Don’t let DC or Wall Street kill the TVA’s power

The federally owned Tennessee Valley Authority is the largest public utility in the country, providing electricity to Tennessee and six surrounding states. And because the president appoints its board, it’s also a political football.

Democrat administrations have stacked the TVA board with green energy zealots committed to phasing out carbon fuels in favor of wind and solar. Donald Trump has responded by firing directors who embraced that faux utopian agenda, along with those who allowed the executives to reward themselves with high seven-figure compensation packages while outsourcing jobs to noncitizens.

The blue-collar working class has become a key element in the Trump coalition. If Trump moves to privatize the TVA, it will feel like a betrayal to the very people who have had his back.

Now a new tempest is brewing: Should the TVA be privatized?

Usurped by green zealots

The TVA was established as a public corporation in 1933 to provide flood control, rural electrification, and economic development in the Tennessee River Valley, as well as the surrounding areas of Appalachia. For almost a century, it has delivered abundant, inexpensive, and reliable electricity.

Most of its electricity comes from nuclear (42%) and natural gas (31%), while coal and hydroelectric account for about 23% combined.

Despite years of agitation from anti-carbon activists and Obama- and Biden-era appointees, the TVA’s power mix has remained overwhelmingly carbon-based — for one reason: It works.“Renewable” energy sources (primarily solar) only constitute about 4% of its total electricity production. And, as always, solar energy drops to zero at night.

A third way

The debate has focused on two extremes: Keep the TVA under federal ownership or privatize it. However, a third option offers a middle ground: Transfer ownership to the seven states that rely on it.

Moving ownership — and board appointments — to the seven primarily red states that rely on the TVA would ensure that green activists can’t destroy its ability to provide inexpensive, reliable electricity, while also maintaining the TVA’s status as a public utility.

The argument for keeping the TVA federally owned is that it has been very successful for a century now in providing electricity and flood control to much of Southern Appalachia. It also provides significant employment to the region.

Current corporate culture driven by private equity slashes employment to reduce labor expenses; relaxes quality and safety controls to meet budget-cutting goals; terminates the most experienced employees to eliminate their salaries; and outsources as many jobs as possible to non-Americans. Naturally, the fear of privatization is legitimate by those who rely on the TVA for electricity and employment.

Though the Trump administration hasn’t yet formally announced that it is considering privatization, many speculate that it is on the table. As the Atlantic reported recently:

Trump hasn’t spoken recently about privatizing the TVA. But in his first term, he proposed selling off the TVA’s power lines to a private buyer in 2018 and again in 2020. Now, he is positioned to stack the TVA’s board with new members. That, combined with his administration’s relentless push to shrink the federal government, has revived speculation about privatization — which many in Trump’s MAGA orbit have long argued should be the utility’s fate.

Most of the TVA’s 11,000-plus employees are skilled tradesmen and women who belong to unions. The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers represents about 10,000 TVA employees. It has issued a pre-emptive warning to the Trump administration, stating:

The TVA is the primary reason the Deep South became the economic force it is today, and IBEW members have been there every step of the way. It’s an American success story that required skilled, union labor. We will fight tooth and nail attempts to turn it into a for-profit corporation whose only concern is ultra-rich shareholders.

I have had occasion throughout my career to work with companies that employ IBEW electricians, as well as companies that contract out for electrical work using the IBEW. These skilled tradesmen are overwhelmingly patriotic, America-first MAGA voters who detest the anti-carbon activists on the left. They also detest corporate America’s war on American labor.

The blue-collar working class has become a key element in the Trump coalition. If Trump moves to privatize the TVA, it will feel like a betrayal to the very people who have had his back.

Real concerns

Libertarian purists recoil at any level of government owning a utility. Yet privatizing the Tennessee Valley Authority as a regulated monopoly offers little difference from government ownership. Without a free-market competitor willing to build nuclear plants and hydroelectric dams, the result is the same.

Chattanooga’s Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R), whose district includes the highest concentration of TVA employees, strongly opposes privatization. Knoxville Republican Rep. Tim Burchett, whose district houses TVA headquarters, is more open. He has said:

Any organization that pays their head $6 million a year plus bonus needs to be evaluated. For too long, the Tennessee Valley Authority has operated in the shadows with closed-door meetings and minimal transparency. I have sponsored, passed, and supported bills to fix these issues. I am a believer in capitalism and the free market. Any option that maximizes efficiency, incentivizes transparency, and keeps prices low for ratepayers should be explored.

Burchett has built a reputation fighting pork in Washington and is right to question the TVA’s waste and secrecy. But full-scale privatization isn’t the answer.

A better path would be to transfer ownership to the states. That compromise could deliver efficiency, accountability, and local control — while keeping the TVA safe from both federal meddling and Wall Street overreach.

RELATED: Tennessee Valley Authority gets a Trump-style reckoning

Photo by CHUNYIP WONG via Getty Images

Well-intentioned defenders of federal ownership, from Fleischmann to the IBEW, assume that the TVA’s future will look like its past. It won’t. Democrats in Washington will never allow the TVA to remain a major provider of carbon-based energy. The most conservative region in America should not gamble its power supply on the whims of left-wing swamp creatures.

Delivering for the people, not bureaucrats

The mechanics of ownership among the seven states would require negotiation, but one model could grant Tennessee 40% ownership — reflecting its dominant use and production — with the other six states dividing the remaining 60%.

That structure would put accountability where it belongs: in the hands of state leaders answerable to the families and businesses who depend on the TVA. Local officials would bear political responsibility for keeping the lights on and the air conditioning running — not distant bureaucrats in D.C.