US District Judge J. Garvan Murtha is hearing the case. Wednesday was the third and final day. A ruling is not expected until later.
Sullivan told the judge the clips and legislative documents create “an astonishing legislative record’’ and that lawmakers knew they had to avoid safety as a reason for voting that the plant should close when its initial 40-year license expires in March.
Attorney General William Sorrell said the state would show it was entirely proper for lawmakers to discuss “what can we legally do, what can we legally be considering,’’ in writing bills relating to Vermont Yankee.
The Senate in February 2010 voted against a bill that would have authorized the Public Service Board to issue a state certificate for Vermont Yankee to operate for 20 years past next March. Vermont is the only state that gives its Legislature such authority. The NRC approved a 20-year license extension earlier this year.
The Senate vote came a month after state officials learned that radioactive tritium was leaking from under the Vernon reactor and that plant officials had misled lawmakers and regulators by saying the plant did not have the sort of underground pipes that carried tritium.
Sullivan said the state was prohibited from considering the tritium leak because it, too, was a safety issue under the NRC’s purview. She did not mention the mistrust many lawmakers felt following misleading statements from Entergy, based in New Orleans.
One clip was of Senator Susan Bartlett, Democrat of Lamoille, who is now a top aide to Governor Peter Shumlin. She spoke of “an illegal discharge into the waters of the state.’’
“It’s nuclear,’’ she said, “which means we don’t have any control over it, which truly makes me wild.’’
