Wow. That's pretty huge. Good catch.

Maybe the state of Georgia will buy them.

Well, TVA no longer gets any Federal $$$. OTOH, the TVA act says TVA is a regional development agency, not a power company.

IMO, it should either go back to its mission, or be sold. There's no reason the Feds should manage a power company.

Guess which my preference is? And then guess how likely it is to happen?

FDR is currently spinning in his grave. They say it took Nixon to go to China and I suppose it takes Obama to sell the people out. Corporate whores everywhere one looks.

Not sure how I feel about all this.

I guess it would be good to get them off the fence re. whether they want to be a government agency when it's convenient or a private corporation when it's more convenient.

I'm not sure if they have "achieved their original objectives," though. Still a lot of poverty and lack of economic development in the TVA region. On the other hand, should that even be their role?

As far as their environmental role, that's a pretty big deal. They're bad enough operating under the government's thumb. How much worse will it get when quarterly profits drive everything?

Also, I'm confused about the part where TVA is self sustaining but they are also a load on the federal deficit. So this is just an accounting thing to move their debt off the books, or what?

P.S. Are TVA's bonds backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government? Would people still buy them if they weren't?

EDIT: The answer to the first question is "no": TVA debt securities are not obligations of the U.S. government and do not carry a government guarantee.

P.P.S. Who would want to buy them and take on all that debt?

Duke Energy serves 7.2 million customers and has about $41 billion in debt and $19.2 billion in revenues. Duke's market cap is $51.6 billion.

TVA serves 9 million customers and has about $24 billion in debt and $11.2 billion in revenues (more than half of it in Tennessee).

(Clearly free market enterprises are more efficient!)

Guess this will teach Corker and Alexander not to block his board nominees.

P.S Nice scoop gonzone. Judging from timestamps, local media read it here first.

Alexander pissed, calls for big federal government program to keep providing essential services at low cost.

(link...)

True that TVA debt is technically not a U.S. obligation and not guaranteed by U.S., but there has been a perception that U.S. would in fact step in anyway to protect bondholders if need be.

Also true that raising TVA's $30B debt ceiling (which i believe would take act of Congress) would technically not add to U.S. debt. So you can question Obama's statement about TVA having an "impact to the Federal deficit." Although possibly there might be an indirect impact since i think TVA still does owe money to the U.S. from long ago and the worse financial shape TVA gets in the less likely it can pay that back.

As to TVA having become more or less just an electric utility, there is at least theoretically still some value in having it be a quasi-govt entity rather than investor owned. Part of the intent from way back when was to have TVA be a "yardstick" or benchmark to help show the price at which electricity could be produced and marketed, so as to help keep investor owned utilities in line. That might still be a useful function if you If you could sort through all the accounting apples to oranges complexities.

I haven't been working in government for several years (probably a good thing for me and for government) but I will say this: TVA was terrific partner in economic development. Every time there was a prospect, TVA would be at the table, doing what they could to help make the deal work.

seeing how he was asleep at the switch while the bulk of the good paying jobs and the bulk of the operations of TVA mysteriously moved right out of Knoxville and the 2nd Congressional District right downstream to downtown Chattanooga and the heart of the 3rd District.

There are no empty towers in downtown Chattanooga as monuments to the TVA that was.

Has there been any discussion about what will happen to the nuclear plants?

Big Time. Note in last week's NS that the mediation of the lawsuits against TVA's coal ash spill are now being given XXX amount more days to come to an agreement...tells it all. TVA stopped being a responsible 'power company' when it was taken over by the Coal industry, the 'American Coal Ash Association' and the Nuclear power conglomerate. Kilgore was paid $6 million for all he "did to help TVA get past the worst national disaster in America after Katrina". And he did it by refusing to help the VICTIMS.
How many of its 13 nuke plants are fully operational? Poor ole Alexander wants our government to help fund 100 more just like TVA's because 'wind power would ruin his view of the Smokies'. If I did not misread a tiny article months ago, any solar company that wants to start up operation as a 'power source' has to get "TVA's permission".
And for years, TVA has been bipolar about whether or not it is operating as a Federal Agency. That depends on whether it wanted to be inspected and regulated (never, of course), or whether it wanted to be just a little ole private entity with the power to choose its own Board members.
What about that tiny County in Alabama where it shipped all that coal ash, toxic sludge? How many down there are now sick? Where did it ever decide to ship the nuke waste from the nuke plants, one never completed, one perpetually "offline", etc??
It definitely will be a good thing for the Federal government to shed its connection to TVA.

Selling TVA would be an invitation to developers everywhere to acquire and develop thousands of acres of public land and shoreline now managed by TVA. I think it's a terrible idea.

Submitted by Mike Cohen on Wed, 2013/04/10 - 4:44pm.

I haven't been working in government for several years (probably a good thing for me and for government) but I will say this: TVA was terrific partner in economic development. Every time there was a prospect, TVA would be at the table, doing what they could to help make the deal work.

I bet ALCOA would disagree with this statement.

I think Goldwater is still alive and well!

With TVA gone, all the local utilities would become easy prey to the large retail power companies. Under TVA, they're pretty secure.