For Immediate Release :                                            Contact: Clay Turnbull – 802-380-4462

                                                                                                    Raymond Shadis- 207-380-5994

 

Interveners to Public Service Board:

Don’t Let State House Negotiations Ambush the Process.

Late Monday afternoon, New England Coalition filed its “Reply” to the Department of Public Service’s November 22nd “Request” that the Public Service Board hold off making a decision on a Certificate of Public Good for extended operation of Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee.

The Coalition specifically asked the Board, in consideration of all that the parties had invested, that,

  • the Board give no undue deference to any memorandum of understanding or agreement to which the parties are not in universal or global agreement. 
  • Further …that the Board provide a comment period for the parties on any agreement or memorandum that is put before it that does not carry the signed agreement of all of the parties.

Background – On October 31, the Board invited the parties to file “Comments on the Reply Briefs” by November 8th. This was occasioned by new issues and information brought into what were to have been final briefs in response to Entergy’s surprise “Second Amended Petition,” which moved the proposed VY closing date from 2032 to late 2014. The opportunity to file “Comments,” which were filed by all eight parties, was an extraordinary last minute prolonging of what has been a five-year, intense, and sometimes angry, running legal battle.

On November 1st, Entergy asked that the deadline for “Comments” be extended to November 22 because of the volume of new material and because its lead attorney was busy elsewhere.  On November 4th , NEC objected to the Request for Extension of Time declaring that its grounds appeared to be spurious AND that NEC surmised that what Entergy really wanted was more time to negotiate with DPS. NEC requested that the Board consider no agreement that was not global in character and reflected the interests of all of the parties.

On November 22nd, DPS filed its Request Letter advising of ongoing negotiations; together with scheduled “Comments on the Reply Briefs.”

Relevant NEC and DPS documents:

2013-12-02 NEC Reply to DPS Motion
2013-11-22 7862 – PSD Letter to Board 11-22-13
2013-11-04 NEC Response to Entergy’s Request for Extension of Time 

 

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The short URL of the present article is: http://necnp.org/cx3l2