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VPIRG Urges Investigation of Vermont Yankee Advertising
 The Vermont Public Interest Research Group (VPIRG) today called on Attorney General William Sorrell to launch a formal investigation into the paid advertising of Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee (ENVY) as a possible violation of a state law designed to protect consumers from fraudulent claims.
“The out-of-state owners of Vermont Yankee have demonstrated such a disregard for the truth that it amounts to a violation of state law,” said Paul Burns, executive director of the Vermont Public Interest Research Group (VPIRG).
VPIRG cited examples from ENVY’s paid ads that conflict with documented facts or common public perception and urged Attorney General Sorrell to commence a civil investigation and take appropriate steps to protect the public from further deception on the part of ENVY.
As part of its advertising campaign, ENVY is urging Vermonters to contact their legislators in support of a 20-year license extension for the plant. A vote on the possible extension is expected in 2009 or 2010.
“Vermonters would be far better off if Entergy put all the money they’re spending on ads into hiring competent managers and engineers who can help to prevent the plant from falling apart until it retires in 2012,” said Burns.
For the full press release on VPIRG's request to Attorney General Sorrell, click here.
For the full text of the letter to Attorney General Sorrell, click here.
In Other News...
12,000+ Want VT Yankee Closed
 8/19/08- The Vermont Public Interest Research Group (VPIRG) held a news conference announcing the results of one of the organization’s most successful summer outreach campaigns ever, generating over 12,000 postcards signed by Vermonters interested in seeing the state’s aging nuclear plant retired in 2012 in favor of clean energy alternatives.
 “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.”
This summer Vermonters have been exposed to two very different approaches in the debate over Vermont Yankee’s future. The Louisiana-based corporate owners of Vermont Yankee have spent large sums of money on ads beginning with the ironic tag line, “Vermonter to Vermonter.” Meanwhile, VPIRG outreach workers have hit the streets, on foot and on bicycle, to recruit support for alternatives to the catastrophe-prone plant one Vermonter at a time. They set an ambitious goal of collecting 10,000 signatures on postcards to legislators in districts around the state. Earlier this month, they smashed that goal and have gathered over 12,000 postcards to date.
Read the full press release here.
Take action to help close Vermont Yankee here.
VPIRG Report: Catamount Health“96 Percent Goal” Currently Unattainable
A new VPIRG report analyzing the state’s package of health care reform programs charges that while thousands of Vermonters have gained health coverage in recent months, the outlook is dim for the state to meet its goal of ensuring that at least 96 percent of Vermonters have health care coverage by 2010.
VPIRG issued the report, which is the second in a series to examine the state’s rollout of Catamount Health and related programs in the Green Mountain Care line. According to VPIRG, although state officials deserve credit for their promotion of Catamount Health and other health benefits available to Vermonters, the state is not on track to reach the overarching goal touted by lawmakers and the administration when the Catamount Health legislation was passed in 2006.
“Vermonters embraced an ambitious goal two years ago – to make certain that 96 percent of the state’s population has health care coverage by 2010,” said Stefanie Sidortsova, VPIRG’s health care advocate. “Catamount Health by itself will not reach that goal, nor will any of our other existing programs. Simply put, if 96 percent of Vermonters are going to have health insurance by 2010, we need to make some pretty big changes to the current landscape.”
The scorecard highlights many of the outreach and enrollment efforts the Vermont Agency of Administration’s Health Care Reform office has undertaken to get Vermonters enrolled in state health care programs. Despite a significant effort, enrollment numbers in the Catamount Health plan have failed to hit projections. more...
Read the full press release here.
Read the full report here.
Leak At Vermont Yankee's Cooling Towers Raises New Concerns
 Multiple problems forced Vermont Yankee to shut down both of their cooling towers and reduce the power plant’s output to 23%. Leaks or other structural failures were found in at least three different sections of the towers including the very same tower the company claims it fixed after last summer’s collapse.
James Moore, the VPIRG Clean Energy Advocate noted that state and federal regulators are failing the public and was quoted in the Burlington Free Press raising questions that deserve our regulators attention: “It makes one wonder where else they’ve cut corners… There seems to be a culture of not doing everything it takes to fix and secure that facility.”
Simply put, Entergy Nuclear proved once again that Vermont Yankee is not the way forward for our energy future. Or as James Moore put it during an interview on VPR “The short term bribe of [saving] a few dollars a month in your electricity bill is far outweighed by the cost that we would be passing on to future generations of Vermonters in nuclear waste, in cleanup, and in risk associated with running one of the oldest reactors in the country.”
Read more about the leak from VPR here, from the Burlington Free Press here, and from the Brattleboro Reformer here.
VPIRG Leads National Health Care Reform Coalition Efforts In Vermont
 Joining a new coalition with nearly 100 other organizations nationwide, VPIRG announced it would be taking the lead in organizing efforts for dramatic health care reform here in Vermont.
Health Care for America Now (HCAN) is being launched by 95 national and local groups that represent labor, community organizations, doctors, nurses, women, small businesses, faith-based organizations, people of color, netroots activists, and think tanks. Health Care for America Now is organizing to assure that the first order of business of the next President and Congress is to pass legislation in 2009 that guarantees quality, affordable health care for all.
The campaign is spending an initial $1.5 million on national television, print, and online advertising and is sending out an email blast to more than 5 million people. Over the next five months, Health Care for America Now plans to spend $25 million in paid media and have 100 organizers in 45 states.
Health Care for America Now offers a bold new vision for health care reform: Americans can keep the private insurance they have, join a new private insurance plan, or choose a public health insurance plan. The campaign also calls for a government role in setting and enforcing rules on the insurance industry which consistently charges whatever it wants, sets high deductibles, denies coverage based on pre-existing conditions, and drops coverage when people get sick.
Read the full press release by clicking here.
Join us in taking action to change the way we treat the ill in America by clicking here.
Read Times-Argus coverage of the story here.
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