Despite the Congressional rejection of a similar proposal last year, the Trump administration has again proposed to sell part of the Tennessee Valley Authority, the federally owned utility that provides electricity across seven Southeastern states.
In its budget proposals for fiscal 2020, the U.S. Office of Management and Budget proposes that the federal government sell the transmission assets of TVA.
“The private sector is best suited to own and operate electricity transmission assets,” OMB budget planners said in their 204-page proposal for “Major Savings and Reforms” for fiscal 2020. “Ownership of transmission assets is best carried out by the private sector where there are appropriate market and regulatory incentives. Eliminating the federal government’s role in owning and operating transmission assets would encourage a more efficient allocation of economic resources and mitigates unnecessary risk to taxpayers.”
But the Trump administration plan was strongly denounced Thursday by the Republican congressional delegation in Tennessee, the biggest state in the TVA region. Although the GOP lawmakers have voiced support for the private sector and many have opposed what they claim are socialist proposals by rival Democrats, the Tennessee Republican were unanimous in their opposition to selling any of the assets of TVA.
Former President Franklin Roosevelt created TVA in 1933 as part of his Democrat-backed New Deal to help harness the power of the Tennessee River and expand electricity service in impoverished southern Appalachia beyond what the investor-owned utilities had provided prior to the creation of TVA.