Against a backdrop of rising seas and extreme summer weather events averaging about one a week, the United States Senate is dithering about appointing new TVA board members for the nation's largest public utility. The result is that the agency -- one that serves all or parts of seven Southern states -- may not have a quorum in a few months.
The Tennessee Valley Authority board's quorum concern prompted the current sitting five members to pass the utilities' $12.4 billion budget in July -- early and outside of a public meeting.
"Given the importance of the budget and the fact that the board has the minimal number of directors needed for a quorum and the rise of COVID cases at the time, we deemed it was appropriate to adopt the budget through the notational process, and we did that," TVA Director A.D. Frazier announced last week at the utility board's Aug. 31 meeting.
Four of the usual nine board posts are vacant, and the terms of another two directors ended in May but they can remain in their posts until the year's end unless their successors are named before then.
What's the hold-up? We believe it is partisanship, climate change deniers and some Congress members who are more invested in fossil fuels than in Americans' and the Earth's welfare.
On Wednesday, a Senate subcommittee held confirmation hearings but no votes for the three most recent TVA board nominees proposed by President Joe Biden. These hearings should clear the way for the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee to vote on three other Biden nominees whose confirmation votes were delayed by GOP appeals to the White House for more geographic diversity in the makeup of the board.
Geography was a flimsy excuse. Even after those with expiring terms leave the board, the remaining members are from Tennessee and Georgia, and Biden had nominated new people from Alabama, Virginia and another from Tennessee.
We suspect what's really going on is right vs. left.
In April 2021, less than three months after taking office, Biden's first four nominations included two environmental leaders, the first labor union official to be proposed for the board and the first Black chair of the Huntsville, Alabama, Chamber of Commerce, who later withdrew her name for the TVA post to run instead for the Alabama state Senate.
In June 2022, after the geography ploy, Biden also nominated a Kentucky County executive, a former mayor from Mississippi and a former TVA chairman from Alabama to replace the Alabama Senate contender.
It seems more likely now that the real concern is about these nominees' worry about climate change and their support for expanding TVA's and the nation's alternative power and energy efficiency efforts.
At Wednesday's hearing, the three newest nominees -- the former TVA chairman, the Kentucky county executive and the former Mississippi mayor -- all said they would support more renewable energy and efficiency programs where such initiatives make economic sense. It's a fair assumption the other three -- two environmental leaders and a labor union official -- would support those things, as well.
U.S. Sen. Edward Markey, D-Massachusetts, who chaired the hearing, blasted what he called TVA's current "laggard" commitment to energy efficiency and renewables as "disgusting."
"It is deeply discouraging that TVA as the nation's largest public power provider does not intend to achieve net zero carbon emissions until 2050," Markey said. "On top of that, TVA has adopted rate policies to discourage consumers from using rooftop solar, and instead of replacing its largest coal plant with (a) low-cost zero-carbon energy source, TVA has proposed building a new natural gas plant that it plans to run for years to come. TVA is putting up blockades for clean, cheap carbon-free energy while rolling out the red carpet for polluting facilities that are going to blow through our clean electricity targets."
Cue the ranking Republican on the Senate panel, U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma. You remember him declaring climate change was a "hoax" as he threw a February snowball on the Senate floor in 2015.
"Calls to eliminate fossil fuels in general from the power sector are foolish and would be devastating for the American people by increasing already sky-high utility bills and jeopardizing the reliability of the electric grid," Inhofe said Wednesday.
TVA expects in 2023 to get about one-fourth of its power from natural gas, which utility officials say is needed to meet power peaks when the sun doesn't shine or the wind doesn't blow.
TVA is not expected to meet Biden's goal of a carbon-free electricity sector by 2035. Instead, it plans to be at least 80% there by that time.
Markey, chairman of the Senate subcommittee on Clean Air, Climate and Nuclear Safety, said his home state of Massachusetts gets nearly one-fourth of its power from the sun and wind -- seven times more power than does TVA.
"If the rainy day Bay State can figure this out, I would just hope that TVA, which serves a sunnier region, would get those same benefits," he said. "Given the reliability, cost savings and climate benefits from renewable energy sources, it is shocking to me that only 3% of TVA's energy is now generated from solar and wind."
Biden's TVA nominees have now been on hold 17 months, and the board, comprised entirely of appointees by former President Donald Trump, is running out of a quorum.
There is no excuse for this. Not only is TVA a laggard -- so are the Republicans of the U.S. Senate.