Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)

By Brianna Knisley - Appalachian Voices, June 10, 2022

On June 1, more than a dozen Kingston coal ash workers and their families showed up at the Tennessee Supreme Court in Nashville. With them was an incredible showing of faith, labor and environmental justice advocates, many of whom had traveled from across the state after participating in solidarity events in advance of the hearing.

The group gathered in the lobby for a prayer led by the Rev. Gordon Myers of Memphis. There in spirit were many other workers’ families who were too sick or otherwise unable to attend. Together, they filled every seat of the Tennessee Supreme Courtroom.

They were there to watch attorneys argue over an appeal that threatens the workers’ ability to seek financial claims for the injuries they sustained while cleaning up toxic coal ash near the Kingston Fossil Plant.

Workers allege that during the six-year cleanup of the Kingston spill, supervisors told them they could eat a pound of coal ash a day without harm. Supervisors even destroyed respirators and masks that their employees brought to the work site. Since the Kingston coal ash spill in 2008, which was the largest industrial disaster in US history, nearly 60 workers have died and hundreds more are sick.

On one side of the courtroom was counsel for Jacobs Engineering, the contractor hired by the Tennessee Valley Authority to lead the years-long cleanup that involved more than 900 workers. Jacobs has already been found guilty by a federal court of failure to exercise reasonable care in keeping the workers safe.

This hearing dealt with one of the contractor’s recent appeals — Jacobs’ claim that the Kingston workers should have to prove silica-specific injuries like pulmonary fibrosis in order to seek damages because of a state law called the Tennessee Silica Claims Priorities Act.

The workers’ counsel argued that because their clients were seeking claims for injuries caused by other harmful coal-ash constituents such as mercury, arsenic and lead, the TSCPA should not apply. Though the five Supreme Court justices asked discerning questions during the hearing, a ruling is not expected for weeks or even months.

Waiting is something the workers and their community allies have become accustomed to, but never has it been done idly.

By Thomas Hanna, Johanna Bozuwa, and Raj Rao - The Climate and Community Project, April 2022

Publicly and cooperatively owned electric utilities (community utilities) have the potential to demonstrate what an equitable, clean energy system looks like in the United States. They could become powerful “anchor institutions” in their community by grounding their decisions in democratic governance and community partnership, affordable energy and community wealth building, and access to renewable energy.

The United States urgently needs to transition off of fossil fuels and onto clean sources of energy (especially renewable energy) to maintain a livable climate. As of 2020, only around 20% of US electricity generation is from renewable energy sources. Energy utilities – the companies that run our power systems – have enormous control over the scope and scale of the transition, but have often dragged their feet or even fought against clean energy. Not only does their inaction imperil the very future of humanity, but it directly harms families – often Black, Indigenous, low income, or otherwise marginalized – who live in the shadow of toxic power plants. The current US energy system is dirty and expensive. 31% of households in the country have to make the choice between buying groceries or paying their energy bills. In response, communities across the country are beginning to mobilize to demand an energy transition.

We have a powerful tool to accelerate the energy transition in a way that builds community wealth and energy justice in our communities: publicly and cooperatively- owned energy utilities. In this report, we refer to these types of utilities as “community utilities” because they are owned by the local community. Around thirty percent of households in the United States get their energy from community utilities. This is no small part of our energy system. As non-profit utilities without faraway shareholders that are ultimately accountable to the local community, these utilities have the potential to be an example for what an equitable, clean, and democratic energy system could look like. Collective action and organizing to push community utilities toward the intersections of clean/ renewable energy and community development can be more tractable than in corporate utility areas because community utilities’ mandate is to provide a public good, not to maximize profits for shareholders.

Community utilities and cooperatives have a radical history. In the early days of electrification one hundred years ago, residents across the country rose up against profiteering private utilities who provided poor (or nonexistent) service at high prices by creating their own publicly and cooperatively owned utilities. In the state of Nebraska, for instance, they kicked all private utilities out of the state for good. To this day, there are no private utilities providing electricity to Nebraskan homes. This cause was, in turn, taken up by national leaders. For instance, Franklin D. Roosevelt started the Rural Electrification Administration (REA) after rural communities pushed for access to light in their regions. Before that, corporate actors didn’t want to enter rural areas because they didn’t see how they could profit from such unpopulated land. The REA program took electrification from ten to ninety percent in ten years as groups of farmers banded together to start their own electric cooperatives, run on cooperative principles. However, today some community utilities have forgotten their past and are not living up to their potential. Many still rely on fossil fuel energy and some have even pushed back against important climate resiliency approaches like rooftop solar. In some places, democratic governance structures have deteriorated (or been manipulated by powerful interests) and residents don’t even know that they actually own their utility. It is time to reignite the radical history of community utilities to herald the transition to a genuinely democratic, equitable, and clean energy system.

Download a copy of this publication here (PDF).

By Yesenia Rivera and Johanna Bozuwa - Energy Democracy Project, October 2021

Have you ever wondered who is in charge of your electricity? And why?

The People’s Utility Justice Playbook has two components:

1. a “History of Utilities” report to summarize the history of utilities for everyone to understand how our current energy system originated.
2. a “People’s Utility Justice Playbook” to expose the tactics from electric utilities that are undermining community’s efforts, so we can build our organizing strength—to not only fight back but also to build the democratic energy system for climate justice.

This is the basic information we need to fight back against energy utilities attempting to slow or stop progress toward economic and climate justice.

History of Utilities​

Electric utilities have expanded into almost every aspect of our lives to become one of the most powerful and concentrated industries on Earth. To have a better understanding of what we’re fighting against, we first need to learn about the history of energy utilities! This PDF summarizes the entire timeline and how the rise of energy democracy came about.

People's Utility Justice Playbook

In order to fight the industry-owned utilities’ tactics, we need our own strategies for combat!

We have our very own playbook sourced from energy justice activists on the ground. They suggest strategies and tactics they employ when fighting against utilities that anyone fighting against utilities could use!

Read the History (PDF).

Read the Playbook (PDF).

By Jeremy Brecher - Labor Network for Sustainability, November 2020

With the likelihood of a federal government sharply divided between Republicans and Democrats, states are likely to play an expanded role in shaping the American future. The aspirations for a Green New Deal may have support from the presidency and the House, but they are likely to be fiercely contested in the Senate and perhaps the Supreme Court. Bold action to address climate and inequality could emerge at the state level. Are there lessons we can learn from the original New Deal about the role of states in a highly conflicted era of reform?

The original New Deal of the 1930s was a national program led by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. But states played a critical role in developing the New Deal. The same could be true of tomorrow’s Green New Deal.

There is organizing for a Green New Deal in every one of the fifty states. But our federal system is often ambiguous about what can and can’t be done at a state level and how action at a state level can affect national policy and vice versa. The purpose of this discussion paper is to explore what we can learn about the role of states in the original New Deal that may shed light on the strategies, opportunities, and pitfalls for the Green New Deal of today and tomorrow.

Read the text (PDF).

By various - Science for the People, October 26, 2020

By Lydia Graves - Appalachian Voices, February 7, 2018

Dominion Energy has been eyeing far Southwest Virginia for its latest project — a giant, hydroelectric battery, also called pumped storage. The facility would use cheap or excess power to pump water into an elevated reservoir during off-peak hours. By holding the water until peak demand hours and releasing it to run turbines when energy is needed the most, electricity is effectively captured and stored.

Although using energy to pump water uphill may sound counterintuitive, this project could be a way to make our power usage more efficient. Often, pumped storage facilities reduce energy waste by using excess energy from coal or nuclear facilities, so-called baseload plants that generate the same amount of power around the clock. The world’s largest pumped storage facility is in Bath County, Virginia, and is owned by Dominion.

Local solar is best

It is critical that any project Dominion constructs in Southwest Virginia benefits local people directly by generating the power onsite using cost-effective solar, drawing from the existing workforce and maximizing local economic impacts. The two potential projects Dominion is considering in the coalfield counties are forecasted to be roughly ten times smaller than the 3,003-megawatt Bath County site, so using small, onsite solar installations would be appropriate.

Solar is now the cheapest form energy generation worldwide and employs more people in the U.S. than coal, gas and oil electrical generation combined. Solar panels at the proposed pumped storage facility would capture and store the sun’s energy until the power is needed most by customers.