The bill amends Section 9 of the Tennessee Valley Authority Act of 1933 to require the TVA Board to prepare a report listing the total number of management‑level employees and, for each individual earning at or above the maximum GS‑15 rate, the name, salary, and duties. The requirement targets executives and board members whose pay meets or exceeds the GS‑15 ceiling.
Crucially, the bill also creates a statutory carve‑out: salary information in that report is exempt from disclosure under 5 U.S.C. §552(b)(3) and from the Access to Congressionally Mandated Reports Act. The measure further revises language about audits and the Comptroller General’s role and makes a small conforming amendment to Section 14 of the TVA Act.Why it matters: the statute forces TVA to compile granular compensation data while simultaneously restricting public access to it, concentrating visibility with Congress and designated auditors and raising practical and legal questions about who can see what and how the information will be used.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill requires the TVA Board to produce a compensation report identifying all management‑level employees and, for those at or above the maximum rate for GS‑15, their name, salary, and duties. It makes that compensation information exempt from FOIA §552(b)(3) and the Access to Congressionally Mandated Reports Act.
Who It Affects
Directly affects TVA leadership, executives, and board members whose pay equals or exceeds the GS‑15 maximum; TVA’s corporate and legal staff who must assemble and protect the report; congressional oversight offices and the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
Why It Matters
The measure creates a split: more granular internal transparency for oversight bodies but less public transparency. It also updates GAO‑related language and statutory citations, which changes how audits and Comptroller General involvement are described in the TVA statute.
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What This Bill Actually Does
The bill rewrites the financial reporting subsection of the Tennessee Valley Authority Act to add a specific compensation report. The Board must report the total number of employees at management level or above and prepare an itemized list—by name—of employees (including executives and Board members) whose compensation equals or exceeds the maximum basic pay rate for GS‑15.
For each listed individual the Board must provide the salary and a description of duties.
At the same time the bill inserts a statutory exemption that removes the listed salary information from disclosure under 5 U.S.C. §552(b)(3) and from the obligations of the Access to Congressionally Mandated Reports Act. Practically, that means the information must be compiled and retained in the statutorily required report but the bill forecloses ordinary FOIA access and the mandate that congressionally required reports be posted and preserved under the Access Act’s public‑access rules.The measure also modernizes language in other paragraphs of Section 9 to explicitly make the Comptroller General the actor in selecting audits and to replace antiquated citations with current sections of title 31, U.S. Code.
Those edits are largely drafting and procedural: they clarify GAO/Comptroller General authority to audit but do not, on their face, expand or contract audit scope beyond existing practice.Finally, the bill contains a narrow conforming amendment to Section 14 of the TVA Act removing a trailing clause about statements of power cost. That change is technical and likely intended to tidy overlapping reporting language following the insertion of the new compensation reporting requirement.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The bill requires the TVA Board to produce a report listing the total number of management‑level employees and, for each person paid at or above the maximum GS‑15 rate, that person’s name, salary, and duties.
Salary information in that report is statutorily exempted from disclosure under 5 U.S.C. §552(b)(3) and from the Access to Congressionally Mandated Reports Act (Public Law 117‑263).
The exemption applies to information "contained in, or filed with," the report—so the statute both compels the report and restricts public access to its salary data.
The bill replaces gendered and outdated drafting in Section 9 related to audits—explicitly naming the Comptroller General as the actor and updating statutory citations to title 31 for GAO authority and audit procedures.
A conforming amendment to Section 14 removes language referencing a separate statement of the cost of power, a technical edit tied to the broader revisions in reporting duties.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Short title
Designates the act as the "Tennessee Valley Authority Salary Transparency Act." This is purely nominative but signals the bill’s policy focus on compensation reporting within the TVA statutory framework.
Creates required compensation report
Revises the opening of Section 9 to make the Board responsible for a new "report on compensation". The provision mandates a headcount of management‑level employees and an itemized list of those earning at or above the GS‑15 maximum, including each person’s name, salary, and duties. For implementation this imposes an ongoing data‑collection task on TVA human resources and financial reporting units and requires a standard for identifying who counts as "management level or above."
Explicit FOIA and Access Act exemption for salary data
Adds a new paragraph (2) making any salary information in or filed with the compensation report exempt from disclosure under FOIA §552(b)(3) and from the Access to Congressionally Mandated Reports Act. Mechanically, the bill attempts to create a statutory basis to withhold those specific data from public release, while still preserving the obligation to prepare the report. That carve‑out changes who can see the data and how it can be used, shifting primary visibility to statutory recipients and auditors rather than the public.
Modernizes GAO/Comptroller General language and statutory citations
Edits in subsections (b)–(d) replace archaic phrasing and clarify that the Comptroller General, not an unnamed official ('he'), selects audits and exercises oversight consistent with modern GAO practice. The bill replaces older citations (e.g., references to the General Accounting Office and Revised Statutes) with current sections of title 31, U.S.C. These are drafting updates that also emphasize Comptroller General control over audit selection and access procedures.
Removes an overlapping reporting clause
Strikes a trailing clause in Section 14 referring to a separate statement of the cost of power. The change appears technical and likely intended to avoid duplication or inconsistency between Section 9’s financial reporting regime and Section 14’s reporting language after the new compensation reporting requirement is added.
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Explore Government in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Congressional oversight offices and relevant House/Senate committees — they gain a statuteually mandated, named roster of senior TVA employees with salaries and duties, improving lawmakers’ ability to perform personnel and compensation oversight without relying on FOIA requests.
- Government Accountability Office and authorized auditors — the bill’s drafting clarifies Comptroller General authority to select and conduct audits and preserves GAO access to TVA records for oversight, reducing procedural ambiguity the GAO sometimes faces when auditing federal corporations.
- Internal TVA compliance and legal teams — although they bear more work (see costs), they acquire a clear statutory framework for what compensation data to compile and retain, reducing uncertainty about whether Congress expects named salary lists.
Who Bears the Cost
- Rank‑and‑file TVA employees at management level and above — their names, salaries, and duties must be compiled into a report, exposing personal compensation details to statutory recipients even if public release is limited, with attendant privacy and security concerns.
- Journalists, researchers, and transparency advocates — the bill carves a statutory exemption that narrows public access pathways (FOIA and the Access Act), raising the cost of independent scrutiny and investigative work.
- Tennessee Valley Authority — TVA must allocate staff time and IT records work to compile, verify, and protect the required roster; legal and records‑management costs will rise as TVA creates procedures to comply and to limit disclosures consistent with the new exemptions.
- Government Accountability Office capacity — GAO and congressional oversight offices may face additional workload to review the new reports; audits and follow‑ups could require more GAO resources and prioritization decisions.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central dilemma is between internal oversight and public transparency: the bill forces the TVA to assemble a detailed, named salary roster to improve congressional and auditor visibility, but it then restricts public access to that same information—resolving one accountability problem (ensuring oversight bodies have data) while creating another (limiting independent public scrutiny and raising privacy/security questions).
The bill creates an unusual transparency paradox: it compels the TVA to produce a named, itemized compensation roster while simultaneously insulating the salary data from FOIA and Access Act release. That raises operational questions about who will receive the report in practice, how long TVA must retain it, and whether congressional staff, GAO, or other named recipients can or will share portions of the data.
The statute does not specify delivery procedures, retention periods, or penalties for noncompliance, so implementation will depend on TVA practice, oversight requests, and possibly subsequent guidance or regulation.
Several definitional gaps create litigation and administrative risk. The statute requires a count of "management level or above" employees but does not define that phrase or whether political appointees, contractors, or certain categories of executives are included.
The threshold ties disclosure to the "maximum rate of basic pay for grade GS‑15," a moving target that changes with each GS pay update—there's no automatic indexing or calendar for when TVA must update thresholds. The FOIA exemption is tied to 5 U.S.C. §552(b)(3), which applies where another statute explicitly prohibits disclosure; using the TVA Act to carve out this specific protection is plausible, but it will invite litigation over whether the exemption was properly drafted and whether other federal laws (Privacy Act, whistleblower protections) intersect.
Finally, the edits to GAO/Comptroller General language are largely procedural but matter in practice. Making the Comptroller General the explicit actor and modernizing cross‑references removes ambiguity about audit initiation, yet the bill does not expand GAO’s substantive subpoena or investigatory powers.
That means the measure increases the supply of compensation data to oversight bodies without clarifying how that information will be used in public accountability processes, potentially concentrating oversight inside Congress and GAO while reducing external scrutiny.
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