The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is the largest public provider of power in the United States. It powers over 10 million people in Tennessee as well as Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Virginia.
Despite claiming to work “not for profits, but for the people,” TVA has spent years prioritizing corporate interests over the public by burdening vulnerable communities with dirty energy infrastructure that is as expensive to consumers as it is unreliable.
This situation is likely to get much worse under Trump, who has sought to stack the TVA governing board with a slate of nominees seemingly poised to do the bidding of his billionaire allies and corporate donors alike. The administration has also reinvigorated concerns over TVA’s privatization which may further raise costs, degrade services, and shrink jobs.
We have compiled summaries of several of these nominees below.
LEE BEAMAN
Lee Beaman is a Republican megadonor with deep ties to figures within the GOP establishment, like Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, as well as hard right figures like Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) and Pastor Steve Berger. Berger once said of LGBTQ+ people attending pride parades: “If I was left to myself, I’d take a baseball bat and beat the hell out of every single one of them.”
Beaman—who until 2020 was the owner of a chain of car dealerships inherited from his father—is deeply involved in local Nashville and Tennessee state politics, and has a long record of opposing public transit in Nashville, among other ventures. He is also well known in Nashville for a high-profile divorce lawsuit where his fourth wife alleged that he had threatened her with violence, asked her to watch videos of him having sexual intercourse with a sex worker as “training films,” and was addicted to pornography.
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JEFF HAGOOD
Attorney L. Jeffrey Hagood was nominated by President Donald Trump to the Tennessee Valley Authority Board of Directors in 2025. He has previously represented or been involved with athletes from the University of Tennessee facing allegations including assault, and in 2016 he appeared on a list of attorneys that the University distributed to athletes. Hagood is also a significant proponent of, and fundraiser for, Knox County Mayor and former WWE wrestler, Glenn Jacobs, who has faced state investigations into his (and his staff’s) improper use of state resources to execute work at their private residences.
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ARTHUR GRAHAM
Arthur “Art” Graham is a longtime utility regulator based in Florida who (along with the rest of the Florida Public Service Commission’s Board) has long been considered a friend of utility interests. He has routinely used his platform at the Florida Public Service Commission to serve utility companies and their executives, including by seemingly shielding an executive from public scrutiny and voting multiple times to increase utility rates, despite objections from ratepayers and PSC’s own advisory staff.
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MITCH GRAVES
Mitch Graves is a longtime healthcare executive who has been nominated by President Trump to serve on TVA’s board. Graves currently serves on the board of the Memphis Light, Gas and Water utility company, which agreed to a deal to provide power to Elon Musk’s xAI datacenter. The deal requires the utility to upgrade its capacity at a potential $760,000 cost to taxpayers and includes a nondisclosure agreement for MLGW leadership. The data center has since been accused of operating unpermitted, methane-emitting natural gas turbines and worsening the already polluted air quality in the surrounding county.
Graves’ tenure as CEO of HealthChoice, LLC, an offshoot of Methodist Healthcare, overlapped with Methodist’s alleged involvement in a multi-million dollar Medicare fraud and kickback scheme with West Cancer Center. While not accused of any wrongdoing directly, Graves was allegedly present at weekly meetings of Methodist executives. Methodist paid the DOJ a $7.25 million settlement to end its investigation, while West Cancer Center paid a $2.6 million settlement to the whistleblowers who first brought the complaint. Graves served as West Cancer’s CEO at the time of the settlement.
Mitch Graves was also an executive within the Methodist ecosystem when ProPublica found that it was employing aggressive repayment strategies against low-income patients (including its own employees) over medical debt.
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RANDALL JONES
Randy Jones is an insurance agent from Alabama who was nominated to the TVA Board of Directors in June of 2025. Other than sitting on the Guntersville Electric Board, Jones seems to have little energy experience, though does have significant connections in and across Alabama.
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