Solutions to the TVA problem
April 13, 2010
Laura Brass in an article in the Knoxville News Sentinel April 12, reports on a new study by co-author Marilyn Brown, a Georgia Tech professor, and Duke University. http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2010/apr/12/brass-south-needs-to-up-energy-efficiency/
Professor Brown, a TVA board nominee, apparently is not a "solutions" person but delights in talking about them; things like "global warming" which can be debated forever.
And congress, in its infinite wisdom, thought that expanding the TVA board to nine part-time members (a number barely reached for a brief time) with no experience in the manufacture and production of electricity or in industrial business generally, bombed out.
The neophyte board has led the present TVA down one disastrous path after another under the guidance of CEO Tom Kilgore. What the board has proved (why should this have to be proved over and over?) is that the federal government is incapable of running any kind of business efficiently and effectively.
Once wrapped in the bindings of federal red tape, it is impossible to escape from them. I speak from experience having once been a dispenser of it.
The problem stems not from how many board members there are (there were three full-time members originally); theoretically, there should be 50 members representing all of the states, because we all have a stake in what is going on with the TVA. We do know this: TVA has managed to rack up $25 billion in debt and has obligated billions more with no feasible way to repay it.
Right now, that huge debt rests on the unwilling shoulders of TVA ratepayers who rightfully complain they had nothing to do with the gross mistakes TVA has made costing them billions of dollars.
There, of course, are solutions; and one is for the TVA to sell off its assets placing the production and distribution of TVA electricity in the hands of responsible and competent investor-owned utilities’ management. It can be done; that was suggested several years ago by the GAO as an alternate to TVA’s then financial position which is even worse today.
Another distinct advantage to ratepayers would be that the jurisdiction of rate determinations would revert to public service commissions in each of the seven states now served by the TVA. Right now, ratepayers are helplessly watching electricity rates go up and up and they have absolutely no say in it. Not even a congressman or governor can stop the TVA from raising rates.
TVA has made many costly and unwarranted mistakes in the past few years and the present law says ratepayers must take on all of the burdens of the extra billions of dollars. This not only is unfair to ratepayers who had nothing to do with TVA’s mistakes, I suspect also it could be a class-action case against the TVA.
Ernest Norsworthy
emnorsworthy@earthlink.net
http://norsworthyopinion.com