Muscle Shoals Bill

The Muscle Shoals Bill was designed to dam the Tennessee River and sell government-produced electricity in competition with citizens in private companies. Vetoed by President Herbert Hoover in 1931, Congress had drafted the bill to harness energy from the Tennessee River, but Hoover refused to lower steep tariffs or support any "socialistic" relief proposals such as the Muscle Shoals Bill.

"Using his power of veto, he destroyed the Muscle Shoals bill--a measure designated to utilize the great government property at Muscle Shoals for the cheapening of fertilizer for American agriculture and utilization of the surplus power for the benefit of people without transmission distance of the development. The power people want no yardstick which would expose their extortionate rates so Hoover killed the bill after it had been passed by both houses of congress." -Senator George W. Norris of Nebraska

The idea for the Muscle Shoals Bill would later become the basis for President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA).