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Vermont AG and DPS join request for NRC investigation of Entergy Nuclear finances Rutland Herald By Susan Smallheer Staff Writer | March 05,2015 MONTPELIER — The attorney general’s office and the Shumlin administration have joined Massachusetts, New York and some anti-nuclear groups in asking the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to investigate Entergy Nuclear’s finances.

Vermont joined the petition to the NRC almost two years after it was filed by a consortium of anti-nuclear groups, including the Citizens Awareness Network.

Scot Kline, an assistant Vermont attorney general, said Wednesday the state had been “monitoring” the petition before the NRC, and decided in January to file a formal request with the NRC.

“We have had consultations with the New York attorney general and the Massachusetts attorney general,” Kline said. “This was an appropriate time for us to join.”

In a two-page letter dated Jan. 27, William Griffin, the chief assistant attorney general, and Christopher Recchia, commissioner of the Vermont Department of Public Service, said they were concerned about Entergy’s finances and its corporate parent’s ability to cover the costs of decommissioning the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant.

In particular, Vermont said it was concerned that Entergy wanted to raid the $650 million decommissioning trust fund to cover the costs of handling Yankee’s thousands of tons of highly radioactive nuclear fuel.

Vermont Yankee’s decommissioning trust fund is at about half the amount that current calculations put at what is necessary to dismantle and clean up the Vernon reactor, which shut down last Dec. 29.

Entergy’s latest estimates put the full cost of decommissioning at $1.2 billion in 2014 costs……..http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20150305/NEWS02/703059883