🤐 Blocking the Public from Speaking at TVA Board Meetings
This is unprecedented and #NotPublicPower.
In the past, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) held their Board Meetings publically, allowing citizens to voice their concerns and interact with the board at the quarterly meetings. That changed in August 2018, when the
TVA Board announced a listening session would convene the day before the November 2018 meeting and at a different location. TVA claimed it would “allow Directors additional time to more fully consider the comments of the public and encourage people to come speak to the Board.” It became clear that
TVA was avoiding -- not encouraging -- meaningful public participation when the details of the listening session weren’t announced until a week before the TVA Board Meeting. If citizens wanted to attend these sessions, they would have to miss an additional day of work to not only address the board, but also witness the Board’s response.
Learn more about TVA’s lack of transparency and accountability here.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, despite advancements in technology and a claim to serve it's customers, the May 7, 2020, mostly virtual Board of Directors meeting foregoed a listening session that traditionally was held on the same day as Board meetings, but as noted above, has recently shifted to public, yet not livestreamed, "listening sessions."
💰 Raising regressive fixed fees on customers
This is #NotPublicPower.
Tennessee residents pay some of the
highest electric bills in the nation, but TVA tries to distract their customers by
touting “low rates.” Over the past seven years, TVA has approved an average
50% increase in mandatory fees charged by its local power companies (LPC). For residential customers,
fixed charges have increased much more rapidly than energy rates, leading to a higher proportion of customers’ bills which are fixed, and reduced customer control over their bills.
Fixed fees hurt low usage customers such as low-income, single resident, elderly, and fixed income customers, and will lower the value to adopt solar and invest in energy efficiency. To make matters worse, low-income residents already spend an average
12.6% of their income on energy costs (6% is considered affordable), a measure known as energy burden, and are impacted the most when fixed fees increase.
In addition to the growing fixed fees charged by TVA’s LPCs to their residential customers, in 2018 TVA introduced a wholesale
Grid Access Charge that revised the structure of the wholesale electric power rates those LPCs pay to TVA. This change lowered the standard service energy rate and established a fixed charge that will be based on each LPC’s historic usage rather than its actual, current usage. While the proposals are designed to be revenue-neutral for TVA, in an analysis of the changes TVA said that such a fee has the potential to increase monthly bills for "
a majority of residential customers." Indeed, LPCs
immediately began to pass the charge on to residential customers.
Like the fixed fee increases at local power companies, TVA’s grid access charge means that customers are forced to pay a higher fixed amount every month, even before they flip on a light switch, and they lose the freedom to control their monthly bills through the use of energy efficiency and solar power. Several public interest groups
filed suit around the change, alleging that TVA failed to fully examine and disclose the environmental impacts of a rate change designed to discourage the adoption of solar energy. The change is especially concerning for the most vulnerable households; on average, TVA’s lower-income customers use 10% less energy than higher income customers, and pay an average “energy burden” of 12.6% of household income towards their energy bills. One
analysis suggested that TVA’s grid access charge could raise average energy costs for these lower-income customers to over 14% of household income.
Additionally, "
More than 20 power companies and several industry groups agreed to pay $8.2 million in 2017 to a lobbying effort led by Hunton & Williams, just before partner Bill Wehrum took a top job at the EPA. Documents show industry groups strategizing about how to change federal policy through the installation of friendly personnel as regulators."Topping the list of funders were Duke Energy, Southern Co, AEP and Tennessee Valley Authority. This is another example of TVA not being transparent with the public that it claims it serves.
💰 Hiding regressive fees on 85% of customer bills
This is #NotPublicPower.
At least 85% of local power companies served by TVA do not show their monthly fees on customers’ bills, according to a
review of residential electric bills from over 100 local power companies -- representing 88% of TVA residential ratepayers. All of these local power companies buy power their from TVA, which reviews their residential rates. TVA was created to serve the people of the Valley, and these customers have a right to know exactly what they’re paying for each month. Not only are these fees hidden for so many customers, but in 2018, TVA added a NEW fee, calling it the “Grid Access Charge.” This new fee has subsequently increased fixed fees on customers bills throughout TVA’s service territory, and has been called a
"hidden, regressive tax" that limits the incentives for distributed energy generation and hurts low and fixed-income consumers. These
hidden monthly fees are bad public policy and run counter to the very definition of public power.
Clean energy is for everyone, not just a select few.
🌥️ Killing customer-owned solar programs
This is #NotPublicPower.
TVA has continued to wage war on rooftop solar in recent years, despite misleading attempts to appear solar-friendly.
Arbitrary limits on solar programs and discriminatory grid access fees tell the real story. While TVA advertises its
Green Power Providers (GPP) Program as a viable option for customers to go solar, it “
has not bothered to hide its intent to reduce the rate of solar deployment.” And now,
TVA has announced it will cancel the GPP program at the end of 2019. The changes to TVA’s own solar programs and rate structures have made it less economical for TVA customers to go solar, offering a lower credit (below retail value) for the solar energy they are sending back to TVA’s grid. Another one of TVA’s “solar programs” called Distributed Solar Solutions (DSS) went the entire year of 2018 without any program details being announced and is STILL not available to customers. In 2018,
energy advocates filed suit against TVA to speak out against their Anti-Solar Rate Change that discourages solar development and entrenches TVA’s monopoly control throughout the Tennessee Valley.
🌥️ Providing clean solar power for Facebook and Google; dirty, high-risk energy for everyone else?
This is #NotPublicPower.
TVA has recently made contracts with
Facebook and
Google to provide approximately 800 MW of clean, solar energy to power their data centers in Alabama and Tennessee. While this is a welcome advancement for solar development, what about everyone else? TVA has not been aggressive in pursuing solar options for all --
seemingly only making exceptions when big companies require solar generation to bring their business to the Valley. While TVA is helping to develop Alabama’s largest solar project, the public utility has “
openly admitted to attempting to stifle customer-sited solar with internal policy changes.”
In TVA's latest
2019 Integrated Resource Plan (IRP), they announced a desire to
increase their renewable energy resource mix, specifically solar, to rely on more flexible energy. However, contrary to previous
IRP goals, this
IRP does not list specific goals or provide any commitments to how TVA will implement renewable energy into their current energy mix. TVA vice president of Commercial Energy Solutions, Doug Perry stated, “
Solar power has a bright future for families in the Tennessee Valley if we can continue to attract top-tier companies like Facebook." Yet, as they continue to annouce big industry solar partnerships, they fail to announce solar incentives for TVA residents.
Contradictory to these promises for more solar, "d
uring a public webinar in February, Tennessee Valley Authority staff qualified that no new solar resources would be added until 2023." What they failed to mention in the webinar, but is listed in their IRP is that TVA manually set up the model so it couldn't choose solar prior to 2023.
🌥️ Killing Clean Line - the largest renewable project ever proposed for the Southeast
This is #NotPublicPower.
In 2011, Houston based developer Clean Line Energy Partners proposed selling energy generated from wind turbines in Oklahoma to the TVA. The deal, cleared by the
Department of Energy, would have brought
3,500 megawatts of clean renewable power to the TN Valley for less than the cost of this energy sourced from coal or natural gas generation. The Plains and Eastern Clean Line project would have also helped
Memphis propel its reputation as an energy hub for the Southeast by distributing wind generated energy across the 7 states it serves and selling it to other Southeastern utility companies who were interested in sourcing more renewable energy.
Clean Line would have terminated in Memphis, requiring TVA to take a small portion of the power at less than 2 cents per kilowatt. After multiple rounds of negotiations, TVA refused to take any of the Clean Line power, effectively killing the project. TVA claimed that electricity sales had fallen flat, and they did not need to invest in more energy resources. Accepting the proposal would have brought, a “
long-term supply of power that is clean, that reduces air pollution, that is renewable to help economic development and is lower priced than just burning more fossil fuel,” said Mario Hurtado, the executive vice president of development at Clean Line. "TVA's reluctance" to embrace the Clean LIne project runs contrary to its mission to foster innovation and new technology and to serve as a "
living laboratory" for energy and economic development." TVA used to be a leader in bringing energy to the Tennessee Valley and beyond, but they
squandered this opportunity to be a leader in renewable energy.
🤑 Flying executives in luxury corporate jets and helicopters
This is #NotPublicPower.
Clearly no longer your grandfather’s TVA, the “public power” utility has been using ratepayer money to fly TVA’s top executives, and even their spouses, around in style in
multi-million dollar luxury jets and even a “Mercedes Benz Style” helicopter with hardwood floors.TVA’s jet was more likely to be flying empty, than with the nine passenger capacity the
TVA claimed it needed to accommodate with an $11 million jet.
Published October 30 2018,
an audit from the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Office of the Inspector General provides additional information surrounding the concerns
raised by the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy in early 2018 over TVA’s misuse of luxury aircraft.
The audit states that TVA failed to follow the required policies and procedures in their use of TVA aircraft.
While this report focused specifically on TVA’s helicopter use,
questions still remain over millions of dollars worth of luxury jets and a specialized Mercedes Benz helicopter, formerly used by Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones. Elder Jimmie Garland, vice president of the Tennessee State Conference of the NAACP, said the
findings show the need for independent oversight of the nation's largest public utility.
At the February 14, 2019 TVA quarterly board meeting, "
the TVA board did adopt new policies Thursday to require better documentation for the need and types of uses for the corporate aircraft." Time will tell how these new policies will be different than recent trends.
After much criticism, it apprears TVA has sold this particiluar helicopter, but they still appear to own mutliple luxury jets in its fleet.
☠️ Poisoning coal ash clean up workers and refusing to pay for their healthcare
This is #NotPublicPower.
Following the Kingston coal ash disaster of 2008, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) failed to communicate transparently about the risks associated with coal ash, resulting in the deaths of
more than 40 clean up workers and 400 sick. An
investigation by USA Today revealed TVA representatives and its contractors convinced coal ash workers that coal ash “had only a handful of harmful substances.” In the
same report, TVA supervisors were also blamed for failing to document or act on ailments experienced by workers and refusing to provide adequate protective gear. At a 2009 public meeting,
TVA promised to cover healthcare costs for anyone made ill by coal ash exposure, but has since denied responsibility for sickness and death surrounding the spill. Most recently,
TVA announced that it may be required to reimburse the clean up contractor as a result of the litigation, and that TVA
customers may ultimately foot the bill. In addition,
local officials want to test for soil contaminants of a youth sports complex that is on the site of the Kingston coal ash spill. So far, TVA has resisted those requests.
As a response, Rep. Steve Cohen and Rep. Tim Burchett have
sent a letter to former TVA CEO, Bill Johnson, questioning why TVA hired Jacob's Engineering (Jacobs) to clean up the site initially, given the firms history of worker safety lawsuits and test tampering, as well as, potential knowledge of the dangers of coal ash and workers exposure to it. The letter also questions TVA's reasoning for continuing a business relationship involving worker safety with Jacobs "depsite Jacob's own admission that it lied to workers about the level of risk to which they were ulitmately exposed."
TVA continues to avoid responsibility and accountability.
A Duke University analysis commissioned by the Knox News Sentinel in Feburary of 2020 shows the TVA Kingston coal ash spill from 2008 contains more than three times the amount of uranium reported in 2009 by the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation and in 2011 in a joint report from TVA and its disaster cleanup contractor Jacobs Engineering.
To date, 48 workers have died in the aftermath of spill clean up efforts.
🤑 Paying your executives excessive salaries to do all these things
This is #NotPublicPower.
Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) CEO, Bill Johnson, scheduled to retire in the Spring of 2019, receives a yearly “compensation package” of more than $6.5 million, making him the
highest paid federal employee in America. Four other top executives are
paid more than $2 million. Former TVA Chairman, Joe Ritch acknowledged that TVA salaries were high compared to other federal employees. In 2018, exiting CEO Bill Johnson requested financial bonuses and pay hikes that included “
executive bonuses for longer-term goals, executive pay exceeding the established pay structure, and a 6% raise for Johnson himself.”
Through most of its history, and until a generation ago when TVA revamped its pay system, the federal utility could not pay more than what a member of Congress is paid, now
$174,000 a year. “
You don't have to pay these kinds of ridiculous salaries to get good people to live and work in East Tennessee," said former U.S. Rep. John Duncan.
TVA is required through their annual report to make salaries available to Congress and the public.
Groups have requested that these annual reports become public record.
At the February 14, 2019 quarterly board meeting, TVA announced
Ontario Power Generation CEO Jeff Lyash, the highest paid public servant in the Ontario province, will replace Bill Johnson.
During
a news conference at the White House on April 8, 2020, Trump questioned the
$8.12 million compensation package given to TVA President Jeff Lyash, a former Ontario Power Co. CEO who was hired to head the nation's biggest government utility starting in April 2019.
🤐 Not allowing public access to decision making committee meetings
This is #NotPublicPower.
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)
conducts board level comittee meetings quarterly. Decisions regarding ratepayers are made at these meetings, yet the public is not allowed to attend or observe. Once the behind-closed-doors decisions have been made, the TVA Board conducts a fabricated public board meeting, that goes through the optics of a vote that was largely worked out through the committee process.
In an attempt to increase TVA's accountability as a public entity, Congressman Tim Burchett has
introduced the "Tennessee Valley Authority Transparency Act of 2019," "To require certain meetings of the Tennessee Valley Authority to be transparent and open to the public, and for other purposes." Additionally,
the bill would require TVA to provide proper notification to customers of the meetings and would require TVA to provide minutes and summaries of each meeting be accessible to the public.
As stated in the
TVA ACT, "The Board shall (k) Conduct such public hearings as it deems appropriate on issues that could have a substantial effect on -- (i) the electric ratepayers in the service area; or (ii) the economic, environmental, social, or physical well-being of the people of the service area."
TVA should allow the public to view the committee meetings, as they exist to serve the public.
☠️ Lobbying to Kill Public Health Protections
This is #NotPublicPower.
News recently surfaced that TVA donated $462,967 to a lobbying firm and was one of the largest contributors to efforts to roll back environmental protections at the EPA. In a story detailing not just the large sums of lobbying money, but also the revolving door of utility lobbyists being hired to run the EPA, Politico found that "More than 20 power companies and several industry groups agreed to pay $8.2 million in 2017 to a lobbying effort led by Hunton & Williams, just before partner Bill Wehrum took a top job at the EPA. Documents show industry groups strategizing about how to change federal policy through the installation of friendly personnel as regulators." Shortly after leading this industry strategy to weaken environmental regulations, Wehrum was named Assistant Administrator of EPA's Office of Air and Radiation. Topping the list of funders were Duke Energy, Southern Co, AEP and coming in at number four Tennessee Valley Authority, which spent nearly half a million dollars of ratepayer funds on this one lobbying firm in 2017 alone. The EPA has since moved to roll back many important public health protections. This is clearly not public power to use ratepayers money to lobby against public health protections.
🤐 Withholding Public Information
As a federal entity, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is required by law to comply with requests made under the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, “the law that keeps citizens in the know about their government.” In fact, Bill Johnson advised environmental groups to use FOIA to obtain information about TVA employee salaries that the TVA act indicates should be reported annually.
The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE) has submitted fifteen FOIA requests to TVA since 2017, ranging from information on
luxury jets and helicopters to details of a public statement in which CEO Bill Johnson alluded to an $8 billion RE Investment Plan at the
February 2018 Board Meeting that is also listed on
TVA’s website. Nine of those requests have either been denied, or have had substantial information redacted; one from 2017 has yet to be fulfilled.
After an initial acknowledgement within the required one-month window, TVA has placed most of these requests on slow-moving “tracks” that can take over a year to fulfill. Out of the fifteen requests, on average it has taken six months for TVA to completely provide the requested information. The requests that were fulfilled in shorter turnarounds (one month - three months) were either denied or had potentially critical public information redacted.
TVA is supposed to be public power, but needs far better transparency in order for customers to participate in its decision-making in an informed manner.
☠️ Spending customer dollars to undermine the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act
Since 2001, TVA spent more than $7 million of customers’ money on membership dues to the
Utility Air Regulatory Group (UARG), whose main purpose is to represent utilities reliant on coal-fired generation in lawsuits that undermine Clean Air Act regulations.
UARG filed 218 federal court cases since 2000 that attempted to weaken and undermine EPA regulations that protect Americans’ health from toxic emissions such as mercury, smog, and soot.
While member utilities of UARG faced increased criticism for being part of the group – and 11 utilities, including giants like Duke and Dominion Energy recently
left the group – TVA instead defended its continuing participation, saying that UARG assists them with understanding “highly technical and complex” regulations.
Yet, in 2017 TVA gave UARG $450,000 in membership dues, of which the group only spent $250,000 on technical work. The rest was allotted in “anticipation of litigation”.
Amid growing public outcry and a Congressional
investigation into whether its top officials received special treatment from the Trump Administration, UARG announced in May 2019 that it is disbanding. While this is welcome news, TVA remains a part of two similar secretive utility groups ––
Utility Solid Waste Activities Group (USWAG) and the Utility Water Act Group (UWAG). These two groups exist to undermine environmental protections of the Clean Water Act, which includes targeting a 2015 coal ash rule that was proposed after the Kingston coal ash spill, which requires safer disposal of coal ash from coal-fired power plants.
As a public utility, it would be unconscionable for TVA to pay customer money to support lawsuits against the EPA, and in fact several groups
requested TVA’s Office of Inspector General to investigate. TVA’s mission is to serve the people of the Tennessee Valley, not undermine vital health protections of the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts.
☠️ Putting off proper clean-up of dangerous coal ash pollution
This is #NotPublicPower.
Despite pressure to protect communities from coal ash following the devastating
Kingston spill in 2008, tests show groundwater contamination at every coal-fired power plant TVA operates or recently closed, according to the
Environmental Integrity Project. The contamination was confirmed in groundwater
testing TVA conducted under the federal Coal Combustion Residuals rule. Heavy metals like arsenic, boron, manganese, and cadmium are some of the most common contaminants found. All are commonly associated with coal ash, the byproduct of burning coal, which is stored in huge, watery lagoons.
Memphians are especially worried about the
arsenic contamination at TVA’s Allen plant. It sits above Memphis’s main water source, leading to concerns about poisoned drinking supplies. While TVA now plans to remove ash from the site, US Rep. Steve Cohen
complained that TVA’s 20-year clean-up plan is too slow.
TVA is putting a cap on its ash at
most other plants, even where it is sitting in unlined dumps along riverbanks and likely to leach chemicals into water. Meanwhile, the state of
Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation is investigating the contamination and may ultimately require TVA to re-do its clean-up properly. As a public power company, TVA should be doing exemplary clean-up, not wasting resources on ineffective measures to put a lid on contamination.
💰Outsourcing Federal TVA Jobs to Other Countries
This is #NotPublicPower.
TVA was created to battle domestic joblessness, but now may contribute to it.
As customers across the Tennessee Valley are suffering from the health and economic repercussions from the COVID-19 pandemic, TVA – a self-regulated, publicly funded, federal monopoly –recently
told more than 120 IT workers their highly-skilled technology based work was being outsourced from Chattanooga, Tennessee over to interanationally based companies with workforces in India and has plans to outsource 100 more. As unemployment rates skyrockets to 30 million, and has hit Tennessee cities like
Chattanooga especially hard and where these jobs are based, why is TVA diverting jobs away from the Tennessee Valley?
The NY Post recently wrote,
“Congress is desperately searching for ways to save jobs, prevent a recession or depression and to keep paychecks coming during a time of crisis, meanwhile a federal entity is sending pink slips to Americans and providing paychecks to foreign nationals,” said International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers president Paul Shearon. “Does this make any sense? Doesn’t this violate not only the needs of our economy now, and also violate TVA’s long-stated mission?”
TVA claims that the layoffs are not due to lack of skill, but do to
"lack of access to a breadth of tools and experience that other companies can provide." The utility's management have told union workers who's jobs are being slashed the change does not have to do with reducing costs but with "leveraging the market." To add insult to injury, workers getting pink slips will be expected to train their replacements.
Senator Jones from Alabama summarized the pending layoffs recently told The Intercept, "It appears that TVA has now forgotten its roots. Formed in 1933, TVA was built to be an economic driver for a region hit hard by the Great Depression. I find it particularly unconscionable for a federal government entity like TVA to outsource jobs held by Americans at a time when the American economy is still in a downward spiral and unemployment is at levels not seen since the Depression that prompted TVA’s formation. As we continue to feel the economic impacts of the pandemic, every job that can be preserved, should be. TVA should acknowledge the negative impact that outsourcing these jobs would have on the Tennessee Valley and reconsider its decision. TVA should be mindful of the pandemic, and the difficult situation that many folks are finding themselves in."
On May 12, 2020, Rep. Cohen from Tennessee's 9th-District in Memphis
wrote a letter to Congress with his concern over the outrourcing of jobs. Cohen wrote,
"It is extremely disappointing that TVA is going against its own mission of “making life better for the people of the Tennessee Valley” and is defending its decision to eliminate these jobs to “leverage the market.”4 Unfortunately, it is clear that Congress must step in to ensure additional jobs are not outsourced as the economy begins to recover from the effects of COVID-19. Therefore, as you negotiate the next coronavirus relief package with the U.S. Senate, I respectfully request the inclusion of language that prohibits federal government agencies, including the TVA, from privatizing federal jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic and any other national emergency in the future."
💰Spending Ratepayer Dollars to Advertise a Ratepayer-Funded Monopoly
This is #NotPublicPower.
During the global COVID-19 pandemic, as we face economic uncertainty and unprecedented unemployment rates, TVA is exponentially exacerbated energy burdens their customers face, especially in
Memphis, a city that has one of highest energy burdens in the country. If TVA wants to build support in Memphis, and throughout the Valley, it should help struggling customers lower and pay their electric bills by investing in bill-lowering energy efficiency measures, and weatherization programs that can help customers improve the efficiency of their homes, as opposed to throwing ratepayer dollars into a slick advertising campaign in these trying times.
The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE) has submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to find out exactly how many ratepayer dollars TVA has spent on this irresponsible public relations campaign.
TVA claims to have created the ads in-house for $85,000, but we are highly suspicious of this number that clearly does not include many other external costs associated with distribution and placement. As a publicly-funded federal entity, TVA must release information on how much ratepayers’ funds are being spent to produce these manipulative ads and saturate TV, radio, and the internet with them in the middle of a health pandemic.
🌥️Limiting the amount of renewable energy local utilities can produce by forcing them into self-renewing 20-year contracts
This is #NotPublicPower.
🌥️ Deceiving the public with misleading commitments to renewable energy, like solar
This is #NotPublicPower.
Despite what the Tennessee Valley Authority wants you to think, the utility does not have any intention of installing 14 gigawatts (GW) of solar over the next 20 years. In reality,
the nation's largest public utility has only budgeted for 5.5 GW of solar - recently approved by its Board of Directors (TVA's regulatory body). It is unfortunate that the nation’s largest publicly-owned power entity has to resort to misinformation to cover up failed leadership on renewable energy.
TVA currently has less than half as much solar on its system as compared to similarly sized utilities in the Southeast. TVA is behind now and will remain significantly behind over the course of the next five years.
Despite headlines, TVA is not on track to add 14 GW of solar.
In fact, they’re nowhere near it.
The 14 GW of solar figure comes from an extreme case that TVA’s own staff deems unlikely. However, TVA has latched onto this hyperbolic future in order to mislead the public and present themselves as a solar leader despite their continued attempts to
block solar in the Southeast. We think it is extremely unethical of TVA to continue to mislead the public into thinking TVA is actually planning to add significant solar in the near term. TVA either needs to put an end to the misinformation, or put forth an actual plan to aggressively add solar.
Below is an image from SACE's "Solar in the Southeast" report, comparing TVA to four other large utilities in the Southeast.
Executive Leadership and Board are tone deaf
salary
outsourcing
being unresponsive
