In his latest effort to boost the coal business — and in the process help a major supporter — President Trump has called on the Tennessee Valley Authority to, essentially, ignore the advice of its staff and keep a large coal-fired power plant operating.
The move has drawn extra scrutiny because that plant buys coal from a company headed by a large campaign donor to Trump, Murray Energy Corp. Chairman, President and CEO Robert Murray.
The facility at issue is the last remaining unit at
TVA's Paradise Fossil Plant in Western Kentucky.
In an
environmental assessment signed Monday TVA staff proposed retiring the coal-fired plant. The report says, "As a large coal unit with medium operating costs and a high forced outage rate, as well as the need for significant repairs, PAF Unit 3 does not fit current and likely future portfolio needs."
https://www.npr.org/2019/02/12/6939...llies-push-to-save-a-very-specific-coal-plant
Imagine a scenario in which an investigative reporter uncovered a secret document from the White House. The document, in this hypothetical, showed Donald Trump using the power of his office to pressure a public agency to do a favor for one of his campaign supporters, who has an obsolete coal plant, but who has the president trying to pull strings for him behind the scenes.
In this scenario, the investigative reporter would have quite a scoop. It’s the kind of story that raises questions about corruption and abuses at the highest levels.
In 2019, however, we apparently don’t need an investigative reporter to uncover such a controversial document – because Donald Trump will simply put all of this on Twitter without a whole lot of thought.
“Coal is an important part of our electricity generation mix,” the president
wrote yesterday, “and [the Tennessee Valley Authority] should give serious consideration to all factors before voting to close viable power plants, like Paradise #3 in Kentucky!”
And why, pray tell, would Trump take time out of his crushingly busy schedule to lobby the Tennessee Valley Authority in support of a single aging coal plant? Because as Politico
reported overnight, the president apparently wants to help one of his top supporters, who’s eager to keep the TVA as a customer.
[Trump’s] missive came just days before the TVA board is slated to vote on the future of Paradise Unit 3, a 49-year-old coal plant that the federally owned utility has said would be too expensive to keep operating.
The 1,150-megawatt plant gets the bulk of its coal from a subsidiary of Murray Energy, according to data from the Energy Information Administration. Robert Murray, the CEO of the mining company, is a major Trump supporter who has personally lobbied the president to take other actions to help the ailing coal industry, particularly in regions where he sells coal.
Murray is also,
the report added, “a prolific GOP donor.” His support included exceedingly generous contributions to a leading pro-Trump super PAC in 2016.
It’s a tough dynamic to defend. It’s not cost effective for the Tennessee Valley Authority to prop up an aging coal plant. Trump is lobbying the TVA to do it anyway. (Remember when it was Republican orthodoxy that the government isn’t supposed to pick winners and losers?)
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/trump-intervenes-support-coal-plant-owned-major-donor
