Minneapolis Spokesman

WATCH on the POTOMAC

By ROBERT G. SPIVACK

BY ALEX RADIN

Washington.-(From time to time during the next two months I shall invite prominent Washingtonians to write guest columns on subjects which they feel do not get adequate coverage in the daily press. Today's column is by Alex Radin, General Manager of the American Public Power Association).

TVA: MARVELS AND MYTHS-The world-famed Tennessee Valley Authority reached its 25th birthday this year. Its stormy history is a story of marvels and myths -marvels that TVA has accomplished and myths that its foes have spread across the land.

The marvels are many. TVA has turned natural resources into wealth with which the local people have raised the per capita income from 45% of the national average to 63%, solving the nation's 'economic problem No. 1' of 1933.

For the nation as a whole, TVA has made four major contributions:

1. TVA is the nation's No. 1 example of comprehensive river development. One series of dams does four main jobs-control of wrecking floods, navigation along a 627-mile channel, production of great amounts of electric power, and creation of the 'Great Lakes of the South' as a new recreation land for the nation.

2. TVA plays a vital part in national defense. TVA helped build the first atomic bomb, supplying electricity to the then-secret Oak Ridge atomic plant. TVA-produced power helped in work on the Jupiter-C missile, first to put a U.S satellite into orbit.

3. TVA Is internationally renowned, and has become a sort of shrine of democracy for free peoples over the world.

4.TVA's power system has pioneered in introducing into the power industry the philosophy of lowering rates in order to increase consumption of electric power.

In short. TVA has done for the electric industry what Henry Ford did for the automobile industry. As a result. home users of electricity in the Tennessee Valley pay only 1 1/2 cents per kilowatt-hour, as contrasted with the national average of 2 1/2 cents And because of these low rates residential users in the TVA area consume about twice as much electricity as the national average.

TVA VS PRIVATE POWER-

In spite of these marvels the myths are still being spread. The myth. for example, that TVA does not pay its way

TVA's power system actually pays all its costs of operation, including depreciation and state and local taxes. On top of that, It earns an average of 4% return on the power investment for its owner. the Federal Government.

Why then do such myths persist? In the words of Sen. Lister Hill of Alabama, only co-author of the TVA Act who is still in Congress: 'The answer is a story of the never-ending struggle between special privilege and democracy.'

Instead of profiting from TVA's low rate-high use example. the private power companies - like most monopolies - want to eliminate TVA's competitive example. and apparently they will never give up until they wipe out TVA or cripple its effectiveness.

The attitude of the private power industry is shown in its opposition to pending legislation which would permit TVA to issue bonds in the private money market to finance future power needs. Although TVA's critics have long railed against TVA's need to obtain funds from Congress, these same critics are now fighting TVA's request to issue privately-financed revenue bonds - even though those bonds would not call for one cent from the Federal Treasury and would be repaid in full by consumers of TVA power

The power industry's continuing opposition to TVA is perhaps best explained by TVA's great former chairman. Gordon R. Clapp:

The TVA is controversial because it is consequential-let it become insignificant to the public interest an agency of no particular account. and people will stop arguing about it.