Gubernatorial candidates spar over Vermont Yankee

A he-said-she-said battle over a Vermont Yankee oversight ignited between the Green Mountain State's Democratic and Republican gubernatorial candidates Thursday and continued into Friday.

The controversy began Thursday afternoon when House Speaker Gaye Symington (D-Jericho) held a press conference attacking incumbent Gov. Jim Douglas (R-Middlebury) for what she claimed was inadequate monitoring of the facility. She argued that the Douglas administration had complicated the Public Oversight Panel's tasks, then proposed a set of her own policies regarding the monitoring of Vermont Yankee.

Symington's attacks prompted the Douglas re-election campaign to release its own statement, and later that evening, the Douglas camp struck back, arguing that Symington's claims were false, and the Democratic candidate was simply trying to stir up controversy.

"Speaker Symington is developing a disturbing pattern of disregard for the facts," said Dennise Casey, Douglas' campaign manager in a statement.

But early Friday morning, the Brattleboro Reformer and the Vermont Press Bureau published reports revealing that a member of the Public Oversight Panel complained that the state had excluded them from talks with Vermont Yankee employees, corroborating some of Symington's camp's charges, and prompting campaign officials to issue another statement.

The Reformer quotes Arnie Gunderson, a member of the Public Oversight Panel, as saying: "What the state has told us is they do not want us having any interaction with the consultants or Entergy staff," and that "We've been frozen out."

For the past week, the gubernatorial candidates have sparred over the issues of Vermont Yankee, with Democracy for America launching a campaign ad on Monday attacking Douglas' actions regarding the site, while Symington unveiled on Tuesday her own campaign ad also critical of the governor and Vermont Yankee.