Senate considers new TVA board nominees as environmentalists push for carbon-free power

Senate considers new TVA board nominees as environmentalists push for carbon-free power

April 5, 2022 | by Dave Flessner | Copyright © 2022

After a year of waiting, those nominated to help run America's biggest public power agency will tell members of Congress on Wednesday about their approach to governing the Tennessee Valley Authority.

Three nominees proposed by President Joe Biden a year ago will finally go before a Senate panel Wednesday afternoon for their confirmation hearings. The nominees for TVA director positions include Beth Greer, former chief of staff to Al Gore who now serves on Nashville's Sustainability Advisory Committee; Robert "Bobby" Klein, the retired international vice president for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union in Chattanooga, and Michelle Moore, the CEO of the nonprofit Groundswell, which helps lead clean energy programs and projects in six states.

Biden also nominated Kimberly Lewis, of Huntsville, Alabama, but the White House withdrew her nomination when she decided instead to run for the Alabama state Senate.

The appointments to TVA are the first for Biden, although three other board seats will soon become available for the White House to name a majority of the TVA board. The new board members are expected to be more supportive of renewable power generation than the current board, all of which was appointed by former President Donald Trump, who often praised "beautiful coal" and domestically produced natural gas.

Maggie Shober, director of utility reform at the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, said she hopes the U.S. Senate will quickly confirm Biden's nominees and urged the new board members to push the federal utility to do more to meet the president's goal of a carbon-free electricity industry by 2035.

"As TVA's regulator, the TVA board is a key tool for President Biden to get TVA on track with prioritizing energy efficiency, removing fabricated barriers to distributed clean energy, and aligning resources plans with climate science," Shober said in a statement in advance of Wednesday's confirmation hearing.

Shober is part of the Clean Up TVA Coalition formed to urge TVA not to replace its shuttered coal plants with natural gas plants but move instead to an entirely renewable energy portfolio. The coalition includes the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, Appalachian Voices, Sierra Club, Sunrise Knoxville, Sunrise Nashville, Center for Biological Diversity, Sowing Justice, Statewide Organizing for Community Empowerment, Knoxville Democratic Socialists of America, Energy Alabama, Tennessee Interfaith Power & Light, Memphis NAACP and One Knox Legacy Coalition.

TVA has cut its carbon emissions by more than 60% since 2005 by shutting down most of the 59 coal-fired units it once operated and adding more nuclear and solar power. TVA President Jeff Lyash said last year that natural gas is still needed as "a bridge fuel" until batteries and other power storage is more effective and can deliver electricity when the wind doesn't blow or the sun doesn't shine. TVA's new high-efficient gas-fired plants generate only a fraction as much carbon output as the aging coal plants they are replacing.

But the coalition of environmental groups said TVA still isn't doing enough, insisting TVA's network of 29 hydroelectric dams, plus the Raccoon Mountain Pumped storage facility near Chattanooga, can be used to help store and generate power when it is needed without turning to more gas-fired generation.

"Right now, we're seeing TVA respond to the climate process without the necessary infrastructure for the future," Sudeep Ghantasala of Sunrise Movement Nashville said. "Switching to natural gas is just another fossil fuel."

Ghantasala spoke Tuesday during a webinar sponsored by the coalition.

Pearl Walker of the Memphis NAACP urged TVA not to make investments in natural gas power plants, which require gas pipelines she said contribute to both air pollution and global warming.

"TVA should be a model for the rest of the nation to follow," Walker said on the webinar, urging TVA to move toward a carbon-free footprint by 2030.

"TVA needs to step up its energy efficiency and renewable energy offerings, so our power provider isn't a tag along but a leader in the 21st century," Amy Kelly, Sierra Club's Tennessee Beyond Coal Campaign representative, said in a statement.

TVA has set a goal of reducing its carbon emissions by 80% by 2035 and to be completely carbon free by 2050. Biden wants the electric utility industry to be completely carbon free by 2035.

Contact Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfreepress.com or at 423-757-6340.