TVA – another board shakeup?
December 4, 2009
If the re-nomination of Bill Sansom to the TVA board comes as a surprise to Democrat politicos it should not particularly give comfort to the Republicans.
The whole can of worms we know as the “TVA mess” is wrapped in Republican paper and tied with a Sansom bow. It was Sansom who led the new nine member part-time Board through some of the most tumultuous times in TVA’s existence.
Political from the very beginning, TVA seems to have served both the left and the right to their own perceived but arcane political advantages. Appointments to the TVA board were considered mostly as pay-off plums and with each new set of directors, TVA plunged this way and that mostly at the whims of each new head of the board.
But when Congress decided to remove TVA from the appropriations process, there was not much interest in the congressional trade off game nor in oversight of the agency.
So when the part-time non-professional board of directors took over in 2006 with a new CEO as their guide, the inadequacies and the misdeeds of previous TVA directors slowly came to light. The many mismanagements since 2006 were not purposed but were caused by a confused and ill timed set of policy directions.
Now here are some purely speculative opinions of why Sansom was re-appointed. First, at the board meeting on November 19, Sansom had twice an opportunity to give his swan song, his goodbye to the board. He was silent. I thought it odd at the time and felt there were two possible reasons for this.
One, he was miffed because he was not re-elected to head the board in the spring or, two, he still was being considered for a re-appointment the latter being the case.
Here’s where the politics come in – by his re-nomination, a shoo-in for it, the Democrats want to use that leverage to push through two clearly left-leaning nominees already submitted to the Senate. In other words, it would be less likely for a senator to put a “hold” on a nominee.
Secondly, if the pressure on the administration is too intense and TVA were to be found culpable in the Kingston disaster, it would be much easier for Obama to throw the Republican and Sansom-led board under the bus.
Regardless of the outcome, it will be the Democrats who will take advantage of any changes in the TVA board.
Ernest Norsworthy
emnorsworthy@earthlink.net
http://norsworthyopinion.com