[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 180 (Wednesday, November 14, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Page S6951]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                       Tennessee Valley Authority

  Mr. ALEXANDER. Good.
  Mr. President, as the world knows, the country's largest public 
utility is the Tennessee Valley Authority and serves 9 million 
customers in our seven-state region. It is enormously important to our 
State of Tennessee. Its CEO, Bill Johnson, announced today that he is 
leaving. I will have more to say about him later, but he and the Board 
of Directors have led TVA in an excellent direction, and it is now up 
to the Board of Directors to choose his successor. It is a big job. As 
I said, it is a $10 billion-a-year company.
  John Ryder, of Memphis, was nominated by President Trump 282 days ago 
to be one of those Directors. He has been approved by voice vote by the 
Environment and Public Works committee. For the last 176 days, he has 
been waiting for confirmation. He has the approval of the ranking 
Democrat on the committee, the Senator from Delaware, Mr. Carper. He 
has the approval of the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee, Senator 
Whitehouse. It is time Mr. Ryder, who is consistently named one of the 
finest lawyers in Memphis--he has been recognized by Business Tennessee 
Magazine as among the 101 Best Lawyers in Tennessee and listed in Best 
Lawyers since 1987. In other words, he is a well-qualified, 
noncontroversial nominee who is needed by the people of our region to 
select a successor to Bill Johnson, the CEO. The other nominees have 
been confirmed. The nominee from Alabama was confirmed. The nominee 
from Kentucky was confirmed but not the nominee from Tennessee.
  I am taking the step today of coming to the floor to ask that he be 
confirmed by consent. I can think of no reason why he would not be.