Power for the people? The John H. Kerr Dam and federal hydropower policy in the Southeast (Virginia)

The fight over electricity from Kerr Dam, on the Roanoke River in Virginia, produced the defining moment in the establishment of federal hydroelectric power sales policy in the Southeast. From the mid 1940s to mid 1950s, private enterprise attempted to limit federal activity in the electric utility industry by acquiring federal hydroelectricity. They failed. The outcome of the fight instead confirmed the preference principle, the idea that public agencies, rural electric cooperatives and municipalities should have the first right to purchase hydroelectric power generated at federal dams.; Given the establishment of liberal power policies elsewhere in the country, confirmation of the preference principle in the Southeast may appear anticlimactic. However, the conditions and timing of the power fight in the Southeast made that region the ideal starting point for a campaign against federal involvement in the electric utility industry. The preexistence of a widespread privately owned transmission system meant the government would duplicate facilities if it sought to transmit power. Republicans and southern Democrats opposed such government action during the Truman administration. The administration instead obtained an agreement with a private company to transmit Kerr Dam power to preference customers. After Dwight D. Eisenhower assumed office in 1953, his Interior Department personnel sought to undermine liberal power policies. In the Southeast they attempted to coerce preference customers to give up their rights in proposed contracts with private utilities. Preference customers refused to accept Interior's position. As the fight continued, public power gained support inside and outside of Congress. Finally, in 1955 a legal opinion by Attorney General Herbert Brownell undermined the administration's position and gave victory to preference customers throughout the Southeast.; The public versus private power fight in the Southeast was critical to the federal power program. Had the Eisenhower administration succeeded in its efforts it would have removed the keystone of the federal power program, the preference principle. Private power companies would have gradually all the benefits of federal dams. By upholding the preference principle in the Southeast the public power victory at Kerr Dam legitimated the idea nationwide and secured it against opposition for almost twenty years.