Time for house cleaning at TVA?
December 17, 2009
A review of TVA OIG Richard Moore’s statement before a House Subcommittee on “Evaluating Current Cleanup Progress and Assessing Future Environmental Goals” is mostly fluff and no bite, mostly the”We’re going to do better” typical TVA mantra.
To put things in perspective, it is my understanding that all Inspectors’ General positions are supposed to be independent and not subservient to any agency or department head. This is not the case with the TVA because they are paid from TVA funds.
The charge to an Inspector General whose primary responsibilities are to the American public are: to detect and prevent fraud, waste, abuse, and violations of law and to promote economy, efficiency and effectiveness in the operations of the Federal Government. The Inspector General Act of 1978, as amended,
All of the some 50 TVA OIG investigators must keep a silent eye on their TVA paymaster for fear of inadvertently killing the golden goose.
Moore begins by acknowledging that the anniversary of the “Kingston ash spill” is near. Just that phrase tries to ameliorate the impact of what properly is termed the “Kingston catastrophe”, a major collapse of an ash dam that was improperly built and negligently maintained for decades by the TVA and unreported by the OIG.
While seeming to be a harsh critic of TVA, Moore hides the true lack of oversight by TVA of its own operations. Kingston just seems at this time to be the worst of TVA’s mismanagements. And by inference, the indiscretions of TVA’s own OIG headed by Mr. Moore.
He states “Over the past year, we have seen TVA devote an extraordinary amount of time, money, and focus to addressing not only the recommendations of the OIG, but also the recommendations of the McKenna law firm…”
The results of the numerous OIG reports and of those made by TVA itself are plain evidence that TVA was culpable due to its negligence in the Kingston disaster. Yet Moore seems to be content with the fact that because TVA has devoted “an extraordinary amount of time, money and focus…” on the collapse, TVA therefore is exonerated, blameless.
I would suspect that the first matters the OIG would take up would be the actions taken by the TVA, how and why TVA has spent untold multi-thousands of dollars chasing the “root cause” genie. If questions along these lines had been undertaken earlier, perhaps resolution of that basic question of the still unanswered question of the “root cause” would have been resolved much earlier.
This shows the lack of good judgment on the part of the OIG and TVA especially since TVA tried to direct one contractor toward lessening TVA’s liability, clearly illegal.
Much of TVA’s time and money have been wasted searching for some hither known “slimes” as the cause of the collapsing ash dam.
Moore continues, “As you know, we have been perhaps TVA’s harshest critic in terms of how they handled coal ash storage and how they handled the crisis after the fact.” So what is surmised from that statement?
I believe it is Richard Moore’s mea culpa, as far as he will go in accepting any blame for Kingston. TVA’s OIG has been a patsy for TVA for many years. I have reviewed many of the OIG reports most of which are of niggling matters with no consequence to TVA, no penalties, no “harsh criticism”.
TVA’s response to any criticism usually is “we’re working on it” or we’ve already fixed that or that famous phrase, “We’ll make the Kingston area whole again.”
There have been a half-dozen chances for the OIG to refer issues for possible criminal investigation in the last few years. The latest one was the Heath Shuler matter in which the congressman illegally tried to influence a federal employee for profit.
Turning over the case to an ethics committee in the House is equivalent to punting the ball instead of making the hard call. As an enabler, the OIG offers TVA some front-line protection but even that will go just so far as evidenced by Moore’s statement. Looks like the TVA OIG is about to bail.
“(T)he challenge for TVA is a culture that is highly resistant to reform. The Kingston spill demonstrated that in a dramatic way. Changing a culture takes time. The same culture that existed on December 22, 2008, still exists today. Its residual effect is likely to be felt for years to come.”
And the unanswered question is which “residual effect” will be long lasting, the Kingston catastrophe or TVA’s insular culture? (Or both.)
Moore seems to be saying it is the latter because he has known about TVA’s destructive culture for a long time and has done nothing about it.
A thorough review of TVA’s financing and financial structure will show that TVA’s debt is unsustainable and that TVA is committing to billions of dollars above its $30 billion legislative cap. The big question is where does it leave TVA’s ratepayers (taxpayers) who must pay for TVA’s adventures? TVA follows the national path of borrowing more than it can repay. Some call that the lonely road to receivership, bankruptcy and finally, dissolution.
Ernest Norsworthy
emnorsworthy@earthlink.net
http://norsworthyopinion.com