By JONATHAN MATTISE, Associated Press

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The nation’s largest public utility says it now would prefer to keep operating two coal-fired power plants it had planned to shutter, changing course before a meeting of its board, which has a majority of members picked by the coal-friendly Trump administration.

In new filings, the Tennessee Valley Authority’s signaled that it wants to ditch closure dates for the Kingston Fossil Plant and Cumberland Fossil Plant in Tennessee, which would require further action from its board. The new plan would still include introducing natural gas-fired plants at both locations.

TVA had intended to shutter its remaining, aging coal plants by 2035 in an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that spur climate change. But the utility, which partners with local power companies to serve roughly 10 million people in seven states, said it is rethinking the coal plant closures because of regulatory changes and increasing demand for electricity.

“As power demand grows, TVA is looking at every option to bolster our generating fleet to continue providing affordable, reliable electricity to our 10 million customers, create jobs and help communities thrive,” TVA spokesperson Scott Brooks said in a statement Tuesday.

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But several clean energy groups said extending the coal plants would raise serious questions about TVA’s decision-making process, since the utility has said more natural gas plants were needed to retire polluting coal plants.

“Without even a public meeting, TVA is telling the people who live near these coal plants that they will breathe in toxic pollution from not one, but two major power plants for the foreseeable future,” Gabi Lichtenstein, Tennessee Program Coordinator for Appalachian Voices, said in a news release. “This decision is salt in the wound after ignoring widespread calls for cleaner, cheaper replacements for the Kingston and Cumberland coal plants.”

President Donald Trump fired enough TVA board members picked by his predecessor to leave the utility without a quorum. Without one, the board could only take actions needed for ongoing operations, not to jump into new areas of activity, start new programs or change the utility’s existing direction.

Trump then signed executive orders aimed at helping the coal industry. Last May, TVA’s president and CEO, Don Moul, told investors that the utility would reevaluate the lifespan of its coal plants, saying officials were evaluating Trump’s executive orders.

The U.S. Senate confirmed four Trump board nominees in December. With the quorum restored, TVA’s board is scheduled to meet Wednesday in Kentucky.

TVA had already faced advocates’ criticisms for planning to open more natural gas plants as the utility was winding down its fleet of coal plants, instead of more quickly moving away from fossil fuels and into solar and other renewables.

TVA’s goal for years has been an 80% reduction in carbon emissions by 2035 over 2005 levels, and net-zero emissions by 2050, with a heavy emphasis on nuclear power and hopes for next-generation reactors. Biden had gone further, calling for a carbon-pollution-free energy sector by 2035.

Clean energy groups have noted that the rapid building of data centers that support artificial intelligence is partly to blame for growing power demand. In an investors call last week, TVA President and CEO Don Moul said data center demand grew to 18% of its industrial load in 2025, and by 2030, the utility expects it to double across the service region. Moul said the fairness of new data center pay rates is a priority for TVA.

Under a 2024 final decision, TVA planned for a 1,500-megawatt natural gas facility with 4 megawatts of solar and 100 megawatts of battery storage at the Kingston Fossil Plant, a 2,470-megawatt coal plant finished in 1955, and the site of a massive 2008 coal ash spill. The coal plant was slated to close and the gas plant to come online by the end of 2027.

The new proposal would keep the coal, gas and battery, but drop the solar.

In a 2023 decision, TVA planned to mothball its two-unit Cumberland coal plant in two stages — one, by the end of 2026, to be replaced this year by the 1,450-megawatt natural gas plant; and the second, shuttered by the end of 2028, with options open on its replacement. The 2,470-megawatt Cumberland coal plant, completed in 1973, is the largest generating asset in TVA’s fleet.

Trump tussled with TVA during his first term, including when he opposed a coal plant closure. Ultimately, in 2019 the board still voted to close the Paradise Fossil Plant in Kentucky. Its last towers were demolished in 2024.

In 2020, Trump fired the former TVA board chairman and another board member and drove TVA to reverse course on hiring foreign labor for information technology jobs. He also criticized the pay scale for the CEO at the time, which was $7.3 million for the 2020 budget year and topped $10.5 million for 2024. TVA stressed that it doesn’t receive federal taxpayer money and instead is funded by electricity customers, and that the CEO pay fell in the bottom quartile of the power industry.

By ERIC TUCKER, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican lawmakers decried Tuesday what they said were invasive tactics in the investigation of President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, pressing representatives from leading telecommunications companies about their role in providing prosecutors with phone records of certain sitting members of Congress.

“I think what you’ve done here is outrageous. And I think the implications for the privacy of the American people are absolutely appalling,” said Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, who was among the Republicans in Congress whose records were accessed by prosecutors as they examined contacts between the president and allies on Capitol Hill.

Lawyers for the companies defended their actions at a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing, stressing they had followed the law by turning over records under a subpoena even as they also acknowledged that more could be done to respect lawmakers’ expectations of privacy.

“We were compelled to provide this information under the law, and we complied. No matter who is the target of a subpoena Verizon cannot ignore a valid legal demand or a court order,” said Chris Miller, the senior vice president and general counsel of Verizon’s consumer group. “But our processes could have been better suited to meet what was a new and unique set of circumstances for us, and for other companies.”

David R. McAtee, right, senior executive vice president and general counsel for AT&T, testifies during a Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law hearing to examine Arctic Frost accountability, focusing on oversight of telecommunications carriers on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Nathan Howard)

Fallout from the subpoenas

The hearing afforded Republican lawmakers their first opportunity to confront phone company representatives over the revelation that special counsel Jack Smith’s team obtained the records of Republican lawmakers whom Trump was imploring on Jan. 6, 2021 to halt the congressional certification of his election loss to Democrat Joe Biden. The records showed when the calls were placed and how long they lasted but did not capture the content of the conversations.

All told, subpoenas were issued for phone records of 20 current or former Republican members of Congress, said Sen. Chuck Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Democrats called the Republican outrage misplaced in light of the violence of Jan. 6, when pro-Trump rioters stormed the Capitol, and noted that the tactic used by Smith was standard in criminal investigations and was understandable in this instance given Trump’s efforts to reach lawmakers.

“Let me start by rejecting the notion that the Department of Justice’s investigation into the attack on the Capitol was worse than the attack on the Capitol,” said Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.

That point was echoed by Mike Romano, a former Justice Department prosecutor who helped oversee prosecutions of Capitol rioters.

“When I first first learned of this hearing, I was surprised. I was surprised because from my perspective as a long-serving federal prosecutor, there is nothing remotely scandalous or controversial about the collection of toll records,” Romano said.

He added: “I understand that some of you had your records collected and are unhappy about that, and that’s understandable. Nobody enjoys having the government collect their information. But apart from that, I’m happy to say you were not harmed.”

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Companies defend their actions

Lawyers for the telecommunications companies stressed that the Smith subpoenas were treated like the hundreds of thousands of similar demands they receive from law enforcement each year. They also noted that the subpoenas from Smith’s team offered limited information and context.

Miller, the Verizon representative, testified that the subpoenas his company received “did not include any names or any other information identifying these numbers as belonging” to members of Congress and that a non-disclosure order from a judge barred the company from alerting the targeted lawmakers.

A representative for T-Mobile similarly said none of the subpoenas the company fielded sought records from Senate business lines.

Two subpoenas in January 2023 to AT&T sought records about a personal account, listed only a phone number and gave no indication that the requested information involved members of Congress, said David McAtee, a senior executive vice president and general counsel. The records were provided.

In a separate instance, the company’s legal team responded to a subpoena from prosecutors by demanding information from Smith’s team about how a legal protection afformed to lawmakers, known as the Constitution’s “speech or debate” clause, might apply, McAtee said.

“The special counsel’s office never responded to that email — at least not substantively — and ultimately the office abandoned the subpoena and no records were produced,” he said.

He said the company was working on a process that it would allow it to identify all phone numbers associated with a given member of Congress and not just the official numbers.

And Miller said Verizon was instituting a series of changes, including ensuring that senior company of leadership is notified before information on members of Congress is disclosed. The company will also notify a lawmaker, when possible, that their information is being sought — and will challenge any non-disclosure order that prevents them doing so, Miller said.

By KATE BRUMBACK and ERIC TUCKER, Associated Press

ATLANTA (AP) — An FBI search of the elections hub in Fulton County, Georgia, is part of an investigation into possible “deficiencies or defects” in the vote count in the 2020 contest lost by President Donald Trump, according to an affidavit unsealed Tuesday.

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The allegations outlined in the affidavit are largely based on claims that have long been made by people who assert that there was fraud in the 2020 election.

Audits, state officials, courts and Trump’s own former attorney general have rejected the idea that there was widespread fraud in the 2020 election that could have altered the outcome.

This is a developing story; check back for updates.

By SEUNG MIN KIM, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House says President Donald Trump has the right to amend a permit for a new bridge between Canada and Michigan, prolonging the latest dispute between the U.S. and its northern neighbor hours after its prime minister signaled there could be a detente.

The Gordie Howe International Bridge, which would connect Ontario and Michigan, would be a vital economic artery between the two countries and is scheduled to open in early 2026. But Trump has now threatened to block the bridge from being opened, calling for Canada to agree to a litany of unspecified demands as the two nations prepare to renegotiate a sprawling trade pact later this year.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said earlier Tuesday that he spoke with Trump and expressed confidence that the spat would be resolved. But a White House official later Tuesday said the ownership structure of the bridge remains unacceptable for the U.S. president.

Canada paid for the bridge, named after a Canadian-born Detroit Red Wings hockey star. Construction has been underway since 2018.

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The official said that all international infrastructure projects require a presidential permit, and that Trump would be within his right to amend that permit. The person was granted anonymity because they did not have permission to speak publicly.

“The fact that Canada will control what crosses the Gordie Howe Bridge and owns the land on both sides is unacceptable to the president,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Tuesday. “It’s also unacceptable that more of this bridge isn’t being built with more American-made materials.”

The new fight over the bridge is the latest volley in an increasingly sour relationship between the United States and Canada, particularly over trade policy. Trump has also mused publicly about acquiring Canada as the 51st U.S. state, much to the dismay of Canadians.

Following his conversation with Trump, Carney said “this is going to be resolved” and noted that he told the U.S. president that the Canadian and Michigan governments shared ownership of the bridge. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s office has also emphasized that the bridge will be operated under a joint ownership agreement between the state and Canada, even though the Canadian government paid for it.

Carney also added that U.S. steel was used in the project, which also employed U.S. workers. According to Carney, Trump told him he’ll ask the U.S. ambassador to Canada, former Michigan Rep. Pete Hoekstra, to “play a role in smoothing the conversation in and around the bridge.”

Hoekstra did not return an immediate request for comment.

“I look forward to it opening and what is particularly important is the commerce and the tourism of Canadians and Americans that go across that bridge,” Carney said.

The project was negotiated by former Michigan Republican Gov. Rick Snyder and paid for by the Canadian government to help ease congestion over the existing Ambassador Bridge and Detroit-Windsor tunnel.

Snyder wrote in an op-ed in The Detroit News on Tuesday that Trump was wrong in asserting that Canada owns both the U.S.- and Canadian sides of the Gordie Howe bridge.

“Canada and the state of Michigan are 50/50 owners of the new bridge,” Snyder wrote. “Canada was wonderful and financed the entire bridge. They will get repaid with interest from the tolls. Michigan and the United States got their half-ownership with no investment.”

The former governor also emphasized that parts of the bridge construction were exempt from “Buy America” requirements for its steel because half of the project was outside the U.S. and subsequently, U.S. law should not apply to them.

“President Trump, I would encourage you to challenge your advisers and the sources for your post to correct the information they have provided,” Snyder wrote in the op-ed. He acknowledged some trade issues with Canada, but “picking this bridge as the leverage point doesn’t seem to make the most sense given your other tools.”

Associated Press writers Joey Cappelletti in Washington and Rob Gillies in Toronto contributed to this report.