August 19, 2008 VPIRG calls for closing Vermont Yankee in 2012

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) - Vermont Public Interest Research Group said Tuesday it has collected more than 12,000 signatures on postcards calling for Vermont Yankee to close when its license expires in 2012.

VPIRG held a news conference to make the announcement outside the Statehouse, where lawmakers are expected to decide in their 2009 session whether the state's lone reactor, which is located in Vernon, should be authorized to seek a 20-year license extension.

"One of the best ways to gauge public opinion is to go out and actually talk with people, face to face and door to door," said Ben Walsh, who helped to run VPIRG's summer campaign office.

"We've done that from one end of Vermont to the other, and I can tell you that from Grand Isle to Brattleboro, Vermonters are ready to make the switch from an unreliable and aging nuclear plant to a clean, local, renewable energy future," he said.

VPIRG, a longtime critic of nuclear power, argues the plant is aging and unsafe, and that much of its power can be replaced with wind and other renewable resources.

Vermont is the only state in the country in which state law gives legislators an up-or-down vote on whether a nuclear plant should be relicensed. That vote is widely expected during the 2009 session, three years in advance of when the new, 20-year license period would begin if Vermont Yankee succeeds in getting it.

VPIRG Executive Director Paul Burns said

his group would be urging Vermonters to talk to their legislative candidates during the fall election season and ask them to vote no on Vermont Yankee's relicensing.

Burns said the group was encouraged by the support it found during the annual summer canvassing drive, when group members go door-to-door, talking up a selected issue or issues in which the group is involved and soliciting memberships and financial support.

"When we decided to focus on the need to retire Vermont Yankee and support the development of clean energy resources and the jobs that go with them, we didn't know how that might go in areas of the state further removed from the shadow of the plant," Burns said.

"As it turns out, this campaign has been one of the most successful we've ever run," he added. "In fact, during my time here no campaign has generated more support from the public than this one."

Vermont Yankee and its supporters say the plant is a safe and economical source of electricity, that its power is produced without significant fossil fuel emissions, that it is a linchpin of the Windham County economy and that it should be relicensed.

Among the plant's supporters is the Vermont Energy Partnership, a coalition of business and other groups.

A call to the VEP office seeking comment on Tuesday was not immediately returned.

On its Web site, the group says Vermont Yankee "has consistently provided reliable and clean power, safely and efficiently for more than three decades. Today it provides one third of the states electricity. Vermont Yankee has been a staple of the Vermont economy, and helped to make its electricity portfolio one of the cleanest in the country."

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)