The Senate Environment & Public Works (EPW) Committee held a hearing on the nominations of Mitch Graves, Jeff Hagood, Randall Jones, and Arthur Graham to be board members of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA).
IRP
EPW Chair Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) noted that TVA’s draft IRP anticipates that 26 gigawatts (GW) of new baseload energy generation capacity is needed over the next 10 years to ensure system reliability.
She asked each witness 1) what they see as the primary challenge to TVA providing affordable and reliable energy, and 2) how they would work to address these challenges.
Graves said the IRP is a critical tool for understanding what demand will look like over the next decade and what TVA’s generation portfolio should look like to meet this growing demand. He said affordability should remain a core mission of TVA, and nuclear power should play an important role in meeting this increased demand, even though it is costly.
Hagood concurred that nuclear energy is TVA’s “best hope” to meet rising demand, specifically via small modular reactors.
Jones said, if confirmed, he would work to increase hydropower and nuclear generation in TVA’s generation portfolio.
Graham expressed some caution regarding the IRP, saying that TVA needs to consider whether the expected demand growth figures are legitimate. However, he concurred with the other witnesses that TVA’s best option to meet rising demand is via nuclear energy and SMRs.
Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA), who said he is “a big fan of public power,” asked witnesses a series of yes/no questions.
He asked the witnesses if they support the privatization of TVA. All witnesses responded that no, they do not support privatization.
Markey also asked whether the witnesses agree not to sell any portions of TVA’s service region, including transmission, hydropower or public land assets.
All witnesses said they would not sell any portions.
As to the question of whether they agree to maintain strong collective bargaining relationships and protect union jobs at TVA, all witnesses said they would, with Sen. Markey saying, “we need a commitment to public power… public power employees, [and] union workers who are doing the job right now.”
