TVA

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<a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?512245-1/electric-city">https://www.c-span.org/video/?512245-1/electric-city</a> pal camping of pres harding?, coollidge cooler
Historian Thomas Hager recalled Henry Ford and Thomas Edison’s failed attempt to build an industrialized city, 10 times the size of Manhattan, in the Tennessee River Valley in the 1920s.

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5 23 kinsgston ff plant with a natural gas plant by one of the most powerful utilities in the U.S. At the same time, Tennessee lawmakers are defining gas as “clean energy.” Source: Paul Harris/Getty Images
It was a big deal when Ohio Governor Mike DeWine signed a law designating methane gas as “green energy” in January. The bill’s passage was covered by local news, national news, industry publications and glossy magazines. 
So when we recently learned that Tennessee Governor Bill Lee signed a similar law last month—HB 0946, which legally defines methane gas as “clean energy”—we were a bit surprised. Aside from Caroline Eggers at Nashville’s WPLN News, who has done two great stories on the bill, we couldn’t find any coverage of the legislation.
It’s possible that most local and national media were distracted. The bill, which states that public utilities must count “natural gas” as a “permissible source” of clean energy, was signed into law on April 12, 2023—the same day state lawmaker Justin J. Pearson was reinstated to the Tennessee Legislature after being infamously expelled for protesting on the chamber floor. (Heck, that’s what we were covering at the time).
Whatever the reason, Tennessee’s new law deserves the same level of scrutiny as Ohio’s, as it’s a key part of a growing industry-funded strategy to delay climate action by codifying misinformation about natural gas into law. Like gas, the strategy is most harmful when people don’t notice it seeping in. So today, we’re belatedly...>When deceptive marketing becomes the law zzz...the industry brands as “natural gas,” is not a “clean” or “green” source of energy. It is a fossil fuel primarily made of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. Methane gas has “contributed to the largest increase in global fossil CO2 emissions in recent years,”&...That’s why many scientists say Despite all this, the fossil fuel industry has been marketing gas as a climate solution for decades. This marketing has only intensified as the public has gotten more serious about tackling climate change.
But industry-created climate misinformation is no longer just infiltrating podcasts and social media feeds. It’s also infiltrating the law. The phenomenon started in Europe last year, when the European Parliament voted to label certain uses of natural gas as “green.” That meant billions of dollars that were intended to fund climate-friendly projects could legally be used for methane power plants and terminals. 
Now, industry climate misinformation has also started making its way into U.S. state law—albeit in slightly different ways. 
Ohio’s bill labeling gas as “green,” for one, appears to be more of a public relations stunt than anything. Ohio Governor DeWine’s press secretary told Natural Gas Intelligence that “the legislative language did not affect any funding or regulations,” adding that it was “more of an opinion statement.” The Ohio bill’s own sponsor doesn’t even seem to know what it does; he told Energy News Network he hoped the law would help companies in the gas business meet Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) investing standards. But he added: “I don’t know if it will work.”Tennessee’s new law, on the other hand, has a specific, anti-climate policy intent. It doesn’t just vaguely say that “gas is clean energy;” it says that local governments attempting to set “clean energy” standards must include gas in that definition. “That makes it a kindred spirit with the now over 20 states who have passed ‘preemption bills’ attempting to prohibit cities from limiting the use of gas in buildings,” said David Pomerantz, the executive director of the Energy and Policy Institute. 
The common thread: industry influenceWhat unites these new state laws is their connection to fossil fuel interests. Ohio’s green energy law was funded by  a dark money group with ties to the gas industry, the Washington Post reported in January. The conservative American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) shared with Ohio lawmakers a “model bill” with talking points about how methane gas is clean energy, according to emails obtained by the Energy and Policy Institute. Those emails explicitly spell out how the industry creates laws to keep itself in business.
We don’t have the same smoking gun private emails linking the gas industry and dark money groups to Tennessee’s bill. But there are a few very public connections between the lawmakers who supported the Tennessee bill and fossil fuel interests, including some of the same fossil fuel groups that created Ohio’s bill.
Three of the Tennessee bill’s co-sponsors are ALEC members: Rep. Chris Todd, who is an ALEC “state chair”, Rep. Susan Lynn, who is on ALEC’s board of directors, and Sen. Ed Jackson, also an ALEC state chair. Tennessee lawmakers have also publicly aligned themselves with the same dark money group that funded Ohio’s law, by signing The Empowerment Alliance’s “Declaration of Energy Independence.” Signers of the declaration, which calls methane gas the “environmentally responsible bridge to our energy future”, include Governor Bill Lee and multiple state senators—including bill co-sponsor Sen. Walley.
Representative Clark Boyd, who first sponsored HB 0946, has received $10,000 in donations from the oil and gas industry and $13,500 from electric utilities from 2018 to 2023. But his largest industry donation—$8,000 between 2018 to 2023—comes from the Tennessee Electric Cooperative Association (TECA), which has also donated to every state senator who sponsored the bill. 
TECA is a trade association representing the state’s utility companies, all of which get their power from the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). TECA thus advocates for the interests of TVA—and TVA has big plans to expand its methane gas production in Tennessee. Specifically, TVA is currently working on $3.5 billion worth of gas projects that, if completed, will constitute the second-largest utility gas expansion in the country by 2030, according to the Sierra Club. 
TVA has received significant pushpack to its planned gas expansion. In January, 112 organizations signed a letter to the EPA calling for a stop to the projects. In the letter, the groups cited the need for actual clean energy. "The EPA can either use its legal power to advance the clean energy economy, or…can needlessly sign off on dangerous fossil fuel expansion,” they wrote.
The fact that methane gas is now legally “clean energy” in Tennessee is a benefit for TVA and its planned methane gas expansion. And it’s not the only recent bill that benefits TVA. Last month, Rep. Clark Boyd sponsored a bill that makes it a Class C felony to interrupt or interfere with “critical infrastructure” like pipelines. In February, Boyd also sponsored a bill to block any future bans of gas stoves. Last year, Tennessee lawmakers passed the Tennessee Natural Gas Innovation Act, which legally categorized methane gas as a source of “clean energy” for utilities. They also passed laws preventing local governments from blocking fossil fuel infrastructure and the state from working with banks that divest from fossil fuel companies.
Clearly, state governments have become the battleground for America’s energy transition—and fossil fuel interests are fighting hard. So we’ll continue to follow this story in Tennessee, and the fossil fuel industry’s fight to codify misinformation into law. If you see anything similar happening with clean energy laws in your state, let us know—especially if you have proof of industry influence. Because to avoid the dangers of gas, you first have to be able to detect it. 
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</div><div><a href="https://www.energyandpolicy.org/uwag-and-uswag-the-secretive-utility-groups-that-target-epa-rules/">https://www.energyandpolicy.org/uwag-and-uswag-the-secretive-utility-groups-that-target-epa-rules/</a></div><div>
</div><div>may 2019</div><div>
</div><div>matt kasper</div><div>
</div><div><div class="entry-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">The <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.energyandpolicy.org/utility-air-regulatory-group/" target="blank" style="font-weight: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; border-width: 0px 0px 2px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(196, 209, 224); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">Utility Air Regulatory Group</a> <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/05/10/epa-air-chief-3238271" target="blank" style="font-weight: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; border-width: 0px 0px 2px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(196, 209, 224); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">announced</a> on Friday that its remaining members had decided to disband the embattled project after more than 40 years. UARG had been an unincorporated group of utilities represented by lawyers at Hunton Andrews Kurth that fought against clean air standards.But while the utilities may have dissolved UARG, the same corporations still have other “U Groups” that exist to attack EPA’s enforcement of the nation’s environmental laws. Just as utilities used UARG to target the Clean Air Act, they have the Utility Solid Waste Activities Group (USWAG) and the Utility Water Act Group (UWAG) to attack EPA’s enforcement of the Clean Water Act and other laws that utilities have long perceived as thorns in their sides.USWAG is represented by lawyers at Venable LLP. Attorneys from Hunton Andrews Kurth, the same firm that housed UARG, represent the members of UWAG. Both U-groups are set up similarly to UARG: unincorporated, voluntary, ad-hoc coalitions that do not disclose individual utility members. USWAG has been a party in 88 lawsuits since the early 1990s while UWAG has been a party in 99 cases since 2000, according to the Public Access to Court Electronic Records.<h4 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: 400; margin: 0px 0px 25.2344px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; clear: both; line-height: 1.2;">Utility Solid Waste Activities Group, Utility Water Act Group targeting Obama-era rules; also subsidized by utility customers</h4>UARG’s utility members faced intense scrutiny in recent months since <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/02/20/epa-air-pollution-regulations-wehrum-1191258" style="box-sizing: border-box; border-width: 0px 0px 2px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(196, 209, 224); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">Politico obtained and published</a> confidential documents that outlined goals for a meeting of UARG’s policy committee to attack Obama-era clean air and public health rules.The spotlight brightened when leading Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee <a href="https://energycommerce.house.gov/newsroom/press-releases/ec-leaders-launch-investigation-of-secretive-front-group-uarg-and-its-ties" style="box-sizing: border-box; border-width: 0px 0px 2px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(196, 209, 224); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">sent letters</a> to several member-utility CEOs asking for information about EPA air official Bill Wehrum’s relationship with UARG and its member companies. Wehrum was an attorney at Hunton and represented UARG. Congress <a href="https://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/news/release/democrats-call-for-investigation-of-top-epa-officials-role-in-reversing-enforcement-position" style="font-weight: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; border-width: 0px 0px 2px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(196, 209, 224); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">is investigating</a> how he and another former Hunton lawyer now at the EPA, David Harlow, have helped reverse the agency’s position in a major enforcement action to favor a client of their former law firm – DTE Energy.The Congressional probe into UARG requested that the utilities state whether they had forced their customers to fund their annual contributions to the collective legal effort. Journalists and consumer advocates also pressed individual utilities to answer the question posed from the members of Congress. Several utilities, including <a href="https://insideepa.com/daily-news/utility-aep-tells-house-democrats-ratepayers-fund-uarg-dues" style="box-sizing: border-box; border-width: 0px 0px 2px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(196, 209, 224); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">American Electric Power</a>, <a href="https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/aps-quits-lobbyist-group-ethics-probe-epa-officials-srp-tep-11273451" style="box-sizing: border-box; border-width: 0px 0px 2px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(196, 209, 224); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">Arizona Public Service</a>, and <a href="https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/aps-quits-lobbyist-group-ethics-probe-epa-officials-srp-tep-11273451" style="box-sizing: border-box; border-width: 0px 0px 2px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(196, 209, 224); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">Tucson Electric Power</a>, admitted that they force their customers to fund UARG expenses and therefore the legal challenges to the Clean Air Act. Others, such as <a href="https://www.stltoday.com/business/local/congressional-probe-looks-at-lobbying-group-funded-by-ameren-other/article_4c61b33d-b7fd-5e4c-9a08-d26a0d3a8486.html" style="font-weight: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; border-width: 0px 0px 2px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(196, 209, 224); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">Ameren</a>, <a href="https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2019/04/11/house-panel-probes-dte-utility-support-industry-groups/3435466002/" style="font-weight: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; border-width: 0px 0px 2px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(196, 209, 224); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">DTE Energy</a>, <a href="https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060169943" style="font-weight: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; border-width: 0px 0px 2px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(196, 209, 224); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">Dominion</a>, and <a href="https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060169943" style="font-weight: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; border-width: 0px 0px 2px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(196, 209, 224); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">Duke Energy</a> did not provide details about the source of UARG funding.Rate case filings reveal that many utilities similarly force their customers to fund their attacks on EPA’s ability to enforce the Clean Water Act via USWAG and UWAG. In 2017, the Minnesota Office of the Attorney General <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5770321-Minnesota-Attorney-General-Direct-Testimony.html#document/p52/a486802" style="font-weight: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; border-width: 0px 0px 2px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(196, 209, 224); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">argued</a> that customers of Minnesota Power shouldn’t foot the utility’s membership bill for both USWAG and UWAG. Missouri Public Service Commission Staff <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3461233-MO-PSC-Statement-of-Positions-EEI-Dues.html#document/p4/a353010" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; border-width: 0px 0px 2px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(196, 209, 224); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">explained</a> that Ameren shouldn’t bill its customers $96,010 for UWAG annual dues and $47,163 for USWAG. And in November of 2018, the Kentucky Office of the Attorney General <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5765622-Kentucky-Attorney-General-Data-Requests-Kentucky.html#document/p69/a486078" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; border-width: 0px 0px 2px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(196, 209, 224); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">attempted to prevent</a> Louisville Gas & Electric and Kentucky Utilities customers from paying the $68,175 for USWAG annual dues and $109,501 for UWAG.In a 2016 Arizona Public Service rate case, the Residential Utility Consumer Office (RUCO) <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3625848-RUCO-Filing-APS-EEI-Dues.html#document/p37/a483616" style="font-weight: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; border-width: 0px 0px 2px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(196, 209, 224); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">described</a> the U-groups as “purely voluntary, many of which are political in nature, and may not be necessary for the provision of utility services.”Earlier this month, <a href="https://insideepa.com/daily-news/5th-circuit-judges-appear-split-suit-over-delay-utility-effluent-rule" style="font-weight: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; border-width: 0px 0px 2px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(196, 209, 224); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">UWAG attorneys were in court</a> to join the defense of the Trump administration’s two-year delay of Obama’s Effluent Limitations Guidelines (ELG) rule. Two years ago, Hunton attorneys representing UWAG <a href="https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2017-03/documents/letter_to_epa_submitting_petition_for_reconsideration_w_exhibits-c_508.pdf" style="font-weight: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; border-width: 0px 0px 2px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(196, 209, 224); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">petitioned the Trump EPA</a> to reconsider the ELG rule. Under President Obama, the EPA finalized an update to the rule as it hadn’t been updated since the early 1980s. The rule exists to limit the wastewater that power plants can discharge in waterways. That <a href="https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/2018/07/power-plant-effluent-limits/" style="box-sizing: border-box; border-width: 0px 0px 2px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(196, 209, 224); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">wastewater includes</a> arsenic, lead, mercury, selenium, chromium, and cadmium.USWAG attorneys, meanwhile, have <a href="https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/2017/12/coal-ash-rule/" style="box-sizing: border-box; border-width: 0px 0px 2px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(196, 209, 224); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">targeted a coal ash rule</a>, which the Obama Administration proposed in 2010 following the largest toxic waste spill in U.S. history at a Tennessee Valley Authority power plant in Kingston. One billion gallons of coal ash sludge destroyed 300 acres and dozens of homes. The rule established a set of requirements for the safe disposal of coal ash from coal-fired power plants. Similar to the ELG rule, <a href="https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/2017/12/coal-ash-rule/" style="font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; border-width: 0px 0px 2px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(196, 209, 224); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">USWAG was quick to petition</a> the Trump EPA to reconsider parts of the coal ash rule. In September 2017, then-EPA administrator Scott Pruitt <a href="https://www.sierraclub.org/sites/www.sierraclub.org/files/blog/Signed%20CCR%20Petition%20Response2017-09-13-155129.pdf" style="font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; border-width: 0px 0px 2px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(196, 209, 224); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">announced</a> that it will review parts of the rule that USWAG addressed in their petition.Ten years after the Kingston spill that triggered the rule which USWAG has fought to undermine, 400 workers who cleaned up the spill have been sickened. Another 40 died, according to a tally maintained by the <a href="https://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/crime/2019/05/03/workplace-safety-rally-kingston-coal-ash-workers/3632667002/" style="font-weight: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; border-width: 0px 0px 2px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(196, 209, 224); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">Knoxville News Sentinel</a>.</div><div class="entry-meta" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top; display: inline-block; width: 841.203px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><ul class="meta-list" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 8.40625px 0px 50.4688px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none;"><li class="meta-cat" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 20px 0px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top; display: inline;">Posted in: <a href="https://www.energyandpolicy.org/category/utilities/" rel="category tag" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">Utilities</a>, <a href="https://www.energyandpolicy.org/category/utilities/utility-air-regulatory-group/" rel="category tag" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">Utility Air Regulatory Group</a> </li><li class="meta-tag" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 10px 20px 0px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top; display: inline;">Tagged in: <a href="https://www.energyandpolicy.org/tag/uarg/" rel="tag" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">UARG</a>, <a href="https://www.energyandpolicy.org/tag/utility-air-regulatory-group/" rel="tag" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">Utility Air Regulatory Group</a>, <a href="https://www.energyandpolicy.org/tag/utility-solid-waste-activities-group/" rel="tag" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">Utility Solid Waste Activities Group</a>, <a href="https://www.energyandpolicy.org/tag/utility-water-act-group/" rel="tag" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">Utility Water Act Group</a>, <a href="https://www.energyandpolicy.org/tag/uwag/" rel="tag" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">UWAG</a></li></ul></div></div><div> =</div>=

4/16 slapp ala, AA

=<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://insideclimatenews.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=7c733794100bcc7e083a163f0&id=80ba21188a&e=06876ede6b" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Cities Pressure TVA to Boost Renewable Energy, and One Considers Breaking Away</a> BY: JAMES BRUGGERS Solar and wind power supporters see this city as a beachhead in their fight to get the federally owned TVA to close coal plants. The city sees a way to save money.=kingston tva coal slurry spill<a href="https://www.facingsouth.org/2010/05/disaster-in-east-tennessee.html">https://www.facingsouth.org/2010/05/disaster-in-east-tennessee.html</a>
==

===

_SLAPP //

...

The complaint remains under investigation.

'This lawsuit is outrageous'

In the latest twist in the fight over the landfill, the facility's current owner — <a href="http://www.gghcorp.com/">Green Group Holdings LLC </a>of Canton, Georgia — is suing Black Belt Citizens' officers for slander and libel. The lawsuit announced last week accuses them of using the group's website and Facebook page "in a false and malicious manner" and says they have made "knowingly false" statements to the media.

The lawsuit focuses on comments made by visitors to the group's Facebook page relating to controversies over the landfill's <a href="http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2015/12/arrowhead_landfill_uniontown_r.html">activities near an old cemetery</a> and accusations that the facility is polluting the community and oppressing local residents. Among the comments the lawsuit calls false and defamatory are these remarks by the group's president, Esther Calhoun. The bold text is the plaintiff's own, showing what the company objects to:

"Its a landfill, its a tall mountain of coal ash and it has affected us. It affected our everyday life. It really has done a lot to our freedom. Its another impact of slavery. ...Cause we are in a black residence, things change? And you can't walk outside. And you can not breathe. I mean, you are in like prison. I mean, its like all your freedom is gone. As a black woman, our voices are not heard. EPA hasn't listened and ADEM has not listened. Whether you are white or black, rich or poor, it should still matter and we all should have the right to clean air and clean water. I want to see EPA do their job."

</blockquote>

Last November, and again last month, the company's attorney demanded that Black Belt Citizens delete and also retract and repudiate the posts. The group removed them but refused to retract and repudiate them. Arguing that the defendants have thus "permanently injured and damaged the business and reputation of Plaintiffs," the lawsuit seeks $5 million in compensatory damages and $10 million in punitive damages for each count.

"This lawsuit is outrageous," said Marianne Engelman Lado of Earthjustice, a nonprofit law firm representing community members in the civil rights complaint. "I believe this is nothing more than an attempt to quiet those who have lifted their voices in protest. Green Group Holdings should be ashamed of itself for trying to intimidate community members to prevent them from exercising their rights to be heard. This is the latest in a long line of impacts to the community."

Green Group Holdings bought the Arrowhead facility in 2012 after the previous owner, Perry County Associates, <a href="http://www.southernstudies.org/2010/02/alabama-dump-taking-tvas-spilled-coal-ash-declares-bankruptcy.html">went bankrupt</a>. Green Group is <a href="http://www.gghcorp.com/about/investors/">backed by two privately held investors</a>: Hertzog Contracting of Missouri and Knoxville, Tennessee-based Phillips & Jordan, which helped managed the Arrowhead Landfill under the previous owner.

Ernest Kaufman, Green Group's president and CEO, <a href="http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2016/04/arrowhead_landfill_owners_sue.html">said</a> that Arrowhead "is one of the safest facilities of its kind in the entire country, and despite being the most heavily inspected landfill in Alabama, it has never once been cited for a violation."

But that doesn't mean problems haven't been documented there. Back in 2010, before Green Group Holdings bought the landfill, Hurricane Creekkeeper John Wathen of Alabama <a href="http://www.southernstudies.org/2010/02/complaint-cites-health-threats-at-alabama-dump-taking-tvas-spilled-coal-ash.html">sent a complaint to the EPA</a> warning of environmental health threats there. He investigated nearby residents' complaints of unusual runoff and sickening smells after TVA's ash began arriving there and found arsenic levels 80 times the safe drinking water standard in liquid waste that was being pumped from the landfill at night.

...

<a href="http://www.southernstudies.org/2016/04/slander-suit-against-citizens-battling-alabama-coa.html">http://www.southernstudies.org/2016/04/slander-suit-against-citizens-battling-alabama-coa.html</a>

==

<div class="byline economy">==

Across the Republican-controlled South, state attorneys general are suing the the Obama administration to stop the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from imposing carbon limits on coal-fired power plants designed to help limit global warming.

But not in Tennessee.

Despite complaints from GOP lawmakers opposed to the new EPA rules, Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery opted not to join in a legal challenge to the new carbon restrictions on power plants being pushed in 27 other states, including nearly all of Tennessee's neighbors.

</div>

</div>

Critics of the new pollution controls contend the EPA overstepped its authority and warn the new rules will push up electricity rates as utilities are forced to replace cheaper coal-fired generation with lower carbon-producing alternative power sources. Paul Bailey, senior vice president of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, estimates the new EPA rules will cost utilities more than $300 billion, raise Tennessee power rates 10 to 15 percent a year "and have no impact on global warming" since most carbon comes from other sources around the world.

But Tennessee's primary power provider, the Tennessee Valley Authority, has already taken most of the steps required to meet the new carbon controls. In its power plan for the future, TVA estimates it can meet the new EPA standards and still raise rates less than in the overall pace of inflation — and less than its average increase over the past couple of decades.

"Investments already made by our ratepayers for available gas and renewable generation, combined with energy efficiency, places TVA's diversified portfolio in a position to meet these rules," John Myers, director of policy and regulatory affairs for TVA, told a legislative committee in Nashville last week.

Since 2005, TVA has already cut its carbon emissions by 30 percent and the federal utility expects to have cut such emissions by 40 percent by 2020. TVA has or soon plans to shut down more than half of the 59 coal-fired generators it once operated through the additions of new nuclear, natural gas, solar, wind and hydro generation.

Harlow Sumerford, communications director for the Tennessee Attorney General, said concerns about EPA's initial carbon control regulations "have been alleviated in the final rule" by allowing TVA to count its new Watts Bar Unit 2 reactor toward its carbon reduction targets and by extending the enforcement date for the new rules by another couple of years.

"We will continue to monitor the situation, as well as consult with impacted parties," Sumerford said, but Slatery decided against joining the lawsuit by Tuesday's filing deadline for such challenges.

That decision has upset many of the 59 legislators who signed a letter in August asking Slatery to join the lawsuit against EPA.

State Sen. Janice Bowling, R-Tullahoma, who authored the letter, said Tuesday she is "very disappointed" that Tennessee "is not doing the right thing" by challenging what she calls "junk science."

"Carbon dioxide is a colorless, odorless gas vital to life on earth," she said. "To act like we're going to be good soldiers to comply with something that is actually going to cost over $300 billion is not good public service, it does not help the environment ,and it certainly doesn't help businesses or the people of Tennessee."

State Sen. Mike Bell, R-Riceville, called the EPA rules "an overreach of the federal government" and urged Slatery to reconsider and join the fight against the new rules to avoid higher power rates for businesses and consumers.

The lawmakers also said they wish that Tennessee's Environment and Conservation Commissioner Bob Martineau had not flown to Paris this month for the United Nations climate change conference. His trip was paid for by the Climate Action Reserve and not state taxpayers, according to TDEC spokeswoman Kelly Brockman.

"He still shouldn't have gone and participated in an international event where we committed to a plan that will make power rates more costly," Bowling said.

But Myers said TVA expects annual rate increases of only a fraction of what critics claim. He said TVA rates should rise about 1.5 percent a year in the next decade, comparable to what it has raised rates for the past couple of years since Bill Johnson took over as TVA's CEO.

Stephen Smith, executive director for the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy in Knoxville, said conservation incentives in TVA's future power plans should actually reduce consumer bills by $85 a year even if power rates go up since consumption should decline.

"Local governments have already experienced major dividends from investments in energy conservation," he said.

Smith said Memphis cut its energy use at its downtown city and county building by nearly 50 percent thanks to energy efficiency retrofits and Knoxville cut its street light energy use by $250,000 a year through installation of LED streetlights.

But business groups are more wary about the new EPA rules and their costs.

==

<a href="http://www.alternet.org">AlterNet</a> [1] / By <a href="http://www.alternet.org/authors/gar-alperovitz">Gar Alperovitz</a> [2], <a href="http://www.alternet.org/authors/thomas-hanna">Thomas Hanna</a> [3]</div>

<h1 class="node-title">Shocker: Republicans Fight Obama Plan to Privatize the Hugely Popular, Cheap Energy Source of the TVA</h1>

</div>

Buried within the fine print of the 2014 Obama budget is a startling bit of history-changing policy. The government, the administration says, should consider selling off the Tennessee Valley Authority, one of the nation’s largest publicly operated—that is, “socialist”—institutions, and the largest public power provider in the country.

The TVA is a non-profi, free-standing public authority established by the Roosevelt administration during the Depression—a very large utility, if you like. It provides 165 billion kilowatt hours of power to 9 million Americans, has $11.2 billion in sales revenue, employs more than 12,500 people, and provides other educational, training and related services (such as navigation and land management, flood control, and economic development) to the people in the states and region around the Tennessee river basin.

Strikingly, it’s the free-market Republicans who object to this proposed privatization. Senator Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican who has vehemently opposed government tax credits and subsidies for renewable energy, calls the proposal “one more bad idea in a budget full of bad ideas,” and fears that privatization would lead to higher energy costs for his constituents.

Congressman John L. Duncan, Jr., another Tennessee Republican, says privatization is “something that has been proposed in the past and been determined to be a very bad idea.” Senator Richard Shelby, Republican of Alabama (a state also served by the TVA), says he will “carefully study any proposals to restructure TVA” in order to make sure that it won’t result in a price hike. And Tennessee’s other Republican Senator, Bob Corker, is clear: “I doubt this idea gains much traction.”

If we didn’t know better, we might think the administration has decided to call the Republicans’ bluff on the issue of “socialism”—a strategy that, however, seems to be beyond the clever quotient of the Obama political team.

The basic problem is that this “socialist” institution is immensely popular. It has given the people of the region good service for roughly eight decades, and its prices are lower than those of many private corporations. An analysis by the U.S. Energy Information Administration found that consumers in Alabama and Tennessee pay considerably less for power than the national average. The low rates, former TVA Chairman S. David Freeman suggests, have earned TVA “the ‘mother love’ of a politically conservative region.”

Even among environmental groups—which often criticize the TVA for, among other things, its continued use of coal and nuclear power plants—there is little appetite for privatization. The Tennessee chapter of the Sierra Club holds that privatization would be a mistake, potentially allowing new private corporate owners to “liquidate its assets by selling off TVA’s public lands along the Tennessee River and tributaries.”

So why is the Obama administration pursuing a sell-off? Mainly for short-sighted budget appearances. Privatizing public assets like the TVA will generate some near-term revenue and help pay down a (very) small fraction of the nation’s debt. The White House also claims the TVA will likely have to issue more debt securities in the future in order to raise money to modernize its aging infrastructure, which would—in a purely accounting sense—slightly increase the deficit. This is an odd worry, since the TVA is, and would continue to be, entirely self-funded at no cost to the taxpayer, and the new debt is simply to finance the kind of updating and modernizing any major corporation routinely does.

Most Americans do not realize that public ownership like that involved in the TVA, and a cornerstone of much decried “socialism,” can be found in communities in every state in the nation. For one thing, there are more than 2,000 public electric utilities—many in conservative rural areas—and, like the TVA, they are popular among local residents and politicians. Succesful public ownership of vital transportation facilities (such as roads, ports and airports) is also common. And, of course, roughly a third of the nation’s total land surface (and the minerals beneath and forests above) is owned and managed by the government.

Around the world, there are also thousands of highly successful examples of so-called socialism like the TVA. Public enterprises operate advanced high-speed rail networks in many countries. Public ownership of significant or controlling shares of airlines is also common. More than 200 public and semi-public banks, along with over 80 funding agencies, account for a fifth of all bank assets in the European Union. Faster and more widely available Internet access is provided in many countries where public corporations exist side by side with private companies, and public telecommunications companies are also common around the world.

Most Americans are clearly not nearly as ready as citizens of other countries to think about public ownership at this scale—or even at the scale of the TVA. On the other hand, stranger things have happened. Possibly one day the United States might catch up with the kinds of practical things being done in many parts of the world—or even, for that matter, with what Republicans representing areas served by the Tennessee Valley Authority think makes sense.

</div>