Tennessee Valley Authority Salary Transparency Act

The bill would amend Section 9 of the Tennessee Valley Authority Act of 1933 to require TVA to file an annual report identifying the total number of employees at the management level or above—including all executives and board members—who receive compensation at or above the maximum rate of basic pay for grade GS-15 of the General Schedule. The report would have to include those employees' names, salaries, and duties, restoring a disclosure requirement that had been eliminated under a 1995 law that sunsets many recurring federal reports. At the same time, the bill would exempt the salary information in that report from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act's exemption for matters specifically exempted by statute, and from the Access to Congressionally Mandated Reports Act, which otherwise requires such reports to be posted publicly online. It does not change any other TVA reporting, personnel, or compensation authority.

The Tennessee Valley Authority, its board members, executives, and management-level employees earning at or above the top GS-15 pay rate, and members of Congress who would receive the reinstated annual report. Members of the public and researchers seeking TVA salary data through public-records requests would also be affected, since that data would be shielded from disclosure.

Congress would regain a recurring, named accounting of highly compensated TVA personnel that had lapsed in 1995, potentially aiding oversight of executive pay at the government-owned utility. But by exempting the underlying salary data from FOIA and from mandatory online posting, the bill would keep that same information out of public view even as it reaches Congress.

TVA's Board would resume compiling the annual report required under Section 9 of the TVA Act, identifying management-level employees, executives, and board members paid at or above the maximum GS-15 rate, and submit it to Congress. Because the salary details are exempted from FOIA's statutory-exemption category and from the Access to Congressionally Mandated Reports Act, TVA would not be required to post the report's salary contents publicly online or release them in response to public-records requests, even though Congress would still receive the underlying data.