At public hearing, Knoxville residents push back on privatization of Tennessee Valley Authority

At an Aug. 21, 2025 meeting of the Tennessee Valley Authority Board of Directors, Knoxville residents urged board members to keep the utility a public venture. (Photo: John Todd Waterman)

Keep the Tennessee Valley Authority public, said speakers at a Wednesday public hearing in Knoxville.

The hearing came one day before a TVA board meeting and after President Donald Trump threatened to fire the TVA Board of Directors if they do not fire TVA president Don Moul. The board refused in a letter. 

Since his threat, Trump has not disbanded the board and instead nominated new members. Trump expressed interest in privatizing TVA’s power lines during his first term, and the news of his recent threat set off a backlash from unions and their members, environmentalists and local government officials who showed up to defend Moul and a public TVA.

Mike Arms, executive director of the Association of Tennessee Valley Governments, which represents local governments in the Tennessee Valley region, said that there are over 150 local power companies distributing TVA’s power. 

An opponent of privatization, Arms spoke of the schools, homes, libraries and even Friday night lights of football that depended on TVA’s “affordable, reliable power.” He also noted TVA’s help with economic development, navigation, flood control, disaster relief and recovery, tourism, recreation, land management and even help for school robotics programs.

“We need to do what Barney Fife (of the “Andy Griffith Show”) says: nip it in the bud. So, it’s time for this group and all of our stakeholders to reach out to your congressmen,” Arms said, referring to the people assembled at the meeting who’d come from different organizations.

Unions’ leaders and members praised TVA as both a power provider and an employer and bargaining partner. 

“This job gave me a livable wage and allowed me to have a seven-year-old daughter,” said Eddie Mitchell, a union steelworker from Alabama.

Environmental groups have criticized TVA’s reliance on fossil fuels like natural gas and coal. However, at the public hearing even they promoted TVA’s status quo as better than the privatized alternative. 

“It’s nice to be part of the TVA love fest today,” said Pam Jones of the CleanUpTVA Coalition.

“The public power model is meant to serve the people of Tennessee and the Tennessee Valley,” said Bonnie Swinford, with the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign. “We have paid for what we’ve built through TVA, and we are going to have a better future with TVA being a public power model versus selling TVA off to billionaire interests.”

At the Aug. 22 TVA board meeting, the board members showed no sign of firing Moul at the next day’s meeting. 

The board lacks a quorum after Trump recently fired three board members — including Beth Geer, chief of staff to former Vice President Al Gore — said Chairman Bill Renick.. However, he said the utility was “not an organization in chaos” and praised TVA’s small modular nuclear reactor under construction in Oak Ridge.

“TVA is strong. It is stable. It’s innovative and we have a very capable team in place that is meeting the needs of a growing region. This is a TVA team that is ready to lead, and it has for more than 90 years,” he said.

“We’re unleashing American energy and building for the future with some of the largest investments in our history,” said Moul, echoing Trump’s “Unleash American Energy” slogan. “The country, the region and local communities count on the people of TVA because we are mission driven, service oriented and able to take on the largest national challenges through our vast partnerships and expertise,” he said.

Unions represented  at the public hearing included the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers and the Engineering Association, IFPTE Local 1937, the Office of Professional Employees International Union, the International Association of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental and Reinforcing Ironworkers, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, the Tennessee Building and Construction Trades Council and several other local trade unions.

Trump has nominated Lee Beaman, Jeff Hagood, Mitch Graves and Randall Jones. The U.S. Senate must approve Trump’s nominees.