John Rich is grateful for the current administration’s help.
The country singer told Fox News Digital about his battle with the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), which inspired his new single, “The Devil & the TVA.”
The 51-year-old explained that the TVA was established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and it only answers to the president, “so senators, congressmen, governors, mayors, and definitely the general public has no sway over the TVA at all.”
He said there’s a long history of the TVA allegedly coming into “communities and towns and just ransacking these places – eminent domain, taking everybody’s land and building these monstrous projects. And so this started happening in my home county of Cheatham County, Tennessee.”
According to Rich, the TVA allegedly has a task force that tells homeowners, “‘Hey, we’re coming on your land whether you like it or not,’ which steps all over the Fourth Amendment and a lot of other rights that Americans have. And so, when I learned that’s what they were doing, and I actually saw a video of that exact thing happening to an 88-year-old woman in Cheatham County, that’s when I decided to enter this fight.”
The Tennessee Valley Authority is a federally owned corporation that manages flood control, electric power, economic development and conservation.
Last fall, the TVA told FOX 17 in a statement: “TVA filed condemnation proceedings related to potential transmission lines that TVA may locate on these properties, and the Federal Judge overseeing the cases issued Orders of Possession. These orders immediately authorize TVA to enter the properties for the purpose of conducting surveys. The landowners’ objections do not bar TVA’s authorization to access the properties pursuant to the court’s orders, nor does authorization hinge on further activity in the lawsuits.”
In July, the public utility said Cheatham County is no longer the preferred site for its natural gas power plant.
Fox News Digital has reached out to the TVA and to the White House for comment.
“I think one great thing about this particular Trump administration is they are paying attention,” he continued. “They are listening to voters. They are following what’s happening in the news, even on social media … And if they see something really bad going down, they engage.”
As an example, he said when he told Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins the TVA was planning to tear up 6,000 acres of farmland in the county, she was shocked.
“She goes, ‘Yeah, I don’t think so. And that’s my jurisdiction, farming, agriculture.’ And so, she stepped in, good for her, she’s a hero,” he said. “I mean, she helped save almost 500 houses, five school districts in less than five miles from this plant, the main water source for two towns in that County with a 900-megawatt methane gas plant with 10 acres of lithium battery storage. Literally, I mean, you might as well drop a bomb on that county.”
Fox News Digital has reached out to Rollins for comment.
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Rich said Rollins had been alerted to the problem after he started posting interviews with residents who had been affected by the TVA, which started getting clicks on his YouTube channel, and eventually the attention of the president.
“And that’s when we actually had a fighting chance to push TVA out,” he added.
Rich said that because of the administration’s intervention, the residents of his country are celebrating and literally plan to have a parade.
“They had given up hope. They’re like ‘There’s no way you beat the TVA,’” he explained, adding that the TVA had allegedly sued more than 100 families because they wouldn’t allow them on their property. But it’s a low-income county and only around half of the residents in the county could even afford attorneys.”
“I mean, does that sound like America to you?” he asked. “Does that sound like anything our country was founded on? It doesn’t to me. And again, that’s why I decided to engage.”
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Rich said his new single is about “People power — we the people power is an actual thing.”
He wants low- and middle-income people to know it’s possible to go up against a multi-billion-dollar entity and win.
Going back to the Trump administration, Rich said he doesn’t know how anyone could have made more progress than Trump in his first eight months.
“And again, I think a lot of that is due to the engagement level of his cabinet, of Trump himself and of his Cabinet,” Rich said. “You know, when you see live Cabinet meetings and everybody’s sitting in a room, I think he’s done six or seven of them so far, and he just goes around the table, what have you done this month? Okay, tell us what you’ve done, what about you? And the whole table, have you ever seen anything like that? I haven’t. It’s because those people are patriots. They know they have a short window to get a lot of things done.”
Rich said he has been texting back and forth with the president about the TVA.
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“He’s like, ‘What is going on?’ I said, ‘It’s bad.’ ‘What’s going on down here?’ And so he weighed in on it, started firing members of the board of the TVA and is gonna replace them all. What I want to see happen is TVA to completely have to change their charter, we’re … still: ‘Go build power, go build power.’ We need power in this country, but treat American citizens like they should be treated and respect their property rights and respect their constitutional rights.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
