Shumlin for governor

The Burlington Free Press editorial board recommends Peter Shumlin, the Democrat from Putney, for governor of Vermont. The critical characteristic is that he will get things done. Shumlin’s promise to run state government in the most open way possible is the precondition for anyone who seeks the state’s highest elected office.

Vermont continues to struggle to rise above the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. A steady hand to maintain the status quo is no longer sufficient to move this state forward — socially and economically. This state can no longer afford a governor who would see blocking legislation as the major accomplishments of his tenure.

As Senate President Pro Tempore, Peter Shumlin has displayed considerable legislative skill in bringing about results on the biggest issues, an advantage he holds over his main competitor, Republican Brian Dubie of Essex Junction.

Shumlin was a driving force in Vermont becoming the first state to grant marriage equality to gay and lesbian couples without being told to do so by the courts.

Shumlin was a legislative leader in the 2009 budget fight with Gov. Jim Douglas that led Douglas to veto the budget and the Legislature to override that veto — both a first for a state budget in Vermont.

Shumlin can claim credit for the 26-4 vote this year that led the Senate to deny Vermont Yankee a chance to seek from the Public Service Board an extension of its operating license for 20 years beyond 2012.

Regardless of whether you agree with Shumlin’s agenda, there is no denying the senator from Windham County has built a record of bold action in the Legislature.

Shumlin’s platform is equally full of bold initiatives — from his proposal to reduce Corrections costs by focusing on keeping nonviolent offenders from returning to prison, to his push for a single-payer health care system for the state.

Shumlin’s platform shows a politician unafraid of controversy in his search for solutions to challenges facing Vermont. To shy away from trying new approaches to the state’s fiscal problems is to go back to simply cutting services the state provides to Vermonters to bridge the budget gap.

Shumlin will bring his experience gained in the Senate helping to build state budgets in an environment of reduced revenues to work with the Legislature on solutions that are fair to Vermonters.

In politics, the safe route is to stick to generalities and avoid leaving a public trail that could come back to haunt a candidate. In the general election campaign, Shumlin’s willingness to speak out on contentious issues and talk about specifics of his platform leaves him open to equally specific criticism. He has been direct. Again, this is part of being open and accessible as a representative of the people.

Shumlin exposes some weakness when delving into details of some of his proposals. He stumbles to make himself understood on his Corrections plan. He reached too far in claims of cutting taxes. And people will argue about how realistic his plan is to pay for his agenda without raising taxes, especially when he will face a $110 million-plus budget gap on day one as governor.

But throughout his campaign, Shumlin has been consistent on the issues and has remained the man Vermonters have come to know during his legislative career. With Shumlin, his legislative record and his willingness to delve deep into his proposals mean Vermonters know who they are getting as their next governor.

Shumlin pledges to look out for the interest of Vermonters who need help.

Shumlin offers a nuanced approach to Vermont’s budget challenges that avoids a simple-minded policy that more resembles hacking away at spending with a dull ax.

Shumlin’s platform recognizes the importance of investing in education as a way to boost the economy and tackle our social problems.

Shumlin has pledged to run an open administration, and work to reduce the barriers to public access that permeates Vermont laws. This is the only way to run state government, and the only way elected officials can be held accountable. Openness is the most important promise to Vermonters the next governor must keep.

Vermont needs a doer.

Peter Shumlin of Putney will be that governor.

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20101024/OPINION/101023016/Voice-of-the-Free-Press-Recommendation-for-Vermont-governor

BURLINGTON (AP) — Democratic gubernatorial candidate Peter Shumlin called Monday for the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant to dramatically increase its extraction of contaminated groundwater from its site in Vernon, following news three days earlier that radioactive tritium was found in a well drawing from an underground aquifer and used for drinking water.

“I have been saying for some time that the radioactive leaks at Vermont Yankee could be the largest man-made environmental crisis that Vermont has ever seen,” Shumlin said at a news conference, adding that plant owner Entergy Corp., based in New Orleans, must be held accountable for the costs of cleanup.

“Unless Entergy Louisiana is held accountable for this disaster, it could cost Vermonters millions of dollars and put the health and safety of thousands at risk,” he said. “Entergy Louisiana needs to take immediate steps to ensure that this crisis does not worsen.”

Shumlin, the president pro tem of the Vermont Senate and a longtime critic of the state’s lone reactor, also stepped up his criticism of his Republican opponent, Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie, whom he called too friendly to Vermont Yankee and Entergy.

“Brian will stand up for the stockholders of Entergy Louisiana instead of protecting the pocketbooks and health and safety of the people of the state of Vermont,” Shumlin said.

Vermont Yankee is seeking a 20-year extension of its license, scheduled to expire in 2012.

Vermont is the only state with a law saying the Legislature must approve the extension of a power plant’s license. Vermont Yankee’s extension request failed to get out of the Senate in February.

The vote came a month after tritium leaks were first announced and after revelations that top plant personnel had misled state officials by saying Vermont Yankee did not have underground piping that carried, and could leak, radioactive substances like tritium.

Dubie has said he believes the decision on the plant’s future should be left to the state Public Service Board, which would issue a new state license for the plant, and to the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

“Brian has been very clear from the beginning that the NRC is going to be the one who will determine whether the plant is safe,” Dubie spokeswoman Kate Duffy said Monday. “This is a conversation that has to be driven by science and evidence, not politics and emotion.”

Shumlin called on Vermont Yankee to triple the number of pumps, from two to six, that it has been using to pull contaminated groundwater from the reactor site on the west bank of the Connecticut River since last winter. In January, officials announced that radioactive tritium, an isotope of hydrogen that has been linked to cancer if ingested in large amounts, had turned up in a test well at Vermont Yankee. Since then, other radioactive isotopes also have been found.

Plant spokesman Larry Smith said technicians at Vermont Yankee had already pulled about 267,000 gallons of water from the ground in an effort to address the tritium leaks and expected to meet their goal of extracting 300,000 gallons by December.

Shumlin said the new discovery — tritium found at 200 to 220 feet underground, far deeper than previous depths of 30 to 70 feet — should require the pumping to continue well past December.

Smith noted that the new tritium measurement, about 1,040 picocuries per liter of water, was well below the Environmental Protection Agency’s safety standard for drinking water of 20,000 picocuries per liter. He said there is no threat to public health and safety.

http://www.benningtonbanner.com/ci_16314049

By Dave Gram

Associated Press Writer / October 8, 2010

MONTPELIER, Vt.—Radioactive tritium that has leaked from the Vermont Yankee nuclear plan  has turned up for the first time in a former drinking water well tied to a deep underground aquifer, plant and federal officials said Friday.

Plant officials said the new test results indicated there was no threat to public health and safety. Two positive readings, showing just over 1,000 picocuries of tritium per liter of water, were well below the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s safety limit for tritium in drinking water — 20,000 picocuries per liter.

However, the presence of any tritium, an isotope of hydrogen and a byproduct of nuclear fission that has been tied to cancer when ingested in large amounts, was troubling to state Rep. David Deen, a river steward with the Connecticut River Watershed Council. The plant is adjacent to the river in Vermont’s southeast corner.

“That’s really bad news,” Deen said. “I was hoping it was going to be contained and that the shallow ground water would flush itself and that we would be done with it.”

The tritium leak that was first announced in January. Asked whether people living near the plant had anything more to worry about than before the latest development, the state Health Department’s radiological health chief, William Irwin, said, “I don’t think so.”

Irwin said there still is a high likelihood that the underground water system will flush itself out over time. He said, however, a great deal of uncertainty surrounds the situation because no one has an exact map of underground rock fractures through which the affected water is flowing.

The test results turned up in water samples pulled from a section of the well shaft extending from 200 to 220 feet below the surface of the plant site in Vernon. That’s about three times deeper than the deepest test well drilled this year — 70 feet — as the plant has tracked the spread of tritium and other radioactive substances through shallower ground water surrounding the 38-year-old reactor.

The well, which had been used as a water supply for Vermont Yankee workers, was shut down in February because of its proximity to the radioactive leaks. Plant, state and federal officials, like Deen, had hoped the contaminated groundwater would be limited to that which has turned up in various test wells on the site since them.

“What it means is that it has gotten through that rock layer that was protecting the drinking water aquifer,” Deen said.

It could not be immediately determined how large the aquifer under Vermont Yankee is. Irwin said he is not a hydrogeologist and did not have that information. Deen said, “That’s the aquifer that most of the wells in that area are tapped into.”

The future of Vermont Yankee, which is seeking a 20-year extension on a license currently set to expire in 2012, has become a major issue in this year’s race for governor. The plant is owned by New Orleans-based Entergy Corp.

The Republican candidate, Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie, has generally been supportive of the plant, but adopted a tougher tone Friday. He said the latest findings show that the plant “has much more work to do in order to regain the trust and confidence of Vermonters” following last winter’s revelations about the leaks and the fact that plant officials had misled the state about the existence of underground pipes at the plant that could leak radioactive substances.

The Democratic candidate, state Senate President Pro Tem Peter Shumlin, has been consistent in calling for Vermont Yankee to close when its license expires in 2012. “How many leaks and lies does Brian Dubie have to live through before he will stand up for the people of Vermont instead of the stockholders of Entergy Louisiana?” Shumlin said. “We need a governor who gets it right the first time and has the courage to stand up to corporate power when it is wrong.”

© Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Todd Bailey, the Vermont League of Conservation Voters’ Executive Director stated, “At this critical time in Vermont’s history we need a governor who shares [our] values, knows how to get tough things done, and will ensure that the Green Mountain State is a national leader in creating good paying jobs for Vermonters in the emerging green economy.”

Bailey further stated, “Senator Shumlin’s opponent needed two tries before he would acknowledge that climate change is a reality.” Bailey continued, “If Brian Dubie is not 100% certain on these globally significant issues, which have a tremendous impact on Vermont, how can Vermonters be confident that he is in line with their desire to maintain Vermont’s quality of life?”

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.

“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

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

Former Senator Cheryl Rivers (D-Windsor)

By Terri Hallenbeck, Free Press Political Reporter

7 July 2010

PUTNEY — Down a winding dirt road on the outskirts of Putney is the business Peter Shumlin’s parents started that he now runs with his brother. Over the ridge is the dairy farm Shumlin bought and turned back over to the farmer to run. Nearby are acres of trees Shumlin owns where a friend runs a sawmill. In the center of town are several buildings filled with commerce — a restaurant, offices, apartments — that Shumlin owns and has had renovated.

Just a few square miles offer evidence that the 53-year-old Shumlin has his hand in just about everything. One hundred miles up the highway in Montpelier, where Shumlin serves as Senate leader, legislative colleagues say it is the same with the state’s business.

“It’s amazing the subjects that man is aware of in any given day at the Statehouse,” said fellow state Sen. Richard Mazza, D-Grand Isle/Chittenden. “The guy just never stops.”

Shumlin showed drive for immersing himself in local issues early on. He was 24 years old — back home after college to work in the family business, Putney Student Travel — when he won election to the Putney Selectboard. He helped his hometown win a fight against a new federal prison being built on the defunct Windham College campus. Instead, Shumlin helped lure Landmark College to the site, where it remains today.

John Leader, who was chairman of the Putney Selectboard when Shumlin joined the board 30 years ago, remembers that even at the age of 24 he had a way of making things happen. “Peter was fairly dynamic in his approach to problems. He was not afraid to use his connections and he had quite a few,” said Leader, who runs the Pepsi distributorship in Brattleboro.

Friends and adversaries alike say Shumlin has the intelligence for grasping issues, savvy for knowing when to act and a charm for getting his way — all of which means he gets things done even as he sometimes generates friction along the way.

Local economy

Shumlin is equally at home whether at the Statehouse, where he is typically dressed in a sharp-fitting suit, or back home in Putney dressed in a T-shirt and shorts. He appears to be a man at home anywhere, as long as he is in the middle of the action.

In laid-back Putney, the action is Shumlin’s involvement in a broad cross-section of enterprises. Each one, Shumlin said, brings home the importance of local control and a local economy.

As he walked through the barn of the dairy farm he bought, Shumlin said he decided it would be better to invest his money here and support the local agricultural economy than in the stock market. Being involved with the farm has helped him learn more about milk pricing and the challenges farmers face, he said. The milk there is sold to a cheesemaker down the road, which pays better than the traditional milk market.

Over the hill and up a rutty logging road, a friend runs a sawmill on land Shumlin owns. On another part of the property, a sawmill employee plans to start a CSA — a community-supported agriculture farm – selling locally grown food to local residents.

Family business

If Shumlin has a lot of irons in the fire, he appears to have learned it from his parents, George and Kitty Shumlin, retired teachers who started Putney Student Travel 59 years ago and turned it over to their sons 20 years ago.

In the renovated barn where the business operates, employees jokingly thanked Shumlin for stopping by one recent day. Between the January-May legislative session and his campaign for governor, Shumlin doesn’t spend a lot of time here. His brother, Jeff, runs the day-to-day business of sending students on foreign trips from Australia to Uganda for language, cross-cultural and community-service experiences. The company three years ago began a partnership with National Geographic for a series of programs.

Jeff Shumlin, who is nearly four years younger than his brother, said the two of them have become accustomed to their roles. “I’m more of a behind-the-scenes detail guy,” Jeff Shumlin said. “Peter is really a visionary, a creative thinker. We’re a good team that way.”

Last year, the business helped Shumlin earn an annual income of nearly $1 million, making him the wealthiest candidate in the race. Shumlin reluctantly revealed his income in April after the other gubernatorial candidates released their tax records. Once he did, he defended it as the mark of somebody who understands business.

Born for politics

While business brings home the money, politics has long been in Shumlin’s blood, his brother said, describing a young Peter sitting in his closet listening to Martin Luther King Jr. speeches on reel-to-reel tape. He was in the closet, Jeff Shumlin said, because the rest of the family was so sick of hearing the tape. Shumlin said he still occasionally listens to the speeches in his car.

His interest in King’s speaking ability might have been driven by his own learning disability. Shumlin struggled as a child to learn to read and spell and was eventually diagnosed with mild dyslexia. Shumlin said he believes he compensated for his difficulty reading with his speaking ability. “I had to be the guy who was fastest with my tongue,“ he said. “I had to be funny, engaging, witty and irreverent to survive those spelling bees and still have my peers know I was OK.”

It has paid off for him in politics. He is known around the Statehouse as being quick with a sound bite, the envy of more tongue-tied legislators.

Shumlin entered state politics after seven years on the Putney Selectboard. In 1990, he was appointed to a seat in the House by Gov. Madeleine Kunin. He moved to the Senate in 1993, became minority leader in his second term, and was elected president pro tempore the next term after Democrats gained the majority. He lost a three-way race for lieutenant governor in 2002 to Republican Brian Dubie, the man he hopes to face in November’s election. After a four-year hiatus, Shumlin returned to the Senate in 2007, and his colleagues elected him president pro tempore again.

Doing battle

President pro tempore was a job Sen. John Campbell, D-Windsor, very much wanted that year, after serving as majority leader under Peter Welch, who left the Senate to run for Congress. Campbell and Shumlin duked it out in a close race by secret ballot in a Democratic caucus meeting before the Legislature convened. When Campbell lost the higher position, he said he had no interest in returning to majority leader. Within weeks, Shumlin had lured Campbell back, promising him a key role in policy decisions. Shumlin stayed true to his word, Campbell said. “He and I were political adversaries,” Campbell said, “but I had no problem staying with him. He puts that aside.”

That is a recurring attribute for Shumlin: He does battle, sometimes there are hard feelings, but he has an uncanny knack for winning forgiveness.

“People stick with me because I think they know I’m going to get at least some of the results I promise,” Shumlin said.

Mazza, a 25-year veteran of the Senate, was angry that Shumlin pushed for a Senate vote in February against the continued operation of Vermont Yankee just as the nuclear power plant was mired in a public relations nightmare. Mazza was among a number of senators who thought Shumlin was unfairly taking advantage of Yankee’s troubles to defeat the plant instead of waiting for the results of an investigation into a tritium leak.

“My feeling was we were jumping the gun,” Mazza said recently. “I would not have handled it that way.”

Shumlin held the vote anyway. Mazza was among the few who voted for Vermont Yankee, but he quickly shrugged off his discontent with Shumlin. “I’ve been angry with him many times. The following day, it’s over,” Mazza said.

Months later, Mazza even defended the Yankee vote, saying Shumlin knew more about the issue than he did. Though Mazza said he is not endorsing any candidate for governor, he speaks highly of Shumlin, more than any of the other candidates. “He has a great ability to lead,” he said.

Beth Robinson, who led the fight for same-sex marriage through the Vermont Freedom to Marry Task Force, said Shumlin’s willingness to vote on that issue showed both his savvy at reading the tea leaves and his power of persuasion in getting others to follow.

In 2009, many legislators who supported same-sex marriage said it wasn’t the right time to take on the issue, Robinson said. “It took a lot of vision to get outside the conventional wisdom that prevailed — that this was too scary to do even though it’s the right thing to do,” she said. “Peter had the vision where others did not to see where Vermonters really were.”

Then, she said, Shumlin persuaded reluctant lawmakers that they would not face the backlash they did with the passage of civil unions in 2000. “That’s where I think Peter was a game-changer,” Robinson said.

Not everyone’s a fan

While supporters see him as a man who makes things happen, critics question the way he gets there. Polls suggest that Vermonters have picked up on that. In a recent Rasmussen Reports poll, Shumlin had a higher percentage of people viewing him very unfavorably than did the other candidates.

“There’s a number of things he’s said from time to time,” said Sen. Randy Brock, R-Franklin, noting that Shumlin told a television talk show host that Germany drew 30 percent of its power from solar when it actually produced 1 percent. “That makes me scratch my head,” Brock said.

Brock pointed to another instance. At the beginning of the last legislative session, Shumlin had a vacancy on the Senate Finance Committee to fill after the resignation of the only Republican on the committee that would do the bulk of the work on Vermont Yankee. Shumlin passed over Brock, a first-term senator who had served as state auditor and executive vice president of Fidelity Investments and loaded the committee with seven Democrats. “It certainly had the appearance of being disingenuous,” Brock said.

Shumlin said he draws criticism because he’s willing to make tough decisions, something that would serve him well as governor. “Tough decisions make both friends and enemies. I’ll take on things other politicians won’t,” he said. “You can’t have good government if you are not a good politician. Bad politicians don’t annoy people because they don’t do anything.”
Read more: http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20100707/NEWS03/100706006/-1/TOPICS0206/Peter-Shumlin-is-at-home-in-the-middle-of-the-action#ixzz0t86cbihK