PSB: How is Entergy's spin-off better for Vermont consumers?

Senate President Pro Temp Peter Shumlin and House Speaker Shap Smith are right to question the alleged benefits of allowing Entergy to spin off its Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant (and five others) into a separate holding company called Enexus. On the face of it, the spin-off does little more than free Entergy, a debt-free and profitable company, of future expense while creating a new company — loaded with debt — to shoulder the burden of decommissioning five aging nuclear plants in the not-so-distant future.

Finding the benefit to Vermont in such a deal is perplexing.