President Trump is again proposing to sell part of the Tennessee Valley Authority even though many of his GOP supporters in Tennessee and agency officials have resisted the idea in the past.
In the White House budget plan unveiled this week, the Office of Management and Budget again recommended the federal government sell the transmission assets of the nation’s biggest government utility to help pay down the federal debt.
TVA President Jeff Lyash said Thursday the proposal threatens to undermine TVA’s integrated approach to managing the Tennessee River and power generation in its seven-state region.
Following a TVA board meeting in Oxford, Mississippi, Lyash said the integrated public power model created in 1933 for the Tennessee Valley Authority has provided cheaper and more reliable electricity, flood control and environmental stewardship of the Tennessee River and economic development throughout the 41,000 square miles served by TVA.
“We do meet with OMB and others if they have an interest in discussing the merits of a proposal like this and perhaps we will do that again,” he said. “But we believe that TVA’s approach to this river system to harness the flow of the river, protect against flooding, generate power and protect the environment and promote economic development is an integrated approach that all works together. Pulling one or more pieces from that we don’t think is in the best interest of the people of the Valley.”