Tennessee Valley Authority
Knoxville, Tennessee
November 16, 2009
To: All TVA Board members
Questions for TVA Board of Directors at the November 19, 2009 meeting in Bowling Green, Kentucky.
· If not provided at this meeting, what is the estimated cost to the average purchaser of TVA electricity through one of your distributors of any approved PURPA changes?
· By what means will the many billions of dollars TVA is committing to that exceeds the $30 billion cap be financed or paid without greatly increasing rates?
· How is “off the books” financing legal?
· What is a “debt-like” TVA obligation; are ratepayers responsible for those debts?
· How does TVA justify borrowing money from a federally controlled bank, the Bank of America, when federal money is involved in the transaction? (TVA has a billion dollar loan.)
· Since TVA receives no appropriations from the Congress, how do you account for $88 million dollars in “Other Revenue” for budget year 2009? Is it all interest income?
· If the baseline for fuel costs go below that base, will corresponding credits go to TVA customers?
· Has TVA given any consideration to changing payments in lieu of taxes, $627 million dollars for fiscal year 2009, to an incentivized program for TVA customers? (Note: A minor amendment to the TVA Act would be necessary). Alabama’s governor calls these payments “slush funds”. The present structure of the in lieu payments does nothing to help reduce electricity usage, in fact, it encourages more use.
· Since TVA, a federal agency, is unable to take advantage of any of the many millions of dollars in stimulus money, much of it going to other utilities, does this not penalize TVA ratepayers?
· What progress has been made in the planned conversion of TVA electricity production to investor-owned utilities?
Ernest Norsworthy
emnorsworthy@earthlink.net
http://norsworthyopinion.com