It's Not Easy Bein' Greedy

Dear God,

Help me think this through.

Entergy wants to sell Vermont Yankee and five other plants to a newly created company called Enexus. But there are grave concerns about the adequacy of the decommissioning fund. To be specific, it seems to be about $375 million short. So the legislature passed a bill directing the Department of Public Service to require Entergy to top off the fund before DPS endorses the sale of Vermont Yankee and the other plants to the new company. That's the bill that Governor Douglas recently vetoed.

In the midst of all of that, the chief financial officer of Entergy Nuclear (the subsidiary that owns Vermont Yankee) told the House Commerce Committee on April 16 that the Entergy parent company--the very company that made all sorts of assurances to Vermonters that it would handle decommissioning costs--has no obligation whatsoever for decommissioning costs. Apparently, Entergy Nuclear is even claiming that the parent company has no financial obligations whasoever regarding Vermont Yankee.

You'd think that would piss off the Department of Public Service to no end. So why is Entergy Nuclear being so in-your-face about this whole matter, especially given the fact that the DPS must renew the plant's operating license for another 20 years or the plant will need to shut down in 2012?

I tell you, Lord. I have thought and thought and thought about this, and three thoughts in a row are a whole lot for me. What I think I've come up with is this.

First, Entergy Père (I knew my grade school French would come in handy one day) is trying to wash its hands of Vermont Yankee, and it is using Entergy Nuclear to deliver the message. Entergy Père wants to be out of the picture well before DPS decides on the sale of the plant to Enexus because, if it's only relatively impoverished Entergy Nuclear that owns the plant now, there will be no reason for the DPS to stand in the way of the sale.

Second, Entergy Père is banking on the idea (hey, don't you just love those double entendres?) that the DPS will be scared shitless by its claim to have no financial responsibility for Vermont Yankee. Because Entergy Père is an $11 billion dollar company that could really help out in case of emergency. Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee, on the other hand, owns one dilapidated reactor and the land it sits on. So this sudden public claim to bear no responsibility may be a ruse. Entergy may be trying to intimidate the DPS into bargaining with it.

Where once Entergy Père had insinuated, "If you don't endorse the extension, we'll be forced to close down and you'll have a toxic waste dump on your hands for 60 years while that fund matures," soon it may make an offer that it hopes the DPS can't refuse. (And, Lord, when you read what follows in quotes, please imagine the words said in an unctuous, friendly voice.)

If the DPS endorses the license renewal and the sale to Enexus, Entergy will agree to financially support the plant through emergencies and decommissioning, as originally promised. If it doesn't, gee, we hope nothing bad happens at the plant between now and 2012, because those kinds of accidents are not accidents that the state of Vermont can afford to take on.

Tony Soprano could not say it better.

Neither, for that matter, could Kermit the Frog. But if he tried, he might say it like this:

It's not easy bein' greedy.
It seems you blend in with so many other ordinary thugs.
And people tend to pass you over 'cause you've hurt their children with poison sparkles in the water, though not the stars in the sky.

But greedy's the color of success.
And greedy pays lobbyists' salaries.
And greedy can be big like an ocean, like J. Wayne Leonard's salary at more than $100,721 a day [in 2007, according to Entergy's proxy statement]….

When greedy is all there is to be
It could make you wonder why, but why wonder why? Wonder,
I am greedy and it'll do fine, it's beautiful!
And I think it's what I want to be.

Amen,

Fake-Rob