FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NEC FILES OPPOSITION TO ENTERGY MOTION SEEKING A FINAL ORDER IN PUBLIC SERVICE BOARD VY LICENSE RENEWAL CASE NEC's MOTION is available at http://www.necnp.org/files/docs/2012-02-02__NEC_Opposition(Docket_7440).pdf

February 2 2012 -- Brattleboro, Vermont. New England Coalition today issued a strongly-worded opposition to Entergy's recently filed motion before the Vermont Public Service Board for a prompt final decision on Entergy's application for a Vermont Yankee Certificate of Public Good.

The Certificate would enable 20 years of added operation of Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station.

Entergy's January 31st motion follows a Federal District Court decision ( January 19th) which allows the Public Service Board to move forward on the Entergy Vermont Yankee application absent issues of nuclear safety and wholesale electricity rates which the court ruled federally preempted, and thus beyond the reach of the state.

New England Coalition's attorney, Jared Margolis of Jericho, Vermont wrote that because the evidentiary and legal argument portions of the license extension docket ended more than two years ago [Last briefs were filed August 7,2009], much of the testimony and evidence has now grown stale or has been rendered obsolete by industry events and changing markets. Margolis cited numerous unresolved issues in the docket including the damaging effects of Entergy's false testimony regarding the presence underground piping which can be a significant factor in the cost of decommissioning.

"Entergy has moved this Board for a decision based on the record that has already been created in Docket 7440. Entergy makes this motion even though it argued before the Vermont Federal District Court that the appropriate course of action would be to begin anew before the Board, free of the taint of legislative influence and preempted content (see below). Entergy's Motion for a decision based on the existing record is therefore both frivolous and disingenuous." --- Attorney Jared Margolis

"Further," Margolis wrote, "the record is thoroughly tainted with information and references to what the Federal Court has now explained to be potentially preempted concerns. NEC therefore submits that a renewed application and additional hearings are necessary before the Board can appropriately rule on Entergy's application for a CPG.

Using examples from the transcript of the federal proceeding, NEC pointed out that, in contrast to Entergy's newly filed motion for a PSB decision based on the completed [but flawed] evidentiary record, Entergy asked Federal Judge Gavan Murtha .to remand the matter of state permission for Entergy VY to keep operating past March 21, 2012 to the Vermont Public Service as an entirely new proceeding:

Entergy Attorney Kathleen Sullivan,

But our concern, Your Honor, is of course, especially since members of the Public Service Board were part of who helped the Legislature craft the other words for safety, we're not confident that we can go back to a Public Service Board that's in some sense tainted by these statutes. We think we would have to go back to the Public Service Board with a fresh docket and a fresh start, not the docket that has been created under the shadow of these unconstitutional statutes. And if we have to go back to the Public Service Board with these statutes eliminated, we would want a chance to make a fresh docket and confine the proceedings to non-nuclear safety issues... We do have a Federal constitutional issue with the proceedings [before the Board] as they've happened to date. We think that the activity of the Board to date in its interactions with the Legislature means that we should have a fresh start in front of the PSB, a fresh start which we could be sure there won't be any consideration of public health under Act 160. So, if Act 74 and Act 160 are removed from the picture, we think we should have a chance at a fresh docket. Case No. 11-cv-99, Sep. 14, 2011 (morning session) Tr. at 674-675.

Entergy Attorney Kathleen Sullivan,

But there is one more formal reason why we think the current docket is tainted, that is the Act 189 Study...Act 189 was all about safety, was preempted, and therefore, created a study, the NSA study approved by the Public Oversight Panel that was all about safety, and the Act 189 study is part of the record that is before the current PSB. So...what we argue to Your Honor is you would have to enjoin the PSB from withholding a Certificate of Public Good on grounds of nuclear safety and whether you do that within the current docket, telling them they have to in a sense scrub that docket of any tainted part, including the 189 report, or whether it's simpler for you to simply say start over on a clean slate, we think that's within Your Honor's discretion. ...And if you think they can, in a sense, close their eyes and ears to the tainted portions of existing record and clean it up, that would be acceptable as long as you think it's doable. We think the safer course would be to start over. Id. at 678-679.

The PSB is currently considering a request from the Department of Public Service to hold a conference among the parties to the relicensing docket "not before February 24th:" a date presumably tied to the expiration of the period of appeal for the federal decision.

Also today, the VPSB set March 12th as the date by which parties wishing to reply or comment on Entergy's Motion for Issuance of a Final Decision may file.

NEC's Motion is attached. ##30##