[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 85 (Tuesday, May 21, 2019)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E646-E647]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 KNOXVILLE NEWS SENTINEL EDITORIAL URGING TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY'S 
                      CEO TO FIX COAL ASH PROBLEM

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. TIM BURCHETT

                              of tennessee

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, May 21, 2019

  Mr. BURCHETT. Madam Speaker, I would like to include in the Record an 
editorial submitted to the Knoxville News Sentinel addressing the 
Tennessee Valley Authority's new CEO, Jeff Lyash, urging him to fix the 
current coal ash problem. I am also including a resolution introduced 
by Tennessee State Senator

[[Page E647]]

Ken Yager calling for the TVA to make all board meetings open to the 
public.

            [From Knoxville News Sentinel, on Apr. 14, 2019]

    An Open Letter to TVA's New CEO: You Need to be the Leader Your 
                    Predecessor Was Not, Here's How

                         (Unauthored Editorial)

       Welcome to Tennessee, Mr. Lyash.
       No doubt you had a busy first week as the new CEO of the 
     Tennessee Valley Authority.
       And what a responsibility!
       You lead the nation's first and largest regional planning 
     and economic development agency owned and operated by the 
     federal government.
       You provide power for some 10 million people, and you 
     employ thousands in our state. You've taken over an 
     organization whose history and legacy are revolutionary and 
     inspiring. Few organizations have transformed the lives of so 
     many people, across so many generations. And we know you 
     believe deeply in this mission, a mission derived from 
     decades of service to improving the lives of the people of 
     the Tennessee Valley.
       This is what has brought you to Knoxville.
       Which is why today we challenge you to be the leader your 
     predecessor was not.
       We challenge you to launch a fully independent and 
     transparent investigation of safety and workplace practices 
     that occurred in the aftermath of the massive Kingston coal 
     ash spill and cleanup--not just the TVA's own practices, but 
     those of every one of the contractors and subcontractors it 
     employs. We've reported extensively about the workers who 
     have died, and the hundreds of others who are sick, after 
     their exposure to the toxic ash. Learn from the mistakes of 
     the past and demand accountability.
       We challenge you to commit to a top-to-bottom review and 
     overhaul of workplace safety at every power plant you 
     operate. Last week we reported about workers at two Tennessee 
     plants who are exposed to fly ash dust and flue gas without 
     masks or respirators.
       We challenge you to review your relationship with Jacobs 
     Engineering. Although the case goes on, a federal jury 
     already found Jacobs breached its contract with the TVA and 
     its duty to ensure the health of cleanup workers. Yet you're 
     still doing hundreds of millions of dollars of business with 
     the company.
       We challenge you to hire an independent consultant to 
     radically remake your internal reporting and whistle-blowing 
     procedures and make sure they are accessible to your 
     contractors as well. Your people are adamant no one should 
     fear workplace retaliation, yet your workers are coming to us 
     because they don't trust TVA.
       We challenge you to rid the agency of double-speak and 
     misdirection--where it's culturally acceptable to mislead the 
     public, as Bill Johnson did when he said that the EPA, the 
     Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation and OSHA 
     were on site daily during the Kingston cleanup. Today at the 
     TVA it's acceptable for your official spokesman to recraft 
     this as mere hyperbole.
       Finally, we challenge you to visit your employees in the 
     field. Talk to them. Not with an entourage, not with a 
     phalanx of handlers who will hand-select the ones who'll say 
     the ``right'' things to you. You need to hear the truth. You 
     need to visit sick men in hospitals and listen to their 
     stories. You need to sit down in the lunchroom with truck 
     drivers who are around fly ash all day. You need to walk 
     through the plant, see things yourself.
       And then you need to do the right thing.
                                  ____


                    Senate Joint Resolution No. 192

          By Senators Yager, Kurita, and Representative Powers

       A Resolution to express support for the enactment of 
     legislation that requires all board committee meetings of the 
     Tennessee Valley Authority Board of Directors to be open to 
     the public.
       Whereas, established in 1933, the Tennessee Valley 
     Authority (TVA) is a corporate agency of the United States 
     that provides electricity for business customers and local 
     power companies, serving ten million people in parts of seven 
     southeastern states; and
       Whereas, TVA also provides flood control, navigation, and 
     land management for the Tennessee River system and assists 
     local power companies and state and local governments with 
     economic development and job creation; and
       Whereas, Tennessee Congressman Tim Burchett has introduced 
     the Tennessee Valley Authority Transparency Act of 2019, 
     legislation to require that committee meetings and 
     subcommittee meetings of the Tennessee Valley Authority Board 
     of Directors be transparent and open to the public; and
       Whereas, the bill would amend the Tennessee Valley 
     Authority Act of 1933 Section 2(g)(2) to include a provision 
     on transparency that would require meetings of the TVA Board 
     to be held in public, properly noticed, and with minutes and 
     summaries of each meeting made available; and
       Whereas, it is vitally important to the citizens of 
     Tennessee that TVA, as an entity created and protected by 
     Congress, should conduct their business in the open and be as 
     transparent as possible: Now, therefore, be it
       Resolved by the Senate of the One Hundred Eleventh General 
     Assembly of the State of Tennessee, The House of 
     Representatives concurring, That we strongly support the 
     passage of the Tennessee Valley Authority Transparency Act of 
     2019; and be it further
       Resolved, That an appropriate copy of this resolution be 
     prepared and transmitted to the Speaker and the Clerk of the 
     United States House of Representatives, the President and the 
     Secretary of the United States Senate, and each member of 
     Tennessee's delegation to the United States Congress.

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