Trump to name majority of TVA board in 2017

• 7 years ago (2017-01-03)
• David Flin

Coal 273 Policy 8

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One third of the board governing the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) in the USA has been vacated, with incoming President Trump to announce their replacements. Joe Ritch, Chairman of TVA, and Peter Mahurin and Mike McWherter, Chairmen of two key board committees have left TVA. There will also be two additional vacancies on the board this year. As a result, President Trump will get to appoint a majority of the nine-member TVA board by May 18.

Sources close to the President elect have suggested that Trump could use TVA to promote more coal generation.

Lynn Evans is currently acting as temporary chair of the TVA board, the first African-American to serve as TVA chairman in the agency’s 84-year history.

Over the past decade, TVA has shut down or announced plans to shut down nearly half of the 59 coal-fired units the utility operated across its seven-state region. This has reduced its share of power derived from coal from more than two-thirds of its generation in the late 1980s to a current level of about one-third. TVA’s long-term goal is to get no more than 20 per cent of its power from coal.