It was gratifying to hear the nominees to the Tennessee Valley Authority Board of Directors all say “no” to whether they’d support privatizing the federal utility during a Senate hearing Wednesday.
It was equally satisfying to hear them refuse to kowtow to questioning by leftist senators who wanted them to commit to goals they aren’t sure are realistic for TVA when they’ve only been nominated to the board.
The Obama administration, according to Times Free Press archives, suggested in two budget proposals (2014 and 2015) that TVA might be sold, privatized or transferred to state or local governments to help cut its associated federal debt. A sale initially was suggested by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget in 2013 after an analysis predicted the utility would not be able to meet its capital needs without breaking its debt ceiling.
But a slowdown in power demand and belt tightening allowed TVA to cut capital spending plans by $13 billion and annual operating costs by $500 billion, and the plans to sell were abandoned.
The first Trump administration in 2018 asked Congress to allow federal power companies like TVA to divest their transmission assets to state, local or private entities to optimize value for U.S. taxpayers. Tennessee’s congressional delegation opposed the idea, and it went nowhere.