President Donald Trump criticized the Tennessee Valley Authority at a White House event to support the coal industry on Wednesday, saying the utility has gone in a “very stupid, very bad direction,” even as he praised its board for extending the lives of coal plants.
The TVA board, complete with four new members nominated by Trump and confirmed by the U.S. Senate, voted at a meeting in Kentucky on Wednesday to keep the Cumberland and Kingston coal-fired power plants running beyond their previously planned retirements.
“Today, I’m proud to announce that the Tennessee Valley Authority has taken action to save two major coal plants in Tennessee,” Trump said. “The plants are the Cumberland Fossil Plant in Cumberland City. It’s a big, beautiful thing that they just wanted to shut down.”
The president had not spoken publicly about the utility in his second term, even as he fired three of its board members who were nominated by former President Joe Biden. The utility did not have a quorum to vote on new business for more than nine months because of the terminations.
Trump repeated his claim that the nation’s largest government-owned utility pays its CEO too much, echoing sentiments from his first term. He fixated on the compensation for former TVA CEO Jeff Lyash, who made $10.5 million his final two years at TVA. The current CEO, Don Moul, made $5.9 million last year and his total compensation is expected to be $6 million moving forward.