USA Today came to Vermont last week to write about the Vermont Yankee squabble, and in Friday’s paper the reporter quoted Yankee spokesman Larry Smith describing the nuclear power plant’s opponents as “hippies from the ’60s who want to be against something, and it’s nuclear power.”

Not a very smart thing to say, at least not in the judgment of one Larry Smith, who said Tuesday, “not the smartest thing I ever said.”

Not what he meant, either, said Smith, who didn’t deny saying it. But he was referring, he said, only to some of those who oppose relicensing the plant for another 20 year run, “many of the same people who attended those (anti-nuclear) hearings” 40 years ago.

“The people who moved up here in the 60s, sort of counter-culture folks,” he said. “But it was not a general characterization. I would never characterize all our opponents that way.”

Good enough. But here’s the interesting thing. If he had meant it as a serious description of those against the relicensing (and we take him at his word that he did not), he would have had a point.

Not literally, of course. If the latest polls are accurate, most Vermonters don’t want the plant licensed to run past March of 2012, and surely most Vermonters do not fit the definition of “hippie”: “a person who opposes and rejects many of the conventional standards and customs of society” (American Heritage Dictionary, Second College Edition).

But broadening the definition a little (well, OK; a lot), the description fits. At least the leaders of the anti-Yankee forces tend to be political liberals, environmentalists who are suspicious of all large corporations, who might go out of their way to eat locally grown, organic food, who listen to public radio.

To a corporate executive at a nuclear power plant, these people would be not only wrong on the issue, but also…not my kind of people. Conversely, on the other side of the debate, those executives would be not only wrong on the issue, but…not our kind of people.

At some point this political tribalism becomes as significant, if not more so, than the differences over the issues, real though they are. On both sides, beating those other guys (not our kind of people) becomes the real goal.

This is not a phenomenon unique to Vermont. Take the dispute over drilling for oil in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The oil industry does not support drilling as fervently as do conservative commentators and operatives (the industry isn’t sure there’s that much oil there). The conservative commentariate has no economic vested interest. They just want to “stick it to the hippies,” or, more accurately, defeat environmentalists, who are not their kind of people (and who in turn delight in the conservative discomfort about continuing to lose this battle).

Something similar is going on in Vermont with regard to “permit reform,” which apparently isn’t going to happen again this year. But it’s a perennial. It will be back, promoted by the business community (especially the building contractors) and supported by most Republicans.

Their argument is that the hoops through which developers must jump before they are allowed to begin construction projects suppress economic growth in the state. Were it easier, quicker, and cheaper to get permits, they say, there would be more construction projects, hence more jobs and faster economic growth.

The argument is not provably false. But it is almost surely not true, raising the possibility that another motive is at work here, that what the “permit reform” advocates really want to do is “stick it to the hippies.”

Or to put it more responsibly, some Vermonters are still so bitter about losing the fight over the passage of Act 250, 40 years ago, and some other environmental laws since, that they want revenge. If not to repeal the law (a political impossibility) at least to weaken it.

This is not a sentiment confined to the right side of the ideological spectrum. Some feminists still (metaphorically speaking) froth at the mouth when reminded of the failure of the Equal Right Amendment 30 years ago.

But what is the foundation for concluding that Act 250 and the other environmental rules have not suppressed Vermont’s economy?

A good question with a simple answer: Vermont’s economy has not been suppressed.

By almost every measurement, the state’s economy has grown as fast as or faster than the economies of its neighboring states.  In the last 40 years, Vermont’s per capita income, once far behind the national median, has almost caught up with it.  The state now ranks 23^rd in personal income per capita.

The most recent statistics from the Bureau of Economic Analysis show that Vermont’s economy grew by 1.7 percent in 2008, faster than the country as a whole, faster than the New England region, faster than the rest of the Northeast, faster than the South or the Great Lakes, and just as fast as the Southwest.

And they got oil.

Furthermore, there are no data – none – indicating that Vermont’s permitting process prevents or even much delays development projects not likely to harm the environment.

According to a recent report by the Natural Resources Board, last year 82 percent of 380 Act 250 applications were approved without a hearing. Decisions on almost two thirds of all applications were issued within 60 days, and 81 percent were issued within 120 days.

Five, or 1.2 percent of the applications, were denied a permit.

But what about the applications that never get filed because the developer finds the process daunting or distasteful or expensive?

Well, one cannot prove a negative. But look at it this way: a smart developer seeing an opportunity to make a profit will file the application even if filing it is a pain in the neck.

Unless, of course, the developer is not sure the project will meet the guidelines. In that case, the law is working exactly as intended, stopping the environmentally damaging projects while allowing the vast majority of proposals to proceed.

This doesn’t mean that a developer has never given up on a project because of the permitting process. No doubt a few have. But it makes no difference. The site the developer was considering is still there.  Another developer will come along with another project.

None of this means that the permitting system can’t be improved. Anything can be improved, especially government bureaucracies, which often move at all deliberate dawdling. Nor is it intended to absolve  the other side of this discussion–the environmentalists–of their own tribal hostilities.

But next time someone says Vermont will go broke unless it does something about its environmental permitting system, remember that some folks have been saying this for the last 40 years, during which Vermont has gotten richer. Whoever spreads that message probably is less interested in prosperity than in sticking it to the hippies.

Yogi Berra, where are you?

Without mentioning the great man’s name, Vermont’s dwindling collection of Vermont Yankee supporters have been invoking the wisdom of one of this more admirable Yankee’s most famous utterances (and one he apparently uttered, which is not true of all of them): “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over.”

Indeed it ain’t. It might not be over for 24,000 years, roughly how long the spent nuclear fuel stored on site will remain dangerous, unless by then it is moved elsewhere.

But last week’s overwhelming vote by the State Senate against allowing the Public Service Board to relicense the nuclear power plant for another 20 years, was a powerful – if not quite fatal – blow to the plant.

To employ a metaphor the aforementioned Mr. Berra would appreciate, a baseball team that has fallen behind 26-4 (the Senate vote) at the end of eight innings can still win. It rarely does.

Today’s post is particularly designed to fulfill one of the purposes of this web site, as expounded at its outset – to compensate for the flaws in mainstream news coverage stemming not from lack of ability but from the rise of “opinions on the shape of the earth differ” journalism, in which quoting each side accurately is considered doing the job even if the words quoted are absurd.

The premise seems to be that if a reporter points out the absurdity he or she will be considered biased. It’s a foolish premise. There is no bias here on the issue; the News Guy is neither an opponent nor a booster of nuclear power. The only “bias” is for evidence and against nonsense.

Start with the oft-quoted dismissal of the Senate vote by Yankee’s most important backer, Gov. Jim Douglas.

“There was a lot of theater here yesterday, but from a legal standpoint, nothing’s changed,” Douglas told WPTZ-TV (Channel 5) News. “The law says absent an affirmative vote from the Legislature, the Public Service Board can’t move forward with relicensure. So I expect there’ll be more chapters in this drama to play out.”

Could be. As the Governor and other Yankee advocates pointed out, by next year, Yankee’s image, battered by news of tritium leaks and official misstatements,  might have recovered. Besides, there are elections this November, and the lawmakers who take office next year could be less hostile to Yankee and its owner, Entergy Company.

But that would require a far greater turnover of Senate seats than seems likely. And on the basis of recent development, it’s just as likely that another misstep or another revelation would drive Yankee’s reputation even lower. Right now, the Senate’s decision appears likely to stand.

As to the consequences of shutting down the power plant in two years, actual evidence (as opposed to rhetoric) supports not taking either side one hundred percent seriously.

The gloom and doom projections are certainly overblown. There is a power surplus throughout the Northeastern United States. Your lights will go on with or without Vermont Yankee.

Might your electric bill be higher? Yes, but it was going to be higher either way. Yankee may now provide some 35 percent of Vermont’s electricity at a low price. But under its most recent contract offer, it would provide less power at a higher price. Interestingly, the utilities that buy Yankee’s power have been relatively quiet during the recent tumult. That’s because they’ve figured out how to replace the power they get from Yankee at an acceptable price.

Besides, if people are serious about controlling global warming (as to be sure many are not, though all evidence indicates that most Vermonters are) everybody is going to have to pay more for all kinds of energy so that everybody uses less. Markets work; the easiest way to reduce consumption of any commodity is to raise its price.

None of this proves that electricity might not be slightly more expensive without Yankee than with it. But “might” and “slightly” are the key words here. Either way, the increase is hardly likely to eliminate Vermont’s status as the cheapest-power state in the region. So those warning about how shutting down Yankee will chase away businesses because of high utility rates need not be taken seriously.

So what should be taken seriously? In ascending order, the following:

1—Without a nuclear power plant, more greenhouse-gas-creating fossil fuel will be burned so Vermonters can turn on their lights, run their computers, and the like. Most of that fuel will probably be natural gas, which burns cleaner than coal and oil, but not as clean as nuclear, (at least once the nuclear fuel is refined from its ore, a process that burns a great deal of fossil fuel). Eventually, wind, solar, and other “sustainable” sources will provide more power, probably at a higher cost. But (see above) higher costs are both inevitable and desirable.

2—Closing the plant will have some economic impact in and around its home base of Vernon. Even Arnold Gundersen, the consultant who has been critical of Vermont Yankee, acknowledged that if the plant stops producing power when its license expires in 2012, it will lay off some 200 nuclear engineers.

Yankee critics point out that most of those engineers live in Massachusetts or New Hampshire. True, but they come to Vernon five days a week (or more) and spend money there. Losing them will be noticeable.

But not catastrophic. Businesses and policy makers have at least two years to prepare. Furthermore, shutting down a nuclear power plant is a major undertaking, requiring hundreds of highly skilled workers for a decade or more. Vernon can prosper for the foreseeable future if it keeps its head.

3—And here’s the only real reason the Vermont Yankee matter is not really closed (all that other stuff is just why people will still jabber about it). Entergy could challenge the state’s power to block its relicensing in federal court.
The company might win. Federal law trumps state law if they conflict (See Article VI, US Constitution). But it’s complicated. Elsewhere, state regulatory agencies play a role in licensing nuclear plants, which seems not to have been challenged.

Besides, companies are often wary about using raw power to impose themselves where they are not wanted. Nobody is going to boycott electricity. Still, fighting the state in federal court could turn out to be what Yogi Berra (maybe) once called “a wrong mistake.”

Correction: Last Monday’s post said the recent Vermont poll taken by Research 2000 had a margin of error of plus-or-minus four percent. That was a typographical error of the mind. It’s five percent (as the computations in the next paragraph correctly indicated).

Correction 2: A reader noted that the picture used to illustrate Friday’s post did not seem to come directly from the US. Agriculture Department’s Food Environmental Atlas, but via a “secondary sourc.” Said reader is right. The map should be credited to the always-helpful Rural Blog from the University of Kentucky.

First, a little housekeeping: Readers who clicked in early Wednesday morning saw the old post from Monday on the site. Sorry. The demons who, it seems, occasionally usurp control at Word Press, disobeyed their orders to publish a new post at a few minutes after midnight.

Plans for subjugating these demons are afoot. Meanwhile, be assured that every Monday Wednesday, and Friday, the News guy will either: (a) have a new post; or (b) make known that there will not be a new post, and also explain why. So if you click in early and find nothing but the old post, you will know that the demons have been active again. Click in again an hour or so later. (And let me know, via email or Face Book; see below).

Had you done so Wednesday, you would have not only read about how almost all Vermonters want the budget cut, just not the parts they like, but also:  praise (really) for the Burlington Free Press; news of a special Thursday posting, which in turn revealed the News Guy’s liaison with the VT Digger web site.

Finally, several readers have noted that they wanted to get in touch via email but the News Guy’s email address is not on the site. They’re right. The address is not immediately visible. But just click on “send a news tip” under “pages.” The message will get through, and it doesn’t matter that it isn’t really a news tip. We won’t tell the demons. Or try via Face Book,

Now on to today’s post…

Diogenes (painting by Jean-Leon Gerome)

Vermonters who choose to peruse the news might be yearning these days for the reincarnation of Diogenes of Sinope, who lived some 2,400 years ago and was famous for walking around Athens with a lantern vainly searching for an honest man (Sorry, ladies, women didn’t count back then).

First and most famously were the statements, some under oath, by top officials of Entergy, that there were no pipes containing radioactive material underneath the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant it owns and operates in Vernon.

Statements uncorrected until an underground pipe at the plant began leaking radioactive material, at which point Entergy officials conceded that there was one such pipe, or maybe a few, or as it turns out 47 and maybe counting.

Then we have the new study by a couple of New Hampshire economists, the subject of a good story in Saturday’s Burlington Free Press by the Associated Press’s Lisa Rathke, that our ski resorts seem to hype the weekend snowfall outlook.

Economists Jonathan Zinman and Eric Zitzewitz, skiers themselves, found that ski resorts (not just in Vermont) reported more snow on weekends than during the week, and substantially more than the nearby weather stations reported.

Sacre bleu! If we can’t trust ski resorts, whom can we trust?

(Perhaps no one. Remember this adage first heard from a Roman Catholic priest: “love many, trust few, always paddle your own canoe”).

The ski resorts, needless to say, deny any mendacity, noting that it wouldn’t make sense because it would enrage more skiers than it would attract, and pointing out that there’s nothing unusual about ski slopes, which tend to be up there in the altitude department, getting more snow than the nearest weather station.

Rathke dutifully reports their side of the story. Zinman and Zitzewitz, however, have actual empirical evidence on their side of this argument. Their conclusion is based not on the difference between snowfall at the weather station and (reported) snowfall at the ski slope, but on the difference between reported snowfall during the week and on the weekend. The weekends, or course, are when the resorts can sell more tickets, and when they report 23 percent more snow than they do for Monday through Friday.

Obviously, there is no comparison in the importance of these two examples of…well let’s just say shortage of candor. Vermont Yankee provides a third of the state’s power. Whether to relicense it for another 20 years is perhaps the thorniest public policy question before the body politic. That goop leaking from its underground pipes can be toxic.

Skiing is fun. These days, as the AP story noted, there are “apps” for determining how much it snowed, where. Besides, the skier who gets fooled by the resort’s snow report has him or her self partly to blame. Why believe someone who wants to sell you tickets? You want weather info? Try the National Weather Service, or, in Vermont, the Lyndon State College Meteorology Department. It isn’t that government agencies and colleges never lie. It’s that in this case their only interest is getting the weather right.

In another sense, though, the same phenomenon lies beneath the lack of candor from both Vermont Yankee and the ski resorts. The cynical explanation of that phenomenon is to go back to Diogenes (often called “Diogenes the Cynic”) and conclude that had he managed to stay alive these two millennia plus, he’d still be travelling around with that cotton-picking lamp looking for an honest person, as we would now say, and never finding him or her.

The reality may be more nuanced. On Vermont Public Radio’s Vermont Edition last Friday, Rep. Pat O’Donnell, the Republican who represents Vernon, said she trusts the Vermont Yankee officials because she knows them and considers them honest.

There’s no reason to doubt that she feels that way, or that, on one level at least, she’s right. Let’s stipulate that each of the Vermont Yankee officials is, as a person, a decent and honorable person. Let’s make the same stipulation for the ski resort promotion folks who handed out those snow reports.

But in neither case was any of these persons acting as a person. They were acting as part of a corporate entity.

Don’t misunderstand. This is no populist rant against for-profit corporations, which are necessary in the modern world. This is “corporate” in its more generic definition – two or more people (two or more anythings, really) “united or combined into one body,” as the dictionary says.

It makes no difference whether that “body” is a utility company, a university, a foundation, a government, or the church-run food bank serving the poor. Once a person becomes part of one of those bodies, the person is no longer acting as a person, however honorable he or she may be as a person. He or she is acting on behalf of the corporate entity.

It isn’t the job of a ski area employee to tell the truth. It’s to get people to rent a room, buy ski tickets, eat in the restaurant, drink at the bar. Nor is it the job of Vermont Yankee officials to tell the truth. Their job is to advance the interests of Vermont Yankee.

In the latter case, they may have retarded the company’s interest by not being forthcoming about the pipes. But that’s a detail. The point here is that when it comes to believing anyone speaking in the interests of his or her corporate body, the wise citizen will love as he or she chooses, trust almost no one, and either paddle his own canoe or measure her own snow depth, or both.