Senator Lamar Alexander on Tuesday introduced Tennesseans and President Trump’s nominees, Beth Harwell and Brian Noland, at their confirmation hearing to serve on the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) board of directors before the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, saying they will make “excellent board members for the nation’s largest public utility.”
Senator Alexander said, “I'm delighted today to be able to introduce to this committee and to the Senate, President Trump's nominees for the TVA board -- Beth Harwell and Brian Noland.
As Subcommittee Chairman Braun indicated, TVA is a big and important institution. It's a $10 billion a year business. It serves the residents of seven states by providing reliable electricity, and a majority of those residents are in Tennessee. In my opinion, the TVA has been on a good track for the last few years. The scoreboard for TVA is in rates, and according to TVA, their residential rates are in the cheapest 25 percent of residential rates and their business rates are in the cheapest 10 percent of business rates in the country.
“I'm especially delighted that these two individuals – Beth Harwell and Brian Noland – have been nominated to serve. They’re two of our state’s most distinguished citizens.
“I have admired Beth Harwell’s leadership and style of leadership ever since she was first elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives in 1988. Her constituents liked what she did and so did her colleagues, because they eventually appointed her Speaker of the House -- the first female speaker in the history of our state. She taught at Belmont University, has been active in a variety of enterprises in Nashville, which is her hometown, and she knows Tennessee from Memphis to Mountain City, which is where 70 percent of TVA ratepayers live.
“Brian Noland is distinguished in a different way. He lives in the part of the state we call Upper East Tennessee. He's the president of East Tennessee State University – one of the five largest universities in our state, he has been the chancellor of the West Virginia Higher Education System, and he formerly was elected by his peers to serve on the Board of Directors of the American Council on Education. So he has a much-admired career in academic administration and will be a valuable asset on the board of such a large entity.”
Senator Alexander also introduced Knoxville native Katherine Crytzer, who has been nominated by the president to serve as Inspector General of the TVA.