Greenpeace shifts focus to Vermont

By Warren Cornwall, Free Press Correspondent • September 13, 2009

Drawn by the brewing fight over the future of Vermont’s only nuclear power plant, the group, with operations spanning 40 countries, moved into a third-floor office in downtown Burlington in June.

The presence of a prominent international environmental outfit underscores that this is a watershed moment for the Vermont Yankee power plant, and one of the nation’s biggest showdowns involving the future of nuclear power.

“We’re looking to set a precedent for this older generation of reactors,” said Jarred Cobb, the 26-year-old organizer heading Greenpeace’s campaign here. “We want to shut this nuke plant down and really show the rest of the states it’s possible.”

Greenpeace’s presence boosts the chances of colorful protests and political hijinks in the coming months and adds more firepower to environmentalists’ campaign against the plant. But its understated approach so far also could signal that Vermont’s political culture, combined with the delicacy of courting lawmakers, means lobbying trumps in-your-face confrontation.

Get ready for a tamer Greenpeace.

More staid, for now

Cobb doesn’t exactly look the part of a hard-core activist.

Dressed in a brown polo shirt and brown pants, with close-cropped brown hair and a neatly trimmed beard, the Boston University graduate could be mistaken for a sales clerk at the Gap.

His appearance mirrors his relatively staid tactics since arriving in June. He ticks off the mundane work of many mainstream environmental campaigns: recruiting people to write editorials to local newspapers, asking voters to sign postcards to their state lawmakers, enlisting people to call residents in Chittenden County.

All of this with an eye toward the state Legislature when it convenes in January. Vermont is the only state where the legislature has claimed the power to refuse to give a nuclear plant an extension on its life. That decision is expected in the 2010 legislative session. A vote against the 620-megawatt Vermont Yankee plant could force it to shut down in 2012, when its license expires.

So Greenpeace, along with Vermont environmental groups, have trained their attention on a group of lawmakers considered undecided swing votes.

Such legislative strategizing differs from Greenpeace’s trademark of noisy, sometimes illegal protests designed to capture media attention and shift public consciousness — what a Greenpeace founder described as “mind bombs.”

And it helps explain why Greenpeace might not have such a hard edge in Vermont.

“This isn’t the place and certainly not the time for somewhat more radical demonstrations here,” said Paul Burns, executive director of Vermont Public Interest Research Group, one of the local environmental organizations leading the campaign. “Probably the worst thing that anybody could do on any side of this is behave badly.”

Still, Burns said he’s glad to have the protest veterans here, with the money, staff and experience to ignite public opinion. After all, who else has a hot-air balloon and a truck decked out in solar panels at their disposal?

And the two groups share a common message: that Vermont Yankee is an aging, obsolete plant churning out highly radioactive waste, and it could be replaced with clean power such as wind and solar.

But don’t expect Cobb to don a suit and head for the Capitol building in Montpelier.

In the coming months, he promised that along with Greenpeace-sponsored phone-banks and postcards, people can expect to see what he termed “creative communication.”

“I can’t tell you when it will happen, but it is in the plans,” he said.

The appeal of ‘CRUNGE’

Greenpeace’s reputation helped attract a few University of Vermont students to a cramped meeting room one evening last week.

Jess Serrante, a 21-year-old senior from New Jersey, is a Greenpeace veteran. She spent three months in 2008 working and training with Greenpeace in San Francisco. This March she joined a protest outside the coal power plant that heats the U.S. Capitol.

“What keeps bringing me back to Greenpeace is they’re not like any other organization. We’re radical. We’re serious about the issues,” she said.
She pointed to an acronym used by one Greenpeace staffer: CRUNGE. It stands for Creative, Radical, Uncompromising, Nonviolent, Global and Effective.

As they sipped organic cherry sodas, the students talked with Cobb about which campus groups might be enlisted to help oppose Vermont Yankee, how to attract students to the cause and how to interact with the university administration.

“Say we want to hold a massive event on campus?” Cobb asked.

History of protests

Any protests will be the latest of many for Vermont Yankee since the plant first opened in 1972.

At the peak of the anti-nuclear movement, in the late ’70s and early ’80s, hundreds of people were arrested at the plant, recalled Cort Richardson of Montpelier, who was arrested there in 1979.

It has been more isolated in recent years.

People periodically are arrested at demonstrations near the plant. In 2008, Gov. James Douglas was hit in the face with a whipped cream pie during a 4th of July parade, thrown by a man reportedly angered partly by Douglas’ support of Vermont Yankee. That year, protesters forced the evacuation of a state office after dumping foul-smelling packing material there.

Meanwhile, several Vermont-based groups have spent years trying derail the plant in the state Legislature and before state and federal regulators.

Low-key reaction

Vermont Yankee supporters had little reaction to news of Greenpeace’s arrival.

“I guess I’m not interested in characterizing other organizations,” said Guy Page, a spokesman for Vermont Energy Partnership, a coalition of businesses and utilities that supports allowing the plant to run for another 20 years.

But he did note that an early Greenpeace leader, Patrick Moore, has become an advocate of nuclear power. Moore has become a leading spokesman for the nuclear power industry — and has been reviled as a traitor by Greenpeace activists.

Page said the partnership is sticking with a game plan of trying to educate voters and lawmakers about the benefits of Vermont Yankee. Their message: It provides a safe, steady supply of power without globe-warming greenhouse gases. Letting it continue running gives the state 20 years to build the infrastructure for more renewable energy, he said.

Don’t expect big rallies or petitions sponsored by Entergy, Vermont Yankee’s Louisiana-based owner. Jay Thayer, a company vice president heading the relicensing effort, said he’s been making his case in talks with Vermont civic groups, businesses and lawmakers.

“We’re looking to appeal to people’s sense of the issue on factual information, not a lot of emotion,” he said.

But it is raising the specter of damage to the state’s economy. Businesses — some of the state’s biggest energy consumers — will be a major part of Entergy’s campaign as it tries to persuade lawmakers that shutting the plant would translate into more costly electricity.

Voters and gimmicks

Lawmakers at this point say they haven’t noticed Greenpeace’s presence. Several didn’t know the group had come to town, though they are on the group’s list of potential swing votes.

“I don’t know a whole hell of a lot about them,” said Rep. Clem Bissonnette, D-Winooski, who said he hasn’t made up his mind how to vote on Vermont Yankee.

Rep. Tony Klein, a critic of nuclear power and chair of the House Natural Resources and Energy Committee, said he didn’t think a national group would carry particular weight with lawmakers. Hearing from individual voters on the issue will.

“I think absolutely the local voter makes a difference,” the East Montpelier Democrat said.

Klein’s Republican counterpart, meanwhile, questioned whether Greenpeace-style publicity tactics could backfire.

“I know my constituents would not like it. We’re pretty practical Vermonters here. Tell us the facts. Don’t play games. Don’t use gimmicks,” said Rep. Joseph Krawczyk, R-Bennington, who is vice-chairman of the energy committee. “It won’t work with me. In fact I think it would have the opposite effect.”

While it’s a mystery how loud Greenpeace plans to be, the upcoming legislative session will give a close-up look at how the group can be effective here. And lawmakers will certainly be more familiar with the name.

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