U.S. Representative Ed Markey (D-MA), chairman of the House subcommittee on energy and environment, has requested that Congress's investigative arm, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), investigate the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's performance when it comes to the safety of aging and proposed new reactors, such as their vulnerability to natural disasters or the destabilizing climate, as well as industrial fires within nuclear power plants. Markey also called upon GAO to investigate NRC's oversight of the financial ability of shutdown reactors to adequately clean up radioactively contaminated soil and groundwater during decommissioning, given leaking buried pipes and inadequately funded decommissioning funds. See Markey's press release, and letter to GAO.

The Charleston NBC affiliate reports that the State of West Virginia Senate Judiciary Committee has killed for this year an attempt to overturn a 1996 state ban on the construction of atomic reactors in the state until the high-level radioactive waste problem has been solved.

Vermont's Times Argus reports that Ce-137, a radioisotope with a hazardous persistence of 300 to 600 years and that lodges in human muscle tissue (and has been blamed by Belarussian scientist Bandashevsky for the condition in children known as "Chernobyl Heart," the focus of a short documentary by the same name, which won an Oscar in 2003), has been discovered in the soil beneath Vermont Yankee atomic reactor during the course of Entergy Nuclear's search for the origin of underground tritium leaks. While Entergy was quick to blame atmospheric bomb tests and the Chernobyl cloud's fallout itself as the origin of the Ce-137, nuclear engineers such as Arnie Gundersen of the Vermont Legislature's Public Oversight Panel, and radiological health chief for the Vermont Department of Health William Irwin, said it's too soon to tell where the Ce-137 has come from, but it could very well be from the same leak releasing tritium into groundwater at the site. The Vermont Digger has reported that, in addition to Ce-137, radioactive isotopes of manganese and zinc have also been discovered in Vermont Yankee's soil. The Digger also reports that a visible crack in the "advanced off gas" (AOG) system pipe may account for some -- although perhaps not all -- of the tritium and other radioactivity leaks into site groundwater. Such a growing list of radionuclides in the soil and groundwater is reminiscent of the Big Rock Point reactor -- even post-decommissioning, two dozen hazardous radionuclides, including those now being found at Vermont Yankee, were still present in the Michigan nuclear power plant site. Despite this, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has declared it a "green field," available for "unrestricted re-use."

Writing in Time magazine, Michael Grunwald describes "Why Obama's nuclear bet won't pay off."

As the still fruitless search for the source of leaking tritium entered its seventh week, and despite last minute announcements by Entergy Nuclear -- that five top Vermont Yankee managers had been placed on vaguely defined "administrative leave" and another six "reprimanded," that a non-public internal report supposedly found no intention to mislead state officials (despite false testimony under oath), and an "offer," described by Entergy as a "gift" but by others as a thinly veiled bribe -- the State of Vermont Senate, by a resounding vote of 26 to 4, has blocked the request to extend the Vermont Yankee atomic reactor's operating license for 20 additional years, forcing it to shutdown in 2012 as previously planned. Despite this, Entergy Nuclear has vowed to fight on. Beyond Nuclear issued a media release regarding the Vermont State Senate's unprecedented "no confidence" vote against Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee, as did Public Citizen. Beyond Nuclear congratulates the grassroots anti-nuclear movement of New England, including the Vermont Yankee Decommissioning Alliance, as well as Citizens Awareness Network and its Vermont chapter, without whose tireless efforts, this tremendous victory could not have been won. CAN issued a statement calling on supporters to remain vigilant, and to work to protect this victory by focusing grassroots pressure on the Vermont State House of Representatives. New Hampshire Public Radio quoted Cort Richardson, a Clamshell Alliance member who has fought against Vermont Yankee for 35 years, as saying: "I think it’s a proud day for Vermont. It’s a day when everyone can really feel proud of their legislature. They took the testimony. They listened. They studied and they came up with the right conclusion. To me that’s democracy in action. It worked...The plant’s continuation is rejected totally and unequivocally." Extensive additional news coverage, much of which pointed out the Vermont decision "bucks" President Obama's call for an expansion of nuclear power, included: AP; Burlington Free Press; CBS News; Rutland Herald (including activists' response to the victory); Vermont Public Radio; WCAX TV; and WPTZ TV.