After Senators Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty criticized the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) leadership, President Donald Trump has fired a board member.
An SEC filing shows that Michelle Moore’s appointment on TVA’s Board of Directors ended on March 27, 2025, at Trump’s direction. President Joe Biden named Moore to the board, and she was unanimously confirmed by the Senate in December 2022. Her term was set to end on May 18, 2026.
Moore grew up in LaGrange, Georgia, and now lives in Richmond, Virginia. She is the CEO of a clean energy nonprofit called Groundswell and previously worked on President Obama’s sustainability team.
The members of the nine-person board are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. They each serve a five-year term. Following Moore’s termination, five board members remain: Joe Ritch, Beth Geer, Bobby Klein, Bill Renick and Wade White. They were also nominated by Biden and confirmed along with Moore.
In the opinion piece published on March 20, Blackburn and Hagerty asked Trump and Energy Secretary Chris Wright to appoint an interim CEO to replace retiring CEO Jeff Lyash. A TVA spokesperson explained that the board decides who to hire as CEO.
During his first term, Trump fired two board members: Skip Thompson, the chair of TVA, and Richard Howorth. Thompson was appointed by Trump, while Howorth was appointed by Obama.
The TVA was created in 1933 to provide flood control, generate electricity, manufacture fertilizer, and boost economic development in the Tennessee Valley. This area includes most of Tennessee, parts of Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky and small parts of Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia.
