Chattanooga gas prices up again after brief decline
Chattanooga gas prices returned to their upward spiral last week, rising 4 cents a gallon after a brief decline the previous week.
The average price of regular gas rose to $3.12 a gallon in Chattanooga at the start of this week - the highest average local fuel price in seven years, according to GasBuddy's daily survey of 170 stations in Chattanooga. Gas prices in Chattanooga are 16.3 cents per gallon higher than a month ago and stand $1.44 per gallon higher than a year ago when the coronavirus pandemic limited travel last year.
Chattanooga gas prices averaged 29 cents a gallon below the U.S. average price of $3.41 a gallon on Monday. The national average is up 15.1 cents per gallon from a month ago and stands $1.31/g higher than a year ago.
Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis for GasBuddy, said motorists should get some reprieve from the higher prices at the pump this week.
"Last week saw oil prices briefly fall back under $80 for the first time in weeks," De Haan said. "While it wasn't enough to provide much relief last week, we should see small declines this week in a majority of the country, thanks to the corresponding drop in wholesale gasoline prices."
AAA said Tennessee gas prices declined in the past week and could drop more, in part, by the change in the time over the weekend.
"Not everybody loves changing their household clocks for the end of Daylight Saving Time," said Megan Cooper, spokeswoman, AAA - The Auto Club Group. "But shorter days could lead to lower demand for gas. Drivers may head straight home from work to avoid the darkness rather than tack on side trips for shopping or errands."
TVA nuclear manager pleads guilty to lying
A former senior project manager in the Tennessee Valley Authority's nuclear power program has plead guilty to making a false statement regarding his conflicts of interest with companies doing business with TVA.
James Christopher Jenkins, aka Chris Jenkins, 60, of Chattanooga, entered a guilty plea in federal court to one count of making a false official statement in his annual financial disclosure statements he filed when he worked at TVA and helped oversee some contract work from May 2011 to February 2017. U.S. Assistant Attorney Steven Neff, who handled the prosecution against Jenkins, said a conflict of interest could, among other things, provide a TVA contractor an economic advantage over others and defeat the government's attempt to secure a competitive contract.
U.S. Attorney Francis M. Hamilton III said Jenkins personally benefited from an actual conflict of interest, which was discovered by TVA's Office of Inspector General.
"He failed to disclose numerous conflicts with companies in which he had an ownership interest or owed substantial sums of money," Hamilton said.
Jenkins is scheduled to be sentenced for his crime next March by U.S. Judge Travis R. McDonough. He faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison and three years of supervised release, and $250,000 in fines.
Railroad goes to court over vaccine mandates
Another major railroad has gone to court to determine whether it has the authority to require all its employees to get vaccinated against the coronavirus.
BNSF railroad filed a lawsuit against its major unions over its mandate. It joins Norfolk Southern and Union Pacific, which both filed similar lawsuits against the unions last month. The unions, which have filed some of their own lawsuits in response, argue that the railroads should have negotiated with them before imposing their mandates.
The railroads that have imposed vaccine mandates say they are complying with President Joe Biden's executive order requiring all federal contractors to have their employees vaccinated. The railroads are not alone in facing resistance to vaccine mandates. Similar rules have generated disputes in a variety of workplaces.
BNSF said in its lawsuit that it regularly updates its requirements for workers when federal regulations change, so the vaccine mandate should be no different. BNSF said the unions don't dispute when it changes drug testing rules, and they didn't fight it earlier this year when the railroad imposed a mask mandate after the Federal Railroad Administration ordered it.
"BNSF has a long-standing and well-settled past practice of unilaterally changing its rules and policies governing position requirements, medical standards, and safety in response to lawful federal government directives," the railroad said in its lawsuit.
The railroads have said that employees will be disciplined if they fail to comply with the vaccine mandate.
- Compiled by Dave Flessner