hiding behind them."
Daniel.Barlow@timesargus.com
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