TVA’s 9-member board should soon be back to full strength, the chairman of a Senate panel that oversees TVA said today.
After waiting months for their Senate confirmation, the four persons recommended for the Tennessee Valley Authority board by President Obama are having hearings before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee today. The hearing was moved up a day in anticipation of a second snowstorm for Washington, D.C., this week.
“I don’t anticipate any bumps in the road,” said U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. “I think we should breeze through this pretty easily.”
The White House last year nominated Dr. Barbara S. Haskew, a Middle Tennessee State University economist from Chattanooga; Neil G. McBride, an Oak Ridge attorney; Dr. Marilyn A. Brown, a Georgia Tech professor who shared the Nobel peace prize with Al Gore, and William B. Sansom, a Knoxville businessman and former TVA board chairman.
Tennessee’s U.S. Sens. Bob Corker and Lamar Alexander praised the four during the hearing.
“These four nominees each bring valuable experiences to TVA,” Mr. Corker said. “I hope they will be passed out of this committee and be confirmed by the Senate.”
Claiming that low-cost power has been vital in attracting automotive and solar plants to the state over the past three decades, Sen. Alexander said, “there is no institution more important to our region than TVA.”
“If there are any two words I’d like to emphasize o our nominees (for the TVA board) they would be ‘low cost,’” Sen. Alexander said.
The panel is expected to vote on the confirmations of the nominees in the next month.
See Wednesday’s Times Free Press for complete coverage.
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