Tennessee Valley Authority

TVA was one of the projects Franklin D. RooseveltFranklin D. RooseveltFranklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) was an American politician who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 to 1945, the only president elected four times; he led the country through the Great Depression and World War II and greatly expanded the federal government’s role through the New Deal.Open the full entry championed during the Great Depression; he asked Congress for “a corporation clothed with the power of government but possessed of the flexibility and initiative of a private enterprise.” On May 18, 1933, Roosevelt signed the Tennessee Valley Authority Act, with members of Congress from Tennessee, AlabamaAlabamaAlabama is a U.S. state in the Southeast on the Gulf of Mexico, with its capital at Montgomery. It was admitted to the Union on December 14, 1819, as the 22nd state, and the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted 5,024,279 residents.Open the full entry and South CarolinaSouth CarolinaSouth Carolina (officially the State of South Carolina) is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Ocean bordering Georgia and North Carolina; its capital is Columbia and its most populous city is Charleston. One of the original 13 states, it ratified the U.S. Constitution on May 23, 1788, the eighth state to do so. Its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 5,118,425.Open the full entry in attendance and Senator George Norris of Nebraska at his left shoulder.⁠[1][2]

The Act’s preamble listed improving navigation and flood control on the Tennessee River, reforestation and the proper use of marginal lands, the agricultural and industrial development of the Tennessee Valley, and the operation of government properties at and near Muscle Shoals, Alabama, for national defense. TVA used “integrated resource management,” weighing power production, navigation, flood control, malaria prevention, reforestation and erosion control against the whole picture.⁠[3][1]

A few months after its creation TVA began building its first dam, Norris Dam on the Clinch River, in 1933 and completed it in 1936. The dam, 265 feet high and 1,860 feet long, is named for Senator George Norris, who authored the legislation creating TVA; TVA lists its two units as having a summer net dependable capacity of 126 megawatts.⁠[4]

In 1935 TVA Chairman Arthur Morgan stated before Congress that “an adequate supply of electric energy comes pretty close to being a matter of national defense,” and Alcoa began buying TVA power that year.⁠[5]

After Roosevelt called for 50,000 aircraft in May 1940, aluminum production became more important. In 1941 Alcoa gave the government its Fontana property, a prime dam site, and the bill authorizing Fontana Dam was signed 10 days before Pearl Harbor. To support aluminum output TVA rushed construction of Cherokee and Douglas Dams; Cherokee was finished in 16 months, a year ahead of schedule, and Douglas in 12 months and 17 days.⁠[5]

During World War II TVA launched one of the largest hydropower construction programs in U.S. history. With the completion of Kentucky Dam in 1944 it reached the limit of hydroelectric generation, and by the end of the war it had completed a 652-mile navigation channel along the Tennessee River and become the nation’s largest electricity supplier.⁠[6][2][7]

In 1942 the Clinton Engineer Works of the Manhattan Project was set up along the Clinch River, and the government secretly built the city of Oak Ridge to produce nuclear materials. The site drew millions of kilowatts of TVA energy and lay 16 miles downstream of Norris Dam, which supplied cooling water. The Manhattan Project’s work culminated in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.⁠[5]

When demand outgrew its hydroelectric dams, TVA began building coal-fired steam plants. In 1948 a Republican-controlled Congress refused funding for a plant at New Johnsonville, Tennessee, which was funded after Democrats returned that fall; from 1950 to 1954 Congress appropriated more than $1 billion for TVA, mostly for coal-fired plants. After Republicans returned to power with Dwight D. EisenhowerDwight D. EisenhowerDwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) was an American army general and politician who served as supreme commander of Allied forces in western Europe during World War II and as the 34th president of the United States, a Republican, from 1953 to 1961.Open the full entry’s election in 1952, funding for a plant at Fulton, Tennessee, was cut. By 1955 coal had overtaken hydropower as the system’s main source, and that year the TVA Board asked Congress for authority to issue its own bonds, to be repaid from TVA revenues.⁠[7][2]

Eisenhower had called TVA “creeping socialism.” Howard Smith of Virginia, chairman of the House Rules Committee, had blocked the bill for three years; in March 1959 Representative Carl Vinson of Georgia secured an amendment limiting TVA’s power sales to the area it served on July 1, 1957, which critics called “the Fence.” House Speaker Sam Rayburn and Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. JohnsonLyndon B. JohnsonLyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) was an American politician who served Texas as a U.S. representative and senator and led the Senate Democrats, became vice president in 1961 and succeeded to the presidency on the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963, serving as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. His administration enacted the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and other “Great Society” legislation while expanding the U.S. military commitment in the Vietnam War.Open the full entry worked out the details with the President, and Senator Albert Gore of Tennessee was TVA’s staunchest backer in Congress.⁠[2]

On August 6, 1959, Eisenhower signed the amendments to the TVA Act, ending the annual appropriations fight and making TVA’s power system self-financing, with operating surpluses to repay the Treasury’s $1 billion investment plus interest. In the late 1990s congressional funding for TVA’s nonpower programs was phased out, making the agency fully self-supporting.⁠[2][7]

In the 1960s TVA began building nuclear plants to expand capacity; rising fuel costs in the 1970s and 1980s led to energy conservation efforts that helped stabilize rates; in the 1990s TVA restructured and unveiled a new clean-air strategy; and in the 2000s it returned an idled reactor to service, paved the way to finish another and launched the first green power program in the Southeast.⁠[6]

At about 1:00 a.m. on December 22, 2008, a dike failed at TVA’s Kingston Fossil Plant in Tennessee, releasing approximately 5.4 million cubic yards of coal ash over about 300 acres outside the plant’s fly ash dewatering and storage areas.⁠[8]

On May 11, 2009, EPA Region 4 and TVA entered an Administrative Order on Consent under CERCLA (Superfund); TVA led the cleanup, with EPA approving its actions in consultation with the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation. A project completion fact sheet was issued in December 2014 and the completion report was submitted on April 22, 2015.⁠[8]

As of November 2026, the TVA Board of Directors consists of Chair Mitch Graves, Chair-Elect Jeff Hagood, Art Graham, Randy Jones, Bobby Klein and Wade White.⁠[9]

Mike Skaggs has been TVA’s interim President and Chief Executive Officer since late April 2026. He has more than 40 years in the utility industry, more than 25 of them at TVA, from which he retired in January 2022 as chief operations officer; earlier he led operations and construction at Watts Bar Nuclear Plant, helping complete and start up Watts Bar Unit 2. He holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Texas Tech University and is a registered professional engineer.⁠[10]

TVA is a “corporate agency and instrumentality of the United States.” Its directors are nominated by the President of the United States and confirmed by the Senate for five-year terms; when a term expires, a director may remain until the end of the current session of Congress (typically in December) or until a successor takes office, whichever comes first.⁠[11][9]

Tennessee Valley Authority: Official website: https://www.tva.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[12]