Lack of Transparency Continues at the TVA Board

SACE Statement on Today's Quarterly Board Meeting

Franklin, Tenn. – Despite repeated and sustained calls for transparency and accountability by customers and lawmakers alike, board members for the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) continue making decisions behind closed doors and away from the public eye.

At today’s quarterly board meeting, the board briefly discussed the controversial ‘grid access charge‘ noting that they would be implementing a ‘de minimis administrative change’ before agreeing to delegate all further decisions related to administrative actions on a grid access charge to the new CEO and president, Jeffrey Lyash.

Dr. Stephen Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, issued this statement after attending today’s meeting:

“Clearly we are disappointed with the continued lack of transparency in TVA’s decision making processes, particularly with something like the controversial grid access charge, which was nothing less than a wholesale rate change for customers.

The proposed changes may indeed be ‘de minimis’ but because the details were discussed in closed TVA board committee meetings, because they were barely disclosed in the public portion of today’s meeting, because there has been no effort to make the specifics of these changes public, we really have no visibility on what these changes actually mean for people in the Tennessee Valley. The only thing we know for certain is that we have a ‘de minimis’ amount of information about these proposed changes.

This is one more example of why we need open and transparent TVA board committee meetings. If those committee meetings were open and transparent, then these details would already be public. This is not putting the public back in public power and it’s frustrating to see TVA continue to move further away from its initial mandate.”

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Since 1985, the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy has worked to promote responsible energy choices to ensure clean, safe and healthy communities throughout the Southeast. Learn more at cleanenergy.org. Follow us on social media, @cleanenergyorg.