Might be time to pull TVA into 21st century
Other than their fat-cat supporters, it doesn’t seem like TVA is feeling the love these days. Despoiling the environment around Kingston, extorting payment from the Ocoee outfitters, squeezing their customers to pay for a fleet of luxury aircraft all of which entitles the top brass to reward themselves with salaries in the millions of dollars.
“How do they keep getting away with it?” you might ask. The answer is simple: They are accountable to no one but themselves. “Why is that so?” you ask. Because TVA was created that way. Back in 1933, when the TVA Act was passed, it seemed essential that the agency created to pull the Tennessee Valley into the 20th century be insulated from competition or regulation if it was to fulfill its mandate.
To this day, TVA remains a federally owned electric utility that is still shielded from competition and regulation by the original TVA Act of 1933. Perhaps the time has come – if not to sell off TVA’s assets – to at least amend the TVA Act of 1933 and pull the agency into the 21st century.
Paul Wright