Political Quotes

“Good. Mr. President, as the world knows, the country's largest public utility is the Tennessee Valley Authority and serves 9 million customers in our seven-state region. It is enormously important to our State of Tennessee. Its CEO, Bill Johnson, announced today that he is leaving. I will have more to say about him later, but he and the Board of Directors have led TVA in an excellent direction, and it is now up to the Board of Directors to choose his successor. It is a big job. As I said, it is a $10 billion-a-year company. John Ryder, of Memphis, was nominated by President Trump 282 days ago to be one of those Directors. He has been approved by voice vote by the Environment and Public Works committee. For the last 176 days, he has been waiting for confirmation. He has the approval of the ranking Democrat on the committee, the Senator from Delaware, Mr. Carper. He has the approval of the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee, Senator Whitehouse. It is time Mr. Ryder, who is consistently named one of the finest lawyers in Memphis--he has been recognized by Business Tennessee Magazine as among the 101 Best Lawyers in Tennessee and listed in Best Lawyers since 1987. In other words, he is a well-qualified, noncontroversial nominee who is needed by the people of our region to select a successor to Bill Johnson, the CEO. The other nominees have been confirmed. The nominee from Alabama was confirmed. The nominee from Kentucky was confirmed but not the nominee from Tennessee.…”