There are some parallels in this article to what could happen in VA. It's worth a read-through.
By DAVE GRAM, Associated Press Writer
Fri Apr 18, 4:04 AM ET
Vermont's love-hate relationship with its lone nuclear power plant is coming to a head: Lawmakers have to decide next year whether to shut down the reactor in 2012 as scheduled or keep it humming for another two decades.
Vermont is as known for its green living as its green landscapes, and some environmentalists in the state have come to appreciate nuclear power for its low greenhouse gas emissions, said Steve Terry, a former journalist who covered the construction of the Vermont Yankee plant in the late 1960s.
But the plant's benefit "comes in a clash with a rather determined minority that has opposed nuclear power for basically radiological safety issues," said Terry, who went on to become vice president of Green Mountain Power Corp., one of the 36-year-old plant's first owners.
The debate among lawmakers about whether to shutter the plant could only happen in Vermont, the only state with a law giving its Legislature veto power over continued operation of a reactor beyond the expiration of its license, said Linda Sikkema, group director for environment, energy and transportation at the National Conference of State Legislatures. Such questions generally are left to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The federal agency has never rejected a nuclear plant's request to extend its license, and some in Vermont question whether it can give the reactor the thorough physical they say it needs before getting the green light to extend its life span by 50 percent.
"The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is a wholly owned subsidiary of the nuclear industry," Senate President Pro Tem Peter Shumlin, a Democrat whose Windham County district includes the reactor site, said this week.
Rep. Sarah Edwards, a member of the Progressive Party whose Brattleboro district is near Vermont Yankee's site in Vernon, on the banks of the Connecticut River in the state's southeast corner, agreed that "there's a lack of confidence in the NRC's oversight process by many, many citizens of the state of Vermont."
David Lew, the NRC's director of the Division of Reactor Projects, defended the agency's performance in testimony before a House committee this week. He told lawmakers the NRC spends more than 7,000 hours inspecting Vermont Yankee in a typical year.
The 650-megawatt plant sends about half its power to Vermont, and the rest to other parts of New England. The share staying in the state represents about a third of Vermont's total power demand.
Critics also question whether plant owner Entergy Nuclear Operations, an Entergy Corp. subsidiary, will have enough money in the Vermont Yankee decommissioning fund when it comes time to dismantle the plant, especially given a corporate restructuring Entergy has proposed.
Even if the Legislature decides that the plant has to shut down in 2012, the battle may merely move to the courts. States are generally pre-empted from regulating the safety aspects of nuclear power, and NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said his agency guards its prerogative in that realm carefully.
If Vermont "crosses over into trying to regulate nuclear safety, then that would be of concern to us," Sheehan said.
No fewer than five bills in the legislative hopper this year involve operations at Vermont Yankee. Most were written by nuclear foes.
"If this is the debate in 2008," Terry said, "it's going to be even more of a heated debate in 2009."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080418/ap_on_re_us/vermont_reactor_2
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