Tennessee Valley Authority Transparency Act of 2025
Floor Speech
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Mr. EZELL. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1373) to require certain meetings of the Tennessee Valley Authority to be transparent and open to the public, and for other purposes, as amended.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The text of the bill is as follows: H.R. 1373
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Tennessee Valley Authority Transparency Act of 2025''. SEC. 2. TRANSPARENCY AND AVAILABILITY OF MEETINGS.
Section 2(g)(2) of the Tennessee Valley Authority Act of 1933 is amended to read as follows:
``(2) Meetings.--
``(A) In general.--The Board shall meet at least 4 times each year.
``(B) Transparency.--
``(i) Open meetings.--For purposes of applying the requirements of section 552b of title 5, United States Code, to the Board, the term `meeting' shall include all deliberations of the members of the Board, a committee of the Board, and a subcommittee of the Board, including any such deliberations that are not scheduled for the purpose of taking an action that will determine or result in the joint conduct or disposition of official business of the Corporation, notwithstanding subsection (a)(2) of such section.
``(ii) Notice of meetings.--
``(I) Publication.--For purposes of section 552b of title 5, United States Code, public announcement of meetings shall include publication on the website of the Board.
``(II) Emergency meetings.--Notwithstanding section 552b(e)(1) of title 5, United States Code, the requirement to make public announcement at least one week prior to a meeting shall not apply if the chairman of the Board designates the meeting as an emergency special meeting.
``(iii) Publicly available information.--The Board shall publish on the website of the Board any information required to be disclosed or made available to the public, or publicly certified, under section 552b of title 5, United States Code.
``(iv) Exemptions.--For purposes of applying section 552b of title 5, United States Code, to any portion of a meeting of the Board, and to any information pertaining to such portion of a meeting, the Board may make a determination in accordance with such section not to disclose to the public under such section the following information:
``(I) Information containing or relating to power availability requests.
``(II) Information containing or relating to contract negotiations, including labor relations and procurement actions, the disclosure of which would imperil or compromise the competitive position of the Corporation.''.
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Mr. EZELL. 1373, as amended.
Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressmen Burchett and Cohen for their continued work in the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to make the Tennessee Valley Authority transparent for its customers. This bill is the latest in those efforts.
Specifically, this bill puts into law practices that make more meetings open to the public and ensures that minutes from those meetings are publicly available after the fact.
The bill also contains limited exceptions for meetings involving sensitive information in order to protect TVA's competitiveness and ability to carry out its mission for its customers.
Mr. Speaker, I support this legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, H.R. 1373, the TVA Transparency Act is a commonsense bill that makes Tennessee Valley Authority more transparent while ensuring it can serve its customers effectively.
Mr. Speaker, I urge support of this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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