Hearing of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on the Nominations of Dennis C. Bottorff, Robert M. Duncan Sr., Susan Richardson Williams

Hearing of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on the nominations of Dennis C. Bottorff, Robert M. Duncan Sr., Susan Richardson Williams, Bill Samson, Howard Thrailkill, Donald DePriest,
and Terrance Bracy

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I have a complete statement for which I would like to ask unanimous consent be submitted for the record.

And I want to welcome the board members. I have had the time to read the resumes of each. They are extremely qualified and I am going to be delighted to vote for them in Committee.

I will, however, Mr. Chairman, I want to tell you and Senator Frist, ask for, before we go to the floor, we need to hold for a second to take a look at some issues that have been raised to me and that I have raised with some of the other members, including the discussion I had a long time ago, some time back, with my distinguished friend from Tennessee, Senator Alexander. This legislation is great legislation. It creates a nine-member board, seven of which have to be from States served by the TVA, two may be from the outside. It is a five-member staggered board, which is exactly what you need to ensure you don't get stale and you have some continuity of knowledge, but you also have new blood.

But it does not necessarily ensure that all the people served by TVA will in fact be represented on a board of directors. Going from a three-member executive committee to a nine-member board of directors portends that the oversight that the board will provide will be much like that of the oversight of a corporation to a full time CT, CEO and its employees.

I want to submit also for the record TVA's web site, its references to my State of Georgia that are on that web site, which include the fact that 130,000 households in my State, 10 of the fastest growing counties in my State, 15,000 surfeit acres of water and 300 miles of shoreline are TVA properties in the State of Georgia. My predecessor, Zell Miller, in fact, introduced legislation a couple of years ago in anticipation of this event, trying to find a way to ensure that all the States would have, over time, representation on the TVA board since its going to a board of directors type of system.

So Mr. Chairman, I am going to ask you, in your kindness, and the leader, if they will, to discuss with me before we go to the floor on this final confirmation, ways that we can ensure that States like Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia, who are three of the seven members served by TVA who are not represented on the board might know that over time there would be a way to ensure equity of representation of those States that are served.

My desire to do this is no reflection at all on the quantity and the content of this distinguished panel. They are outstanding. I also recognize there is one other appointee left to come, but I understand that is probably going to be someone from within the four States that are represented here as well.

So on behalf of the State of Georgia that I represent and the almost half million people served in my State by the TVA, I think it is important as we go to this great mechanism of representation for TVA that we look to the future to ensure that all the citizens served are over time or in method represented equitably on the TVA board. I thank the Chairman for the time.

http://isakson.senate.gov/floor/020806epw.htm