Peter Shumlin for GovernorPeter Shumlin

Shumlin offers prescription for new jobs in state

alex — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 16:00:49 +0000

Addison Independent. By John Flowers

MIDDLEBURY — There was a time when Peter Shumlin wasn’t sure he would make it out of high school, let alone aspire to the state’s highest office.

Shumlin, the Vermont Senate President Pro Tem, recalled being called into his elementary school principal’s office along with his parents. There, school administrators reported that young Peter wasn’t cutting it, and that perhaps he should be steered toward non-academic pursuits.

Fortunately, though, Shumlin had a teacher who recognized him as being mildly dyslexic and gave him the extra attention he needed. The Putney Democrat would go on to become a successful businessman and begin an ascent of the state’s political ladder that he hopes will culminate in his election as governor on Nov. 2.

“What makes me tick is going back to that experience in grade school, where they said, ‘This kid isn’t going to college; he’s not going to succeed, and we’re going to do the best we can,’” Shumlin, 54, said during a recent interview at the Addison Independent. “What that does is make you fight for people who don’t have a voice, who were discriminated against or who didn’t get a level playing field.”

Shumlin is currently involved on a crowded Democrat contest for governor, a five-person field that during an Aug. 24 primary will be narrowed to one candidate who will face Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie on Nov. 2. The other Democrats in the race are Matt Dunne, Susan Bartlett, Doug Racine and Deb Markowitz.

All of the gubernatorial candidates are emphasizing job creation as a top campaign priority.

“I believe the next governor is going to have to manage multiple challenges to create jobs and get Vermonters back to work,” Shumlin said.

Shumlin cited two life experiences he believe make him well-suited to become the state’s top elected executive: His co-stewardship of Putney Student Travel, a family business founded by his parents; and his leadership as Senate President Pro-tem.

“Meeting a payroll, running a business, has made me fiscally conservative,” said Shumlin, who added the only new tax (or tax increase) he would consider would be on Internet transactions. “I’ll be as tight with taxpayer dollars as I am with mine … I understand that government can’t spend $1.50 and take in $1.”

He also touted his experience as Senate majority leader in getting legislation brought to the floor and passed. He specifically cited the marriage equality bill and a referendum against extending the Vermont Yankee contract. Each bill passed the Senate by a 26-4 vote.

“I have a record of getting tough things done,” Shumlin said. “I am the longest serving Democratic Senate president in Vermont’s history and I hope I have proven I take on really tough challenges and accomplish them.”

EMPHASIS ON JOBS

The top challenge on Shumlin’s list is revitalizing Vermont’s economy and stimulating job growth.

“There are two groups of Vermonters who keep me up at night, when I think of being sworn in as governor,” Shumlin said. “The first is the hundreds of Vermonters who don’t have a job, haven’t found a job in two or three years and who feel dejected, demoralized and broke. The second group — which is much larger — is made up of Vermonters who have a job, or two, or three or four, but find their incomes are stagnant, their debts are mounting and they can’t keep up.”

Shumlin is proposing a six-point plan he believes will boost economic prosperity and job growth in the state. That plan includes:

• Broadband and cell phone service throughout Vermont by 2013.

• A single-payer health care system that frees employers from bearing primary responsibility for health insurance.

• Reinvention of Vermont’s tax system into one that “grows wealth and grows jobs.” Shumlin referred to a new blue-ribbon tax commission, which includes Bristol resident Bill Sayre, which is reviewing the state’s tax policy and will propose ways to make it work better.

Shumlin believes Vermont’s current tax structure is based around a flagging industrial economy and was not designed to address Internet sales or the growing portability of wealth.

• Greater emphasis on early childhood education.

“That is going to allow women, in particular, to get back into the workforce without making horrid choices about child care they can’t afford,” Shumlin said.

• Making available more financial resources, through a “risk capital pool,” to enable small businesses to grow.

• Re-training Vermont’s workforce to make it a better match with the nation’s evolving job market, which is gravitating toward high-tech and renewable energy industries.

“I believe there are going to be huge economic opportunities, and the question is, does Vermont have the vision to get a piece of that evolution?” Shumlin said. “I believe we have an extraordinary opportunity.”

Extraordinary, Shumlin said, because Vermont is already home to some budding businesses in the renewable energy, biotech and software fields. He believes if the state provides more infrastructure, Vermont — and its quality-of-life calling card — could be seen as prime settling ground for the jobs of the 21st century.

“The point is, with the right leadership, with a governor who has run a business, has met a payroll, has the vision and the track record to get things done, we can put Vermont back to work and get a piece of the action,” Shumlin said.

AGRICULTURE

Along with creating new jobs, Vermont needs to put its farms back in business, according to Shumlin, who is part owner of a small dairy operation in his district.

One of the keys to making dairying more profitable, Shumlin said, is cutting out distributors, processors and other middlemen who take large cuts off of the already severely depressed prices Vermont farmers get for their milk. That means selling directly to companies making premium cheeses and other value-added products with the milk, according to Shumlin.

“Vermont has a bright agricultural future if we invest in the infrastructure to make the end product, and stop shipping our products out to… companies that aren’t going to pay us a fair price,” Shumlin said.

VERMONT YANKEE

Shumlin has been one of the most outspoken critics of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, a controversial facility that happens to be located squarely within his senatorial district. He maintains the plant — beset by recent tritium leaks and what he said has been shoddy management by its Louisiana-based owner, Entergy — should be decommissioned when its current contract expires in 2012.

He believes Vermont should impose a “high-level nuclear fuel storage tax” — a levy Shumlin said is common in other states — and use those revenues to boost energy efficiency programs in Vermont that could be exported nationwide.

“The next governor is going to have to be very smart about restructuring the tax on Vermont Yankee to reflect the sacrifice that Vermont is making to store high-level nuclear waste in the state that we were told would never be here,” he said.

He acknowledged that closing Vermont Yankee would eventually result in the loss of almost 600 well-paying jobs. But Shumlin said the state will have some time to replace those jobs, as an estimated 275-320 workers will be required to monitor the facility during a mandatory, five-year, cool-down period. That means the job losses won’t be as immediate and complete as a worst-case scenario, according to Shumlin.

Unlike some of his other Democrat rivals in the primary, Shumlin does not believe the Vermont Yankee site can be put to an alternative energy use. He believes it would be doubtful that any entrepreneur would want to wait through the five-year cool-down and a 10-year decommissioning process to reuse the site.

“Are you going to wait 15 years to build your next energy source?” Shumlin said. “No one will tell the truth about that. There is no other plant going on there.”

EDUCATION

Shumlin outlined a plan that he said would improve the quality and affordability of public education. It includes having Vermont withdraw from the national No Child Left Behind law, which he said forces teachers to focus more on standardized tests than innovative instruction; promoting distance learning as a way of allowing schools to offer more diverse courses without having to hire more teachers; and offering incentives for school districts to consolidate resources.

He continues to be a fan of Act 68 because of its equity provisions and believes a single-payer health care system would cut costs of teachers’ insurance, usually a substantial portion of the annual budget.

And Vermont, Shumlin said, should adopt a program currently in effect in Maine through which that state gives income tax credits for tuition repayment for students’ college education, as long as they return to their home state to live and work.

“That is a smart investment,” Shumlin said. “It doesn’t cost Vermont a cent; it brings our kids back to do the work that needs to get done here; and it will allow them to retire their college debt and then be entrenched in a job in Vermont where they are likely to stay and raise their families.”

Reporter John Flowers is at johnf@addisonindependent.com.

http://www.addisonindependent.com/201007shumlin-offers-prescription-new-jobs-state

Peter Shumlin – Building Blocks

admin — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 04:12:17 +0000

Vt Primary Race Heats Up!

alex — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 22:41:21 +0000

Matt Austin, Fox 44 News: http://www.fox44now.com/global/story.asp?s=12886223&ClientType=Printable

You may not be thinking about politics this summer but the five democrats who want to be Vermont’s next governor are and they’re trying to get your attention.

Deb Markowitz, Peter Shumlin and Doug Racine are considered the three front-runners in a crowded democratic primary race for Vermont governor.

“We are seeing the scramble,” said Garrison Nelson, a UVM Political Science professor.

Nelson says Markowitz looked like the frontrunner out of the gate but now seems to have flat-lined and hasn’t gotten the big endorsements.

Those endorsements went to Doug Racine and Peter Shumlin. But Nelson says Racine hasn’t been able to translate endorsements into cash.

Racine says he is focused on grassroots campaigning.

“It’s that kind of word-of-mouth advertising that still works very effectively in Vermont,” said Racine.

Nelson says Shumlin is trying to prove he is aggressive and also has to convince voters this time will be different than the last time he ran against and lost to Brian Dubie.

There are two others in the democratic primary race.

Nelson says Susan Bartlett faces challenges coming from a small county and little money. He says Matt Dunne’s unique background would make him a better national candidate.

“The fact of the matter is that we still have five candidates in the running is real proof that party organization is weak in Vermont,” said Nelson.

Nelson says the Democratic Party should have whittled the field down. Instead voters will do just that in less than four weeks in the August 24th primary.

Brian Dubie takes a shot on Vermont Yankee

alex — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 17:06:51 +0000

Times Argus Opinion: http://www.timesargus.com/article/20100729/OPINION/707299957/1024/OPINION04

When Peter Shumlin this week leaped on comments by Brian Dubie about Vermont Yankee, Dubie got a taste of the kind of treatment he is going to get in the General Election.

Shumlin is one of the five Democrats running in the Aug. 24 primary for governor, and it is far from certain that he will be the one to take on Dubie in the General Election. But he took the opportunity to blast comments by Dubie that seemed to cast a positive light on a report about the prospects for Vermont Yankee’s future.

Dubie’s comments came in an interview on Vermont Public Radio. He was discussing a report from the Public Oversight Panel last week about the continued operation of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant beyond the expiration of its license in 2012. Dubie said that if the owners of Yankee, Entergy Vermont, were to embrace a culture of safety and make necessary investments then the Public Oversight Panel saw no reason that Vermont Yankee couldn’t operate beyond 2012.

Shumlin saw his chance, and he turned what could have been passing comments on the radio into an issue about Dubie’s attitude toward Vermont Yankee.

In fact, Dubie’s characterization of the panel’s report on Vermont Yankee put a positive spin on a highly negative report. The panel, which was created by the Legislature, found serious problems at Yankee, raising doubts about the plant’s continued operation.

These problems include a corporate culture that does not encourage scrupulous attention to the truth, as well as the failure to devote adequate resources to the physical systems. These problems are “systemic,” according to the panel’s report. Vermont Yankee cannot operate reliably for another 20 years unless Entergy corrects this corporate culture and spends enough money on the plant, the report said.

The main thrust of the panel’s report was a warning: Things cannot go on like this. The report called what had happened at Yankee an “organization-wide breakdown” in attention to detail and in attention to the truth.

Dubie did not deny these findings. His spokesman said that Dubie believes safety is paramount and that the company’s actions were indefensible. Rather, Dubie was saying that if reality were different, there would be no reason why Yankee could not continue to operate. If the corporate culture could be corrected and we could receive adequate assurances of safety, then there would be no reason not to extend the plant’s license.

An election campaign is when statements such as Dubie’s inevitably come under minute parsing, with all shadings analyzed and all possible meanings teased out. In one sense, Dubie was merely stating the obvious: If everything were fine at Yankee, then everything would be fine.

But Dubie’s words suggested an eagerness to look on the bright side when it comes to Yankee. He claimed the report suggested that if a long list of mistakes were corrected, then perhaps the plant could carry on. But the emphasis of the report was on the list of mistakes and the fact that they hadn’t been corrected and doubt that the plant could carry on.

Dubie can expect more close parsing of his words as the election season continues. He is not as politically shrewd and verbally agile as Gov. James Douglas, and his Democratic opponent can be expected to pick up on any effort to spin a story to his liking.

Vermont Yankee may be a difficult issue for Dubie. Those who believe Vermont Yankee has been an important source of electric power and of well-paying jobs have been undercut by Yankee’s record of misstatements and mistakes. All five Democratic candidates believe the plant should be closed in 2012, and Dubie may lose credibility if he continues to look beyond the warning signs about Yankee to an unjustified rosy scenario.

Shumlin has made Yankee an important issue in his political career. But his Democratic primary opponents — Matt Dunne, Douglas Racine, Deborah Markowitz and Susan Bartlett — are also ready to see Vermont Yankee shut down in 2012. They, too, could be expected to take Dubie to task for looking past warnings about Entergy’s failures.

Campaigns Take Up Vermont Yankee Question

alex — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 19:01:06 +0000

Campaigns take up Vermont Yankee question

By Terri Hallenbeck, The Burlington Free Press

The way state law is written, if the Legislature
doesn’t give the go-ahead, Vermont Yankee can’
t continue operating after March 2012. Nothing
in the law gives the governor any say in it.

Nonetheless, candidates and energy activists
say, when it comes to deciding the future of
Vermont’s only nuclear power plant and the
future of its energy supply, it very much matters
who is elected the next governor.

Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Peter Shumlin,
at a news conference Tuesday, argued there’s a
clear difference in the race for governor:
Republican Brian Dubie would be too willing to
take Vermont Yankee’s side when it comes to
weighing in on the nuclear power plant’s future,
a charge Dubie’s campaign denied.

“He is going to be a governor who is going to
continue to believe and trust the word of
Entergy,” Shumlin said, referring to the Vernon
plant’s corporate owner. “I have lost faith, like
many Vermonters, in Entergy Louisiana’s ability
to tell the truth.”

The dust-up raised the question of what role the
next governor will play in deciding the future of
Vermont Yankee, whose operating license
expires smack in the middle of a new governor’s
first term in office. All five Democrats running
for governor have said they want Vermont
Yankee to close in 2012, while Dubie said he
wants the Legislature to let the Public Service
Board rule on that, sounding similar on the topic
to the man he hopes to succeed, Republican Gov.
Jim Douglas.

Read the entire article here: http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20100728/NEWS03/100727019/Campaigns-take-up-Vermont-Yankee-question

Shumlin, Dubie Spar Over Vt. Yankee

alex — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 18:55:59 +0000

Shumlin, Dubie Spar Over Vt. Yankee
Kristin Carlson, WCAX News
One of the five Democrats running for governor of Vermont took on the only Republican in the race Tuesday.

“Brian (Dubie) made comments on VPR last week that I am really concerned about… and I don’t think… they don’t reflect what we need from the next governor,” said Peter Shumlin, Democrat running for governor of Vermont.

Shumlin disagrees with Republican candidate Brian Dubie’s assessment of a new report about Vermont Yankee. The Public Oversight panel found last week the nuclear plant has a corporate culture problem and does not consistently spend enough on safety.

“What Brian indicated was that he trusts Entergy Louisiana, that he thinks they can change and that he thinks the report indicates that the problems are minor and can be overcome. That isn’t what the report says,” Shumlin said.

“I stand by what I said,” Dubie said. “I quoted the report.”

Republican Brian Dubie has stayed out of the spotlight. He does not have a primary race. Dubie supports Yankee and says if it’s proven safe it should keep operating and he thinks the report supports that.

“I’m not here to defend Entergy,” Dubie said. “What I’m here to say is we need to look at safety and we need to look at the importance of jobs, and when I give a pink slip to a fellow Vermonter I’m going to make sure all the questions are answered.”

All five Democrats for governor want Yankee to close in 2012. But Shumlin is the first to attack Dubie, trying to set the tone that he’s a frontrunner… already looking to the November election. But Shumlin needs to win the Democratic primary first on August 24. He admits it’s a tossup.

“It’s a wide open race,” he said.

Shumlin also said Tuesday that if Yankee closes in 2012, he would tax the plant to store its nuclear waste in Vernon. Brian Dubie’s campaign says it will have to study the issue but that Dubie supports having Entergy pay for clean up and maintenance of the site.

Kristin Carlson – WCAX News

http://www.wcax.com/global/video.asp?clipId=4979452&topVideoCatNo=63459&autoStart=true

Shumlin criticizes Dubie after comments on Vt. Yankee viability

alex — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 18:49:23 +0000

By Daniel Barlow, Vermont Press Bureau

BURLINGTON – Senate President Peter Shumlin opened up an attack on Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie Tuesday, accusing the Republican candidate for governor of going too easy on Vermont Yankee executives and misrepresenting a state report on the plant’s future.

Shumlin, a Windham County Democrat running for governor, said Dubie places too much trust in executives with Entergy Nuclear Vermont, the company that owns the nuclear power plant, after accusations this year that they misled regulators.

He also accused the Republican candidate of misrepresenting a report on Vermont Yankee by the Public Oversight Panel to paint a rosier picture of the plant’s chances to continue operation after 2012, when its current license expires.

“I’ve lost faith in Entergy Louisiana’s ability to tell us the truth,” said Shumlin, who led a vote in the Vermont Senate in February to reject the plant’s relicensing. “I don’t trust their word anymore. But it seems that Brian Dubie does.”

Corry Bliss, Dubie’s campaign manager, responded that Shumlin “has his facts wrong” and the lieutenant governor has always believed that “safety must come first at Vermont Yankee.”

“He has never wavered in this belief or in the belief that Entergy’s actions are indefensible,” Bliss said. “The evidence clearly shows Entergy misled the public and lost the public’s trust. Rebuilding that trust, if at all possible, will be a slow and carefully scrutinized process.”

Vermont Yankee’s future in the state is expected to become a political issue in the fall after the primaries, when Democrats have selected a nominee who will face Dubie in the November general election.

The company, which employs hundreds of Vermonters, saw its credibility whacked this year when it was revealed that executives misled regulators and lawmakers about the existence of underground pipes — infrastructure that was leaking tritium and other radioactive materials into the ground.

Vermont Attorney General William Sorrell is now investigating whether the company intentionally misled the state. He said last week that his office has received more than 2 million pages of documents and will soon begin interviewing Entergy executives.

“I wouldn’t say we are drowning in paperwork, but we are swamped,” Sorrell said last week. “This may take some time.”

Shumlin’s criticism of Dubie centers on an interview that the Republican gave to Vermont Public Radio last week, shortly after the release of a report by the state’s nuclear consultants that painted a dire picture of Entergy and its chances to operate beyond 2012.

When asked about the report on VPR last week, Dubie said its conclusion was that “if there is a culture of safety that management would embrace — absolutely I totally agree with that — and if investments are made that, if investments continue to be made in Vermont Yankee, the legislative-appointed Public Oversight committee saw no reason that Vermont Yankee couldn’t operate past 2012.”

Shumlin said Dubie’s statement on the radio show appears to come more from Entergy’s press release about the report rather than the report itself.

“The report stated that there were serious problems with Entergy Louisiana’s corporate culture,” Shumlin said. “These are problems that can’t be fix in one week or one month or even one year. They are systemic problems.”

Arnie Gundersen, one of the nuclear consultants on the Public Oversight Panel who worked on the report, agreed Tuesday that Dubie gave the wrong impression of the report’s conclusions. He said the report expressed strong doubts that the company could make the necessary corporate and infrastructure changes necessary to operate after 2012.

“The lieutenant governor’s quotes are based not on the history of Vermont Yankee, but his wishes for improvement,” Gundersen said. “You don’t make decisions based on wishes, you make them based on history.”

He also took issue with another statement from Dubie: That the report was the product of the Legislature and that Gov. James Douglas’ administration had no input.

Douglas’ first appointee to the panel died before the process was complete, but another member, Fred Sears, was appointed to the panel by the other members — with the blessing of Douglas, he said.

When asked about Gundersen’s comments, the Dubie campaign stood by their original statement issued after Shumlin’s press conference, held at his campaign’s offices in Burlington early Tuesday afternoon.

“I don’t see the difference between the report and LG Dubie’s comments,” Bliss wrote in an e-mail.

Vermont Yankee, which began operating in 1972, is scheduled to close in March 2012 unless it wins approval for a 20-year license extension. The Vermont Senate voted against continued operation in a 26-4 vote in February.

Dubie, in his role as lieutenant governor, presided over the Senate debate. Shumlin, as Senate president, led the charge against the bill, which would have allowed the Vermont Public Service Board to issue a decision on the plant’s continued operation.

http://www.timesargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100728/NEWS02/707289945/0/NEWS&template=printart

Health care and the governor’s race

alex — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 12:13:32 +0000

Health care and the governor’s race

By Terri Hallenbeck, Free Press Staff Writer • Sunday, July 25, 2010

MONTPELIER — With Vermont health care costs
expected to rise by $1 billion during the next two
years, all five Democrats running for governor
say this issue is high on their list of things to
tackle as governor.

The candidates admit they sound an awful lot
alike on the issue. The phrase “quality,
affordable health care for all” reverberates as if
they’re in an echo chamber. They all put a lot of
weight on a pending report the Legislature
commissioned about how to solve the problem.

Burrow down, though, and voters will find
differences among the Democratic candidates,
and much greater differences between them and
the Republican that the winner of their primary
will face in November.

Democrats all say they would push the federal
government to offer coverage to more
Vermonters and to control costs. Meanwhile,
Republican Brian Dubie of Essex contends the s
tate’s hands are tied until 2017 by recently
passed federal legislation, and candidates who
say otherwise are being unrealistic.

“The best thing I would do is work to leverage
the federal law,” Dubie said, citing a requirement
for states to establish health insurance
exchanges by 2014 that would allow consumers
to shop for health insurance as one place he
would focus his energy. “I’m realistic. I’m going
to focus on where I can make a difference.”

Democratic candidate Matt Dunne of Hartland,
in a view echoed by his fellow Democratic
candidates, said the next governor can’t afford
not to pursue health-care reform, even if the
federal government has said it won’t grant
permission — in the form of waivers — for states
to experiment.

Read the entire article here: http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20100725/NEWS03/100724013/Health-care-and-the-governor-s-race#ixzz0uhC92fQ0

Cheryl Rivers

admin — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 21:16:59 +0000

Peter is a real leader…There is no one in politics that I would rather go into a difficult situation with than Peter. In these times, we need a strong leader who is not afraid to take bold action and that is Peter Shumlin.

Former Senator Cheryl Rivers (D-Windsor)

Senator John Campbell

alex — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 21:03:23 +0000

Peter has the leadership skills, business experience and vision to get our economy moving again and put Vermonters back to work…Time and time again I have watched Peter take on tough issues and bring people together to win. Whether it is taking on the prescription drug companies to lower prices for Vermonters or challenging Entergy Louisiana to tell the truth about our aging nuclear power plant, Peter takes on the tough battles with tenacity.

Senator John Campbell (D-Windsor County)