- Final
Trump TVA nominee faces Senate questioning. - Senators
probe nominee’s political past, activity. - Questions
raised about professional experience relevance.
Lee Beaman, a Nashville businessman and major Republican
Party donor, could become a key decision-maker for the TVA if appointed to its
board of directors. Since Trump fired three Biden-appointed members earlier
this year, the nine-member board has been without a quorum of at least five
directors to set policy and strategy for months. With the vacancies, the board
is down to three members.
Trump can fire any member of TVA’s board. It’s up to the
Senate to approve new members.
Beaman was introduced to the United States. Both Tennessee
senators, Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty, are close allies of the president
and vocal critics of TVA’s leadership.
“He brings decades of experience in business leadership,
community service and organizational governance with him to fill this role at
the TVA,”
Blackburn said
of Beaman.
“His leadership has extended to the beverage industry, where he
spent 35 years working across Tennessee and Georgia.
The regions served by these companies that he has led
overlap closely with areas that TVA supports, giving him first-hand familiarity
with the communities, the people, the economic conditions and the operational
needs of this region.”
Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, the most senior
Democratic member of the Senate committee, stated at the hearing that Beaman
was unqualified to serve on the TVA board.
“Mr. Beaman’s prime qualifications are that he is a Trump
loyalist and 2020 election denier.
He even signed a letter urging state
legislators to appoint fake electors to the Electoral College to overturn the
election,”
Whitehouse said.
“He has a Freedom Award from the Koch-backed
Americans for Prosperity, a battleship of the fossil-fuel influence armada.
When the ask comes to raise customers’ rates by backing away from less
expensive clean energy, it’s a safe bet whose back he’ll have.”
Beaman is the final of Trump’s TVA nominations to be heard
by the United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, which
has the authority to call a full Senate vote to confirm board seats.
The other nominees Arthur Graham of Florida, Mitch Graves of
Memphis, Jeff Hagood of Knoxville, and Randall Jones of Alabama appeared before
the committee twice and were sent to the full Senate on a party-line vote. The
Senate has not scheduled a final vote on their candidacies.
Beaman’s nomination must still go through a committee vote
before being sent to the entire Senate for a final determination.
A representative for the committee’s Republican leadership
told Knox News earlier this year that Beaman was not evaluated alongside the
other four candidates because he did not submit documentation on time.
The committee’s chair, Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito
of West Virginia, questioned Beaman about nuclear energy’s prospects. Nuclear
generation accounts for around 40% of TVA’s energy mix, and the company is
considering advanced reactor construction.
“I think nuclear power generation is the main future of
power in the United States and probably around the world,”
Beaman told
Capito.
Sen. Ed Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts, praised solar
power as a low-cost energy source and asked Beaman if he would oppose plans to
privatize TVA.
‘Yes, sir,”
Beaman said, joining the four other TVA
nominees who also said they were against privatizing the utility.
“TVA is more uniquely, appropriately operated as a
government entity,”
Beaman said.
What concerns did senators raise about Lee Beaman’s
political activity?
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D- RI) blamed Beaman as a”
patriot” and” denier of the 2020 election results,” noting he
inked a letter prompting pickers to reverse the outgrowth, questioning his
equity for anon-partisan mileage board.
Whitehouse stressed Beaman’s cooperation with Koch- backed
Americans for Prosperity, professing it shows prioritization of reactionary
energy interests over TVA guests and public power authorizations. enterprises
over Beaman’s $3.7 m Capitol Hill townhouse( Crockett Ventures), used rent-free
by Speaker Mike Johnson and as a mecca for right- sect activist Steve Berger’s
unrestricted- door meetings with lawgivers like Rep. Andy Ogles, raising ethics
and crusade finance issues.
Beaman’s part as treasurer/ patron ($70k to PAC) for Ogles’
2022 crusade, amid OCE examinations into fabricated loans and ethics
violations, fueled questions on integrity.
