TVA Employees Charge Big Money
Posted on March 2, 2009 at 4:50 pmFrom the News Sentinel:
Televisions, X-Boxes, alcohol, Internet software and tuition.
Inspector General auditors say those are just some of the questionable purchases made by Tennessee Valley Authority employees on their government charge cards.
An audit of the program created to pay for small business-related expenses finds spending has swelled to more than $75 million annually, with nearly a third of those purchases over $5,000.
One unidentified cardholder had nearly $6 million in charges on six cards in two years.
SEE ALSO: The Inspector General’s full report.
Now They’ve Gone And Done It Again: New TVA Spill In Alabama
Posted on January 9, 2009 at 11:03 amFrom the Knoxville News Sentinel:
Scott Hughes, spokesman for the Alabama Department of Environmental Management, told the Tennessean newspaper, “The only thing we’ve got right now is that there was a release from a gypsum treatment operation. “We do understand that some of the material has reached Widows Creek.”
On Dec. 22, a retention pond failure in Kingston released more than a billion gallons of sludge that damaged homes and fouled the Emory River.
The Widows Creek Fossil Plant is located on Guntersville Reservoir on the Tennessee River.
Electricity is produced at Widows Creek’s eight coal-fired units by heating water in a boiler to produce steam.
Under extremely high pressure, the steam flows into a turbine that spins a generator to make electricity.
Widows Creek generates about 10 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity a year, enough to supply 650,000 homes.
SEE ALSO:
R. Neal
Nashvillest
Roane County’s New State Senator On The TVA Spill
Posted on December 30, 2008 at 2:08 pmIssued the day after the incident:
Sen. Yager toured the site by helicopter with Plant Manager Ronald C. Hall and was additionally briefed by Roane County Emergency Management personnal.
“The devastation is the worse than anything I have seen during my 24 years as Roane County Executive, said Yager. It is a miracle that no one was killed or injured.”
“I am impressed with the both leadership and cooperation of the federal, state and local agencies charged with cleaning up the ash and restoring the community inundated by this disaster,” Yager concluded.
No More Senator Silence: Corker On The TVA Spill
Posted on at 1:09 pmLaura Lefler, from the office of the junior Senator from Tennessee, makes a statement on the TVA environmental oopsie:
“We are very aware of the devastation this has had on property owners near TVA’s Kingston Fossil Plant and understand residents’ concerns about present and future contamination. Senator Corker has talked directly with Roane County Mayor Mike Farmer and TVA CEO Tom Kilgore and assured all involved that we stand ready to take appropriate measures at the federal level if necessary.”
SEE ALSO: A tally
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Lincoln Davis On The TVA Spill
Posted on at 12:59 pmThe congressman who represents the area where the environmentally-unfriendly accident occurred comments through spokesman Tom Hayden:
Our office has been in contact with the TVA and local elected officials since the accident occured. Today, Congressman Davis toured the spill area and was briefed on the accident and what is being done to remedy the situation. During the briefing, Congressman Davis called on the TVA to take care of everyone affected in any way, be sure to prevent any toxins from getting into the water systems, and to present a plan to the public with solutions so this does not occur again
A Servant Without Peer
Posted on December 18, 2008 at 7:34 amRuss McBee on the compensation of TVA’s chief executive:
The agency is trying to spin Tom Kilgore’s $3.27 million pay package as “conservative” compared to for-profit power companies. As I’ve mentioned before, this is a false comparison; Kilgore’s peers are not the overpaid executives of private corporations; instead, his peers are other public servants. The most direct comparison to Kilgore’s position is that of the US Postmaster General, who oversees an infrastructure, a budget, and a staff that dwarfs Kilgore’s. The Postmaster General oversees a budget that is over seven times as large as TVA’s ($75 billion in revenue versus TVA’s $10 billion), and he manages 68 times as many employees (786,000 versus TVA’s 11,600).
The Postmaster General makes $258,000 per year, one twelfth the pay of Mr. Kilgore.
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The Need For Speed
Posted on November 28, 2008 at 6:02 pmThe turnkey aspect of Chattanooga’s site was the determining factor in bringing Volkswagen to Tennessee:
The key issue was speed. Volkswagen wants the plant to be up and running by the end of 2010.
The Chattanooga site was essentially ready to go in terms of infrastructure. The state and local governments began the process of issuing permits for construction before the decision had even been made, a move that shaved weeks off the schedule. The company’s officials were also pleased to see a clearly bipartisan show of support for the plant. Kisber says that helped them feel that if problems were to arise, there would be a strong team effort to find solutions quickly.
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Lamar Alexander Isn’t Just The Man Who Makes The Deals
Posted on May 23, 2008 at 9:10 amHe breaks them, too. Republican Senate Conference Committee Chair Lamar Alexander is a powerful man down in Washington and recently he has not been afraid to use that power to break bad with players on both sides of the aisle.
Not only did Alexander vote with Democrats and several Republicans to override a Presidential veto on the farm bill he also moved yesterday to block a deal struck by Democratic Leader Harry Reid and the administration to move several executive branch nominations forward.
Alexander stood in the way because of Reid’s refusal to approve William Graves for another term on the Tennessee Valley Authority Board:
Reid and the White House hatched a last-minute deal for the Senate to confirm Steve Preston as the secretary of Housing and Urban Development, along with several nominees to the Institute of Peace, military officeholders, undersecretaries and ambassadors. The deal appeared to be headed for a unanimous consent agreement as the Senate prepared for the recess, but it fell apart after a Republican Senator objected to the deal.
Republican Conference Chairman Lamar Alexander (Tenn.) blocked the package of nominations from advancing because Reid continues to object to his pick for the Tennessee Valley Authority board. Alexander has pressed Reid to approve William Graves for another term on TVA, but the Majority Leader has said no, wanting Democratic representation on the board.
An Alexander spokesman said, “Senator Reid has been playing politics with nominees like Bishop Graves for far too long and that has got to stop. This is no small matter to Senator Alexander, and it’s astonishing that the Democratic Leader doesn’t recognize that fact after the conversations and letters exchanged by the two senators these past weeks and months.
“Reid has chosen an Institute of Peace nominee over the Secretary of Housing in the middle of a housing slump. That’s not the sort of leadership people expect from Congress,” the spokesman added.
SEE ALSO:
Jackson Baker
KAG
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