The Tennessee Valley Authority is the largest federally owned public utility, providing low-cost power to more than 10 million people across seven states. TVA has a responsibility to ensure every ratepayer dollar is well spent, and that its decisions are made with customer and expert input, resulting in affordable, reliable electricity for everyone in the Valley.

But TVA is falling short of that responsibility. In August, the TVA Board of Directors approved a long-term energy plan that moves us backward on energy affordability and clean air by limiting cleaner energy, keeping coal plants open longer and allowing for more new methane gas plants.  TVA gave the public 30 days to comment on the plan. But the board had little time to actually consider and integrate public input before it unanimously voted to approve it. This raises more concern about how meaningfully public input can shape TVA’s biggest decisions.

Fortunately, there are three bills in Congress that could make TVA more transparent and accountable to the public, while keeping rates low. 

These three bipartisan bills include:

• The TVA Transparency Act— requires TVA to make its board committee meetings more transparent in order to allow stakeholders an opportunity to influence the board’s decisions by requiring the committees to notify the public of their meetings, post agendas in advance, and post meeting minutes.
• The TVA Increased Rate of Participation Act — makes TVA’s energy planning process more transparent and inclusive of the people that it impacts the most by requiring TVA to make the underlying data available to the public, hold public hearings, and establish an Office of Public Participation to guarantee public engagement in the process.
• The TVA Salary Transparency Act — requires TVA to report the salaries of its high-paid federal employees to ensure executive pay isn’t increasing costs for ratepayers.

Tell your lawmakers: Keep TVA accountable and affordable and support these three bills!