Last week, the Air Force announced that Burlington would be the host Air National Guard base for the controversial F-35 jet aircraft .What struck me was the pep rally atmosphere and the overwhelming support of Vermont’s top elected officials.
The economic benefits of getting the F-35s are pretty clear. Basing the new jets here essentially ensures 1,100 Air Guard jobs for another 50 years. There is also the ancillary support for Burlington International Airport. And the military presence helps keep Vermont's economy diversified, which is its ace in the hole.
But I was also thinking about how different the reaction to this news was compared to the news last summer that the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant would close by the end of next year.
And I thought, which is the bigger news story? Well, clearly, the closing of Vermont Yankee is.
While Yankee has only half the employment, it certainly has a higher payroll and greater tax impact. There is no clear fall back plan economically when Yankee closes in what is a less affluent part of the state. Despite all that, I can't think of a single major politician who laid himself down in front of the Yankee gates to try and keep it open. The contrast between the Air Guard announcement and Vermont Yankee is profound.
One thing people have to understand about why Vermont Yankee is closing is that it has much less to do with politics than it had to do with good old supply and demand.
Vermont Yankee simply could not operate its business successfully and offer competitive rates. Among the economic forces working against Yankee is a languid emergence from the Great Recession; the new, cheaper supply of natural gas; alternative energy; and even greater conservation and energy efficiencies. There is plenty of supply. Vermont Yankee was operating at a loss.
So as far as Vermont Yankee is concerned, the cost of electricity isn’t too high in New England, it’s too low.
As for the Vermont Air Guard, there’s an emotional attachment that’s incomparable. Those of us who remember the large deployments of the Guard to Iraq and Afghanistan cannot do so without emotion. There’s also a well known picture of an Air Guard F-16 patrolling the skies over New York City after 9-ll, with smoke still billowing from the remnants of the Twin Towers.
It’s probably 9-11 that made Vermont the overwhelming choice for basing the F-35s in Burlington. At 1000 miles an hour, the air time to Boston or New York or Philadelphia is only a matter of minutes. The other proposed bases in South Carolina and Florida are just too far away.
Given all that, plus the significant influence of Senator Patrick Leahy, the Burlington base, in retrospect, was the obvious choice.
It’s also obvious about what these parallel stories represent. Clearly, the Air Guard with the F-35 is the future and Vermont Yankee is not.
