Tennessee’s current and prospective elected officials reacted Monday to U.S. President Donald Trump firing the chair of the Tennessee Valley Authority for hiring foreign workers.
U.S. Senate candidate Manny Sethi, in an emailed statement, said Trump was right to do so.
“Our public utilities do not need overpaid bureaucrats and executives,” Sethi said.
“I am grateful to see the President take these steps because it will hopefully help TVA move in the right direction- towards transparency and accountability.”
Sethi’s opponent for the Aug. 6 GOP primary, Bill Hagerty, said in a press release that “Trump is keeping his promise to drain the swamp by firing two Tennessee Valley Authority board members.”
“President Donald Trump is right, we can’t outsource American jobs at a time when our unemployment rate is higher than ever,” Hagerty said.
“Thanks to Communist China, we are in the midst of the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression. President Trump and his Administration have taken unprecedented steps to keep people employed during this difficult period and it flies in the face of those efforts when TVA decides to outsource Tennessee jobs at this time.”
The man both candidates wish to replace, the retiring U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), addressed the matter in a separate press release.
“TVA may have shown poor judgment hiring foreign companies during a pandemic, but, on most counts, it does a very good job of producing large amounts of low-cost, reliable electricity. Residential electric rates are among the 25 percent lowest in the country, and industrial rates are among the lowest 10 percent. TVA’s debt is the lowest in 30 years, its pension fund is stronger and TVA leads the country in new nuclear power plants,” Alexander said.
“According to TVA, the annual total compensation of TVA’s CEO is in the bottom fourth of what the CEOs of other big utilities earn and is set strictly according to requirements of federal law. TVA receives no federal tax dollars.”
The Tennessee Star contacted U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and U.S. Rep. Mark Green (R-TN-07) for comment, but staff for neither official returned our messages before press time.
Trump told reporters at the White House that he was formally removing chair Skip Thompson and another member of the board, and he threatened to remove other board members if they continued to hire foreign labor. Thompson was appointed to the post by Trump.
The TVA is a federally owned corporation created in 1933 to provide flood control, electricity generation, fertilizer manufacturing and economic development to the Tennessee Valley, a region that was hard hit by the Great Depression. The region covers most of Tennessee and parts of Alabama, Mississippi and Kentucky as well as small sections of Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia.
He also said the TVA board must immediately hire a new chief executive officer who “puts the interests of Americans first.”
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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected]. The Associated Press’ Zeke Miller contributed to this report.
Would like to see the same sort of action from TN state government on TN companies that are laying off Americans in favor of low-wage India. No corporate welfare/contracts for Eastman and Jacobs, county goverments using out of country labor to undercut American workers.
this is a great move and i hope a whole lot more of this happens. MAGA
A big WIN for America.
This article speaks to so much of what is wrong with our government. TVA is a federally owned corporation created in 1933. What the heck is the Federal government doing “owning” a corporation? A “public utility” no less! I haven’t seen any dividend checks! I guess the year and who was the President then tells the whole story!
Then, interesting how Alexander lays down a smoke screen, protecting his part of the swamp, and his heir apparent, Hagerty, follows suit by blaming China for an economic downturn. Neither calls out the real issue! It’s the “swamp” stupid!
Yes, the Covid-19 virus came from China. BUT, for the last 30 years, every strain of virus borne disease with “flu” like symptoms has come from China! It was only when Trump got elected and started to drain the swamp, and all other attempts to take him out didn’t work, that the muck suckers decided to weaponize the response to a cold! And thus the Fausi star was born!
Only outsider Sethi unequivocally calls out the issue, saying basically, “yeah Trump did what he had to do”, period. No making up excuses, no covering for your fellow muck suckers. The DONald needs to start using his Apprentice line more often. You’re fired!
Except our government and Fauci’s NAIAD sent taxpayer millions to the Wuhan Virology Lab, illegally shipping the cell lines from USAMRIID Ft. Detrick to create the virus. Ft. Detrick then suddenly shut down for not maintaining virology protocol….but Marsha and Mark want to make sure we can sue China…
To clarify your point of Sethi being an “outsider”:
From Wiki ——
Sethi was born in Cleveland, Ohio and moved to Tennessee at age four. He was raised in Hillsboro, Tennessee by his parents, who were both physicians.[3] His parents immigrated to the United States in 1975 from India. Sethi attended Hillsboro Elementary School and later attended the private Webb School (Bell Buckle, TN).
After graduating from the Webb School, Sethi attended Brown University, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in neuroscience. He graduated magna cum laude in 2000. The following year, Sethi worked with children with muscular dystrophy in Tunisia as a Fulbright Scholar.[4]
Sethi attended Harvard Medical School, graduating in 2005.[3] He completed his general surgery internship at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston in 2006, and completed his residency in the Harvard Combined Orthopedic Surgery Program from 2006 to 2010.[5]
And he better say that to Dr. Fraudci right now!
The CEO, Jeff Lyash, was paid a recruitment and relocation incentive of nearly $1.8 million last year – raising his salary to $8.12 million in his first six months on the job, provided he stays for at least the next five years, according to regulatory filings released by TVA.