As if the recent impeachment trial weren’t reason enough, Tennessee Congressman Steve Cohen (D-TN-09) is raging against U.S. Republican President Donald Trump for yet another reason.
This time, it’s because Trump hasn’t appointed enough women or minorities to the Tennessee Valley Authority board of directors.
“I’m writing to express my grave concerns over the nominations you’ve made to the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) Board of Directors during your presidency. Under your leadership, the TVA board will only have one woman and zero persons of color,” Cohen wrote in a letter to Trump this week.
“This lack of diversity is shameful and is not representative of the region TVA is congressionally mandated to serve, which is made up of 10 million people in parts of seven southeastern states. In order to best serve the Tennessee Valley, I strongly believe that the TVA Board of Directors should be representative of its customers.”
According to Cohen, Tennessee is 17 percent black, while Memphis, in Cohen’s district, is 64 percent black. Females make up roughly half the population of Tennessee, Cohen added.
“With these demographics, it is perplexing that there is not a single person of color on the Board nor more than one woman,” Cohen wrote.
In the letter, Cohen also blasted Trump for not having more women and minorities in his own cabinet.
Cohen is a senior member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which has oversight of the TVA.
In a press release, Cohen said the City of Memphis Gas, Light and Water Division is TVA’s largest customer.
“The city is currently reviewing its future relationship with TVA which has supplied Memphis with electricity for 80 years,” Cohen wrote.
Cohen has opined on other matters related to energy.
As The Star reported last year, Cohen co-sponsored the controversial Green New Deal, saying “it contains a full employment initiative and investments in a transition to sustainable, non-carbon sources of energy.”
U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY-14) released the resolution that’s become a central part of the Democratic agenda, including backing from 2020 candidates.
The “Green New Deal” resolution calls for “10-year national mobilizations” towards a series of goals aimed at fighting global warming, according to a copy of the bill obtained by NPR. A separate fact-sheet claims the plan would “mobilize every aspect of American society on a scale not seen since World War 2.”
Ocasio-Cortez’s non-binding resolution calls for a variety of social justice and welfare state goals, including “a family-sustaining wage, adequate family and medical leave, paid vacations and retirement security” and “high-quality health care” benefits for Americans.
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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].
Cohen does nothing for Memphis. Lot of talk; no action. He needs to go. Hopefully we can get Charlotte Bergmann elected and send Cohen to the chicken coop!
Obama nominated at least 5 whites (in a row) to the board. I can’t remember Chicken Man protesting then. Trump nominated MEMPHIS attorney John Ryder (granted, a MEMPHIS white guy like Chicken Man), but the Democrats blocked. Don’t remember Chicken Man protesting Memphis not getting representation on the TVA board….but maybe he was busy tweeting another one of his “secret daughters”.
Trumps’s old-white-guy board voted to close down one of those nasty, coal-fired power plants (Bull Run) and kill jobs for Tennesseans. Green New Deal Chicken Man should be praising Trump for getting a TVA board that votes with AOC and Chicken Man.