Editor’s note: This blog has been updated from a version published in September to reflect recent events. Dec. 4 update: We updated a paragraph about a vote taken by nominee Art Graham as a member of the Florida Public Service Commission after Graham provided more context about the case.

Earlier this year, President Donald Trump fired three board members from the Tennessee Valley Authority Board of Directors, leaving the board without a quorum – only three of nine seats are currently filled – to make major decisions. In July, he then pressured the remaining board members to fire TVA’s new CEO Don Moul (he does not have the authority to do so himself). Now, the Senate is considering five new people, nominated by Trump, to fill the open seats for the TVA board. Four participated in a public committee hearing held by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in October, and were advanced by the committee on a party-line vote, with Republicans voting in support of confirming the nominees and Democrats voting against.

The remaining nominee, Lee Beaman, participated in a Senate committee confirmation hearing on Dec. 3.

You may know the Tennessee Valley Authority as the largest federally owned electric utility. But its role is much broader than simply providing power in the Tennessee Valley. This powerful organization has its hand in everything from river navigation critical to the nation’s supply chains, to dam management critical to flood control, as well as recreation and economic development — and it is controlled by the TVA board. The people selected to lead the TVA will hold enormous power that impacts everything from the cost of living, jobs, air and water quality, recreation opportunities and more throughout a significant portion of the United States. 

What’s more, the new TVA board could follow through on Trump’s prior proposals to sell off parts of TVA to private corporations — which remain a current threat. 

Even if you’re not an electricity customer of TVA, these new board nominees should matter to you. Below we dive deeper into the role TVA plays in the Southeast, who the current nominees to the TVA Board are, and why the Senate should reject this slate of nominees and demand better. 

What TVA does

Electricity

TVA provides power in parts of Alabama, Kentucky, Georgia, North Carolina, Mississippi, Virginia and almost all of Tennessee. At the time TVA was established in 1933, the region lacked electricity access or power generation infrastructure. Early on, TVA constructed numerous hydroelectric dams, which then attracted new industrial development and jobs to the region, which in turn created more demand for electricity. Today, TVA partners with 153 local power companies who serve 10 million people. TVA owns more than 60 power generation facilities and 16,400 miles of transmission line.

River management 

In addition to providing electricity to millions of people, TVA is also charged with managing navigation along the Tennessee River. TVA controls 13 locks along the Tennessee River, controlling critical parts of the supply chain in the United States. Along the river, TVA provides passage for more than 28,000 barges every year that carry goods along the river, including coal, petroleum, chemicals, grains, ores, minerals, road salt, fertilizer, sand, gravel, slag, cranes for highway bridge construction, steam generators for power plants, automobile plant presses, military vehicles and rocket boosters. The Tennessee River is part of the Inland Waterway System — 11,000 miles of rivers stretching from Pennsylvania to Florida and from Texas to South Dakota, linking various pieces of the critical supply chains throughout the country and allowing them to be transported via less expensive barges. TVA estimates that transporting these goods by barge rather than rail or truck reduces costs for consumers by an estimated $400 million per year.

Flood mitigation

TVA is also charged with controlling flooding in the region. TVA owns and manages 47 dams across the region for flood mitigation, power supply and recreation. The agency’s control of its dams throughout the region played a life-saving role during Hurricane Helene in 2024, as well as preventing catastrophic damage to more infrastructure. 

Recreation

In addition to the recreation opportunities TVA manages along the Tennessee River, TVA manages a system of lakes along the river and owns hundreds of thousands of acres of land, much of which is accessible for recreational activities such as hiking, camping, biking, birdwatching and hunting. The river and lakes provide opportunities for boating, fishing, paddling, swimming and whitewater rafting. These outdoor recreation opportunities improve quality of life for the people of the Tennessee Valley and support a robust outdoor recreation and tourism industry.

Economic development

Lastly, TVA has an economic development organization called TVA Economic Development which strives to bring new jobs and investments to the Tennessee Valley. The organization recruits new businesses and nurtures existing businesses by helping identify locations to build new offices or facilities, providing incentives for new and growing businesses. 

TVA is a massive organization, and Appalachian Voices doesn’t support many of its current or past actions. But it’s essential to underscore just how huge the TVA’s role is in our region and in the country, and how vital it is that the TVA aims to serve the public interest, not corporate shareholders. 

Filling the board

In July, Trump named five replacement members for the TVA Board of Directors. Future board members will play a vital role in establishing TVA’s goals and policies, developing long-term plans, ensuring goals and policies are achieved, approving an annual budget, establishing a compensation plan for employees, holding public hearings to gather input from people in the Valley, and otherwise overseeing and ensuring financial health for the utility. It is critical that the TVA board slots be filled with qualified candidates as soon as possible so that TVA can function properly.

What does it take to be a qualified board member?

The TVA Act, which controls the operations of the TVA, sets out minimum qualifications for members of the board. Those qualifications require board members:

• To be a U.S. citizen. 
• To have management expertise relative to a large for-profit or nonprofit corporate, government or academic structure, to ensure they have the management experience necessary to help manage an entity as large and impactful as TVA. 
• To not be employees of TVA
  • This is important to avoid conflicts of interest around employee pay and other issues.
• To disclose investments and financial interests in the energy industry to Congress.
  • This is important to ensure the board members are not making decisions that benefit their own interests at the expense of the people in the Tennessee Valley.
• To affirm support for the objectives and missions of the TVA, “including being a national leader in technological innovation, low-cost power, and environmental stewardship.”
  • We assert that this last qualification is of utmost importance; TVA board members should believe in the public power model, recognizing the value of TVA as a government-owned utility that prioritizes the interest of the people it serves, as opposed to a privately-owned utility that puts the interests of its shareholders first. TVA serves millions of low-income customers – an estimated 34% of TVA customers are at or below 200% of the federal poverty level. If a for-profit utility took ownership of TVA, it would need to provide profits to shareholders and increase costs for communities served by TVA — essentially a new energy tax.

The law also requires that:

• at least seven of the nine members must be legal residents of the TVA service area.
  • Though the law only requires this minimum, the history and needs of the people in the Tennessee Valley would be better represented if all members were from the region. 
• the president “seek qualified members from among persons who reflect the diversity, including the geographical diversity, and needs of the service area of the Corporation.” 

In addition to these legal qualifications, we believe that individual board members should demonstrate expertise in at least one, but ideally multiple, industries that TVA operates in, such as energy generation and transmission, hydropower and flood management, water navigation, economic development, public lands management, and outdoor recreation. The full board would ideally include people with a variety of experiences from these relevant industries, and in directly related fields such as ratepayer or consumer protection and organized labor. However, most of the current slate of nominees lack experience in any of these industries, and none of the nominees appear to have experience in crucial industries such as flood mitigation.

And it should go without saying, but unfortunately needs to be said, that board members should have a track record of high integrity with no history of discrimination against others or abuse of other people. 

Unfortunately, most of the nominees for the TVA board do not meet these standards. Here’s who Trump has nominated.

• Lee Beaman; Nashville, Tennessee: Beaman is a political mega-donor who owns a townhouse that he rents to members of Congress, and an auto executive who has a concerning personal history that raises questions about his integrity. He may check the legal minimum requirements for service on the board, but he has little experience in any of the industries TVA operates in. He admits as much, stating “I’m certainly no expert on it,” in an interview with the Nashville Business Journal. Further, in the same interview, he indicated that he leans toward privatizing TVA, while recognizing that the TVA’s “mission goes beyond the things that a private company could or should be asked to do.” Beaman’s reported history is deeply concerning, and residents of the Tennessee Valley deserve honorable leaders.

• Arthur Graham; Jacksonville, Florida: A former city council member and public service commissioner from Florida, Graham brings experience in electric utility management, including through his role as a city council member, which entails managing a municipal utility. Unfortunately, he is not from the TVA region — in fact, according to congressional records, he is the first TVA board nominee from outside of the seven states with TVA territory. Among the current and nominated board members, there’s no representation from Virginia, North Carolina or Georgia, which is especially notable given the important role TVA plays in flood mitigation in North Carolina. The president should prioritize finding representation from the region before reaching outside of the Tennessee Valley. 
  
  While serving on the Florida Public Service Commission in 2015, Graham voted to allow Florida Power & Light to fund billions of dollars in gas exploration projects and pass the costs onto customers, against the recommendations of the commission staff, who stated the project was untested and risky. It had lost $6 million in its first year, according to news accounts. An advisor to Graham explained that Graham voted for the significant project expansion in 2015 because that 2015 proposal also included additional guidelines. Graham had previously been the sole commissioner to vote against the initial project proposal in 2014. The Florida Supreme Court ultimately ruled that the commission had exceeded its authority when it initially approved the project. The decision also invalidated the 2015 expansion.
  
  During the October committee hearing, Graham stated that he opposes TVA privatization, but when pressed to state whether or not he would support selling off TVA assets, he left more wiggle room, stating “until I hear something different, I don’t see any need to make any changes as far as selling off assets.”

• Mitch Graves; Memphis, Tennessee: Graves is a healthcare CEO who has also served as a commissioner for the Board of Memphis Light, Gas & Water. Like other board nominees, Graves has not publicly demonstrated support for maintaining TVA as a public power leader. He also holds investments in numerous energy companies including NextEra Entergy, Marathon Petroleum, Devon Entergy, and Chevron Corporation. While serving on the board of MLG&W, Graves approved the deal to power Elon Musk’s xAI project, an artificial intelligence data center, that has been operating 35 methane gas turbines without necessary permits.The turbines have been releasing nitrogen dioxide and formaldehyde, pollutants which contribute to asthma and other respiratory illnesses and cancer.
  
  When asked in the committee hearing whether he opposed privatization, he indicated that he did, but when pressed further about whether he supported the sale of TVA assets, he inaccurately stated “I don’t think that’s the board’s decision.” The truth is, the TVA has broad authority to sell TVA assets, and does not need congressional approval for many such actions.

• Jeff Hagood; Knoxville, Tennessee: Hagood is a lawyer with an alarming lack of relevant experience. He boasts a robust sports and coaching career and a long, successful career as an attorney, but unfortunately has not worked in any of the industries related to TVA’s jurisdiction.
  
  Echoing Mitch Graves’ responses, when asked in the committee hearing whether he opposed privatization, he indicated that he did, but when pressed further about whether he supported the sale of TVA assets, he stated that he simply agreed with Graves’ inaccurate response. 

The fifth nominee, Randy Jones, from Guntersville, Alabama, is an insurance executive who also serves on the city of Guntersville Electric Board. During the committee hearing, Jones opposed privatization, and stated that he doesn’t currently “see any reason why to sell any of TVA’s assets off.” When asked about whether he was committed to maintaining TVA’s commitments to retire certain coal plants, Jones referenced increasing power demand from data centers and said, “Hopefully those data centers can be bringing in the renewables, carbon-free power, to sustain the power for them, which in turn would take less stress off of our grid and our power generations and increase more solar power and hydro.”

It’s notable that this slate certainly doesn’t represent the diversity of the TVA service area. Trump fired the only women on the board earlier this year, and no women have been nominated. With the firing of the women on the board earlier this year, now is the first time in 45 years that no woman is serving on the TVA board. All members are also now White; the late addition of Graham added one Black person to the slate of nominees. Lastly, the nominees are mostly from large cities. Given the rural nature of the TVA region, the lack of rural representation fails to meet the standard that the board members represent “the diversity, and needs” of the TVA region.

What’s next

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee has now advanced four of the five nominees. Lee Beaman will still need to have a committee vote, and all nominees are still pending a full Senate vote before they can be seated on the board.

Rising electricity costs and rising energy demand, paired with increasing economic uncertainty and increased risk of devastating floods in the region, make now a dangerous time for TVA’s board to be without a quorum.  Unfortunately, this current slate of troubling nominees would only bring further chaos. On top of the concerns we have with individual nominees, the nominees seem confused by the board’s role in determining whether and how much of TVA remains by the people and for the people. And Trump has openly proposed selling our TVA to private companies. We can’t allow auctioneers who would sell off our TVA to be seated on its board of directors.  

Numerous members of Congress have spoken out against privatizing TVA, along with numerous labor and environmental groups. There is broad opposition to the idea of selling off TVA’s assets to the highest bidder. The Senate must reject pro-privatization nominees to protect the people of the Tennessee Valley from higher costs, economic chaos, and environmental disasters. TVA exists because the private sector failed the rural Southeast — we cannot let that happen again.