Green Mountain Outlook

Middlebury — Vermont taxpayers just witnessed a multi-million dollar effort fail miserably in a U.S. District Court in Brattleboro Jan. 20.

This failure was an in-your-face attempt—mounted by Gov. Peter Shumlin (D), Montpelier’s anti-nuclear legislative majority, and Atty. Gen. William Sorrell (D)—to override the U.S. Atomic Energy Act by shutting down the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant, the major supplier of affordable electricity in the state.

Since Jan. 20, when U.S. District Judge J. Garvin Murtha threw out the state’s case, several editorial writers across the state have begun to raise doubts about Sorrell’s legal skill. Montpelier’s legal eagle is beginning to look like Miguel de Cervantes’ memorable Don Quixote.

Remember when our attorney general—a Howard Dean-era icon who has been steadily reelected since 1997—attempted to change our state’s campaign-finance law by recalibrating the contribution limits? The case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., and was summarily dismissed as so much tilting-at-windmills. The effort cost Vermont taxpayers millions.

Next, we witnessed Mr. Sorrell going after the big, bad drug companies—whose costly products, thanks to years of R&D, save thousands of lives everyday. Here the idea was to restrict drug manufacturers’ ability to collect data to better understand how doctors prescribe medications in the state. The Vermont Supreme Court threw out this case, citing it as unconstitutional—an attempt to selectively restrict the freedom of one industry over another, Again, taxpayers picked up the multi-million dollar legal tab.

And strike three for Sorrell came Jan. 20 in Brattleboro. Judge Murtha ruled that little ol’ Vermont had no business telling the U.S. Government what to do with an atomic plant, aging or otherwise. Looks like Vermont forget that there’s a federal agency already in place—the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

So, what’s the result of all this legal bungee jumping?

The State of Vermont is beginning to resemble, well, the flatlander’s stereotypical image of a cranky Vermonter. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, everyone learns to steer clear of such folks when they start walking across the neighboring field to tell you your business and how things are supposed to be.