FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, March 12, 2010
CONTACT Martha Hanson
802-828-2226 (O)
802-535-9684 (C)
Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie Hails New Power Agreement Between Vermont Utilities and Hydro-Quebec
(Quebec City, March 12, 2010) – Vermont Lt. Governor Brian Dubie today joined Governor James Douglas and Quebec Premier Jean Charest in applauding a new preliminary agreement, announced today in Quebec City, establishing the framework for a new 26-year power contract between Vermont’s two largest electric utilities and Hydro Quebec.
Douglas, Charest and Dubie meet today with state and provincial officials and utility executives from Central Vermont Public Service (CVPS), Green Mountain Power (GMP) and Hydro Quebec (HQ).
“It’s a pleasure and an honor to be in Quebec City with our friends again,” said Dubie. “Since January, I have been conducting a Jobs Tour around Vermont, and one of the key concerns I hear from small businesses around our state concerns a stable and predictable power supply. This agreement is great news for Vermont businesses, and great news for the Vermonters they employ.”
Dubie recalled that his first official outreach to Canada and Quebec took place in December 2002, a month after he was first elected lieutenant governor, and a month before he took the oath of office.
“I recognized then that Canada and Quebec would be critical to Vermont’s energy future, our border security and our economy,” said Dubie. “So I visited the Canadian Embassy in Washington for a high-level briefing on our relationship. I learned that for a number of reasons, our official relationships were strained. So I made a commitment then to reestablish the lines of communication and repair those relationships.”
Dubie met in Ottawa with the US Ambassador to Canada in March 2003, and in April 2003 sat in the front row at Premier Jean Charest’s initial swearing-in, as the only invited foreign government official. “At the reception following the ceremony,” Dubie recalls, “I met then Hydro-Quebec president and CEO Andre Caille. He offered to show me his dams at James Bay in Northern Quebec, and in August 2003, he did.”
Meanwhile, Dubie worked with the Douglas administration to plan a series of official missions and meetings that soon restored and deepened the relationships.
“It’s very rewarding to see these eight years of cooperation between Vermonters and Quebecers, on many levels, now coming to fruition in an energy agreement that promises a stable, green, renewable energy supply for Vermonters and Vermont jobs,” Dubie said.
Utilities will negotiate final details of the contract by the end of June 2010.
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This is really sad.
In 2002, Dubie “recognized..that Canada and Quebec would be critical to Vermont’s energy future”
What insight! At that time, VT utilities had been buying large amounts of power from HQ for over ten years.
A deal with Hydro-Quebec. The time and total bill for 26 years is announced, but no price per killowatt hour for the ratepayer.
For Vermont Yankee a killowatt hour price was demanded.
Is there something wrong with me?
By the way, Hydro-Quebec power contains nuclear power too.
Brian Dubie has shown technological and political foresight in keeping communication lines open among key players in the energy field. It’s a little unnerving however that we hear about secret agreements being made in Quebec that involve our present governor who has shown little understanding of the electric and atomic power industry; particularly the long term cost and reliability issues so critical in any new deal. If our PSB is doing its job they should be having hearings on any deals being made. whether formal or informal, these deals tend to be what we are going to live with for years to come. Brian Dubie should explain what his role is in this affair if he wants to have public support for his expertise.
Brian Dubie did not keep “communication lines open among key players in the energy field”
CVPS & GMP (and others) have been in business with HQ for 20 years; they don’t need any help with communications from Brian Dubie or Jim Douglas; the idea that either one had anything to do with this is ridiculous
While there is no argument that this is renewable energy, rain does keep falling and water keeps running down hill, it is certainly not green energy. Some of us back in the late eighties worked hard to not have that original contract because the massive dams flood thousands of acres, delete carbon storing forests, release massive amounts of methane, and destroy indigineous cultures. In facgt the Cree and Inuit indians at the time came to Vermont to plead with us not to support the dams. They asked the governor at the name to please think about their future genertions of children. The governor’s response reportedly was, Well, I have to think about Vermont’s future children. Growing in population and consumption is not sustainable no matter what the energy source.