Six Biden Nominees Sworn In To Serve On TVA Board Of Directors
Image Credit: TVA / Twitter
The Tennessee Conservative [By Jason Vaughn] –
Shortly before the rolling blackouts that affected homes across Tennessee on December 23 and 24th, the U.S. Senate confirmed six Biden selected nominees to serve on the board of the nation’s largest public utility, the Tennessee Valley Authority.
According to a statement by Ashton Davies, TVA’s Senior Partner, Strategic Communications and Media Relations, the Senate confirmed the six by unanimous vote.
Prior to the new appointments, the TVA board was down from nine members to five, each of which had been appointed by President Donald Trump. Two of the remaining members had been serving on the board past their 5-year term’s expiration date in May.
Each board seat comes with a five-year term. However, if a board member’s term is up, they can continue to serve until the current Congressional term is up or until someone is appointed to take their place.
On Wednesday of last week, the new members officially took their oaths of office.
The newly sworn in members include:
-Beth Geer of Brentwood, Tenn.
-Bobby Klein of Chattanooga, Tenn.
-Michelle Moore of Midlothian, Va.
-Bill Renick of Ashland, Miss.
-Joe Ritch of Huntsville, Ala.
-Wade White of Eddyville, Ky.
Beth Greer is the chief of staff to former Vice President Al Gore and serves on Nashville Mayor John Cooper’s Sustainability Advisory Committee.
Bobby Klein is a retired line foreman for the Electric Power Board of Chattanooga who also filled roles with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.
Michelle Moore heads up a clean energy nonprofit after leading Obama’s sustainability team.
Bill Renick is former Ashland, Mississippi mayor and state lawmaker.
Joe Ritch previously served on the TVA board of directors as chairman and a nominee picked by former President Barack Obama.
Wade White is the judge executive for Lyon County, Kentucky.
Only three of the Trump-appointed board members will remain in 2023 which includes Chairman William Kilbride, Beth Harwell and Brian Noland.
Kilbride’s current term will expire in May 2023 with Harwell and Noland’s terms expiring in May 2024.
Environmental lobbyists have been in the ears of the new Democrat-appointed members to move swiftly toward transitioning to 100% carbon-free electricity using Biden’s goal of carbon-pollution-free energy sector by 2035 as a roadmap.
However, TVA’s CEO has stated the federal utility will not be able to meet that goal without advances in technology surrounding energy storage, carbon capture and modular small nuclear reactors.
While TVA has not released any official word on what caused the need for the blackouts right before Christmas, the Commercial Appeal reported that TVA told local electric companies that failing natural gas plants and two coal power plants, along with problems with third-party plants that were supposed to be on standby, created an issue with their electrical supply.
The editor of the Pamphleteer suggests that most likely the rolling blackouts became necessary because of TVA’s efforts to wean themselves off coal.
“First, the area that TVA serves (all of Tennessee and parts of six surrounding states) has grown immensely over the past 90 years. More customers. More demand for power.”
“In its move away from coal, TVA has chosen to migrate coal facilities to natural gas facilities. Neither coal nor gas are completely immune to the elements, but gas is far more fragile than coal. At the beginning of 2021 in Texas, for example, natural gas plants froze up in response to the weather.”
“Reducing the number of base load sources on TVA’s grid will make those rolling blackouts we experienced much worse. This is an objective fact that you cannot get around.”
The editor suggests that Nuclear Power is really the only answer to meet the ever increasing energy demands in the TVA’s service area.
However, most Green energy advocates lobby for increased solar and wind power sources, all the while lobbying for transitioning to less stable energy sources on the path to Net Zero.
About the Author: Jason Vaughn, Media Coordinator for The Tennessee Conservative ~ Jason previously worked for a legacy publishing company based in Crossville, TN in a variety of roles through his career. Most recently, he served as Deputy Director for their flagship publication. Prior, he was a freelance journalist writing articles that appeared in the Herald Citizen, the Crossville Chronicle and The Oracle among others. He graduated from Tennessee Technological University with a Bachelor’s in English-Journalism, with minors in Broadcast Journalism and History. Contact Jason at news@TennesseeConservativeNews.com
Lack of any common sense, understanding of any reality brain cells is stupefying. Your mission is to ensure dependable power supply. While there is zero evidence of carbon based environmental issues, imagining solar and wind as a solution is completely untenable. Nuclear solves all concerns and is the only long term solution. Why is it minimalized? Until then it’s fossil fuels. Let’s go Brandon.
SIR you are right on the money, here we are doing away with our coal fired plants, and CHINA INDIA and THE USSR are building new ones. WE have let the climate change left wing nut jobs kill our energy supplier’s.
Weak liberal appointments. High cost operation.
So now we have 6 liberals to destroy the TVA. The rolling blackouts were test runs to see if they could shut us down and how long. Someone like our Governor needs to step up and stop this insanity.
Tennessee is a red state and has no place for left wing liberals who want to destroy our state and put up a bunch of windmills and solar panels in our Farming areas.
I don’t know if you saw Tucker Carlsons documentary on the windmills and solar panels, but you need to go to FOX NATION and watch it, it’s eye opening.
Our “esteemed” governor is not one that will step up. He’s become quite the rino and will be weak on anything serious.
SO VERY TRUE PAT we do not need any of BIDENS people here in our great state. JUST look at the STATES and places where these nut jobs get elected. JUST look what happened in TEXAS two years ago when they were hit with a serve cold spell. the wind mills froze up, no sun for the solar panels, and NO POWER. PEOPLES pipes froze up no heat in there homes, and on and on. THIS past black out we had, I had a water pipe break, because of no heat. THESE people need to be3 removes ASAP
Noooooooooooooooooo! We are now going to have to watch the TVA very closely. AND California’s Sierra Club is suing to stop the new Aeroderivative Combustion Turbines Project in Humphries County so we would have unreliable energy production just like California does. Brownouts anyone? How about high prices? Write your state reps and the AG to let them know we don’t want to walk in California’s Birkenstock shoes. We want the reliable energy that is attracting new businesses to our state with good paying jobs and healthy futures for our citizens.
TVA will go down the Crap hole like the rest of the country is with the democrats. Consumers Beware!!!
SO VERY TRUE DOUG I cant believe the TVA voted these people in, have they lost there minds
Dimmercraps trash all they touch.
EVERY where DEMOCRATS are voted in, they end up causing trouble, and run every thing into the ground.