- 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.