The result, argue Blevins and others, is that what began as a democratic power experiment morphed into a monopoly. "What they don't think they can do is get competitive," Blevins told the assembled power companies. "So if you don't want to get competitive and you're a monopoly, what you do is lock your customers in forever." In his view, TVA abandoned its original mandate of providing cheap electricity and failed to adequately focus on environmental programs in favor of netting billions in annual revenues and paying out enormous executive bonuses.

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