OPINION: TVA fails the People once again

By Dylan Smith, Managing Editor • dylan@southerntorch.com

JACKSON COUNTY, Ala. — The Tennessee Valley Authority has once again failed the people it was created to serve. 

TVA recently decided to outsource a reported 220 jobs overseas, exporting positions held by middle-class Americans in return for cheap foreign labor.

This move puts TVA strictly at odds with its founding purpose, which was to create jobs and promote the economic welfare of citizens in the Tennessee Valley.

Instead, the executives at TVA have decided to make life better in foreign countries at the expense of working-class Americans residing in their own region. 

The timing of TVA’s foreign sellout couldn’t have been worse, as the current labor market has tightened due to the COVID-induced recession. 

As a corporate agency of the federal government, we should demand better from TVA. The quasi-government entity is arguably one of the most powerful public-private agencies in America. 

As leading far-left figures on the national stage increase demands for socialism, which would nationalize industry much like what we have in TVA, we see just how unaccountable an entity such as this can be. 

Earlier this year, President Trump blasted TVA over their failure to cooperate with the federal government regarding infrastructure improvement. He also took CEO Jeffrey Lyash to task over his exorbitant salary, who was paid $8M last year.

To put this in context, this means that while TVA’s chief executive is being paid a multi-million dollar salary, he made the decision to ship the jobs of working class union employees overseas as a cost-saving measure. 

Let’s be absolutely clear – this is a foreign sellout of the American worker and TVA ought to be publicly shamed for such a disgrace.

This is hardly the only instance where TVA has decided to stick it to the people of the Tennessee Valley. 

293,000 acres of land throughout the region are under the strict control and management of TVA. Much of this is undeveloped land residing on what should be marketable county property. Instead, the land sits comfortably in the assets column on TVA’s balance sheet.

A project worth an estimated $12.6B of economic impact with the creation of over 10k jobs would serve as a tremendous boon to Jackson County, right? Unfortunately, TVA doesn’t care. That’s why it is working diligently to obstruct Franklin Haney’s acquisition of Bellefonte Nuclear Plant. 

Perhaps TVA feels as if it should be immune from competition. The City of Memphis is actively looking to leave TVA for a new power supplier and Bellefonte is reportedly in contention to be that supplier, should the purchase succeed. 

How dare the private sector attempt to acquire and reconstruct a failed project that the ineptness of government couldn’t make successful.

Our elected officials should do more to rein in the unchecked power TVA holds, because it has used that power to actively work against the interests of the region.

What was once the backbone and economic driving force of a poor, rural region is now yet just another power-hungry agency of the federal government that has turned its back on hard-working taxpayers.

If it’s one thing TVA has made clear as of late, it’s that they are in desperate need to be held accountable to the taxpayers that fund it.