Page:Gary Thacker v. Tennessee Valley Authority.pdf/4

2 Congress created the TVA—a “wholly owned public corporation of the United States”—in the throes of the Great Depression to promote the Tennessee Valley’s economic development. TVA v. Hill, 437 U. S. 153, 157 (1978). In its early decades, the TVA focused on reforesting the countryside, improving farmers’ fertilization practices, and building dams on the Tennessee River. See Brief for Respondent 3. The corporation also soon began constructing new power plants for the region. And over the years, as it completed other projects, the TVA devoted more and more of its efforts to producing and selling electric power. Today, the TVA operates around 60 power plants and provides electricity to more than nine million people in seven States. See id., at 3–4. The rates it charges (along with the bonds it issues) bring in over $10 billion in annual revenues, making federal appropriations unnecessary. See ibid.; GAO, FY 2018 Financial Report of the United States Government 53 (GAO–19–294R, 2019). As even that short description may suggest, the TVA is something of a hybrid, combining traditionally governmental functions with typically commercial ones. On the one hand, the TVA possesses powers and responsibilities reserved to sovereign actors. It may, for example, “exercise the right of eminent domain” and “condemn all property” necessary to carry out its goals. 16 U. S. C. §§831c(h), (i). Similarly, it may appoint employees as “law enforcement agents” with powers to investigate crimes and make arrests. §831c–3(a); see §831c–3(b)(2). But on the other hand, much of what the TVA does could be done—no, is done routinely—by non-governmental parties. Just as the TVA produces and sells electricity in its region, privately owned power companies (e. g., Con Edison, Dominion Energy) do so in theirs. As to those commonplace commercial functions, the emphasis in the oft-used label “public corporation” rests heavily on the latter word. Hill,