Vermont Nuclear Plant Gets Court OK (ETR)

The operating license for Entergy Corp.’s (NYSE: ETR) Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant expires this year. The plant received an 20-year extension from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission last year, but the state of Vermont enacted legislation to deny the plant a state license renewal. Now a federal court has ruled against the state, allowing the plant to continue operating.

The Vermont Yankee plant has been in operation for 40 years, the same length of time as two nuclear plants in New York, which that state’s governor has promised to close when existing licenses expire in 2013 and 2015. But the court’s ruling in the Vermont Yankee case is likely to make the New York closures more difficult to carry out.