Political Quotes

“I wish to say a word about a critical issue for the State of Vermont and for my State's energy future, and that deals with the Vermont Yankee nuclear powerplant. The Vermont Yankee nuclear powerplant is one of 23 plants in our country with the same design--General Electric Mark One--as the Fukushima plants that have experienced partial or perhaps full meltdowns in Japan. All of us feel terribly about what has happened in Japan, and our hearts go out to that struggling country. But at the same time, in our Nation, we also have some very disturbing developments regarding nuclear power, and I wish to touch this afternoon on two of them. The first is, we have a situation in the State of Vermont in which a powerful $14 billion energy company called Entergy is trying to force the people of my State to keep an aging and troubled nuclear reactor open for another 20 years. This is a plant that is 40 years old. They want to keep it open for another 20 years. The Vermont Yankee plant's original 40-year license expires in March of 2012, and I firmly believe 40 years is enough. But that is not just my opinion. Vermont, uniquely, thanks in part to an agreement between the State and Entergy when it purchased Vermont Yankee in 2002, has asserted its authority through our State legislature to decide whether Vermont Yankee should operate beyond March of 2012.…”