The Sierra Club will hold a demonstration at Lipscomb University in Nashville on Wednesday to protest the use of fossil fuels by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), which is slated to hold a listening session earlier the same day.
A Sierra Club web page explains the controversial group’s “Rally for the Valley” will feature a musical performance Nashville-based country music artist Jonathan Singleton and remarks by State Representative Aftyn Behn (D-Nashville)(pictured above).
The climate declared on their website, “This is not just another rally. TVA is making major decisions about the future of energy in the Valley and we need to send them a clear message that our future must be fossil-free, equitable, and clean!”
Climate activists are reportedly opposed to the TVA’s plan to create eight natural gas plants across the area it serves.
Following the public listening session on Wednesday, the TVA Board of Directors will hold its quarterly business meeting publicly at the university on Thursday.
The Sierra Club’s protest at Lipscomb comes after years of reported internal turmoil over decisions that seem to prioritize environmental justice over racial equity.
Amid the civil unrest in 2020, The Daily Caller reported the group promised further reflection on its “substantial role in perpetuating white supremacy,” blog posts “about the struggles of Indigenous people, people of color,” and a push to remove monuments.
Among the monuments The Sierra Club asserted should be taken down are those dedicated to its founder, John Muir, who the group claims was friends with a promoter of eugenics.
Despite the 2020 effort by the group, three years later The Sierra Club reportedly “experienced major infighting” following layoffs and personnel changes that apparently included “minority staffers,” The Daily Caller reported last September.
In addition to the reduction of staff from 800 to 400, the outlet reported that other grievances listed by minority staff members included the renaming of the “People, Culture, and Equity Department” to the “People Department.”
The U.S. House in March passed legislation that would require the TVA publish salaries of top executives, as well as the total number of management-level employees who are paid higher than the highest-paid government employees.
The bill was sponsored by Representatives Tim Burchett (R-TN-02) and Steve Cohen (D-TN-09), who both suggested the legislation would increase transparency for Tennesseans.
Cohen argued the bill represents a “fair compromise” that balances transparency with TVA’s need to recruit high performing employees.
Burchett explained, “If my constituents are going to rely on TVA every day for their energy, they deserve to know how TVA is spending its money.”
The Republican added, “Transparency has been a problem with TVA in the past, but it has been getting better lately, and I want to make sure that pattern continues.”
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Georgia Star News, The Pennsylvania Daily Star, and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “State Rep Aftyn Behn” by Aftyn Behn and “Rally for the Vally Flyer” by Sierra Club.
Take away THEIR access to the products of oil and gas. Such things as plastics and synthetic fabrics and watch the shrivel and die. And since when has it been proven that CO2 harms the planet? That has just been repeated so long and so loud that mush heads have accepted it as a fact.
Curious as to how much public money these clowns get.
These climate activist are primarily people who are from the city and are young people. They neither understand the true science about CO2 and the effects most important could care less about the cost of energy and the effects it has on the economy.
The religion they worship is fake alternative energy sources that double the cost of fossil fuels, don’t work most of the time and hurt the most vulnerable people in our society.
The poor and elderly.
Wake up TVA and don’t wast your time having a business meeting at any American University which are controlled by Marxist Elites who are flat earthers, and don’t understand the true science.
These people would rather riot, protest and destroy the fabric of our society that made our country great. Our country has the greatest natural resources and abundant fossil supplies in the world and these mush heads would rather see American farmers put out of business and smoke dope all day.
What these radicals marxist do best is vomit fake news , scare people by taking over University and threatening anyone who doesn’t accept trier propaganda by canceling them by using methods that Carl Marx would be proud off, and these damn college professors get paid to teach this crap…Elites have destroyed many great American colleges and we need to stop funding this garbage and frog march this professors on a boat and send them to China where they can teach the very people who fund them to spread these lies.