By Duncan Mansfield, The Associated Press

KNOXVILLE — Skila Harris, the first woman and only Democrat remaining on the Tennessee Valley Authority’s board of directors, is ending a nine-year term in which she promoted openness, conservation and environmental efforts at the nation’s largest public utility.

The Knoxville-based TVA, created in the 1930s to bring prosperity to an impoverished region, has always been synonymous with Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. And it’s been a target for breakup or sell-off by Republicans ever since President Dwight Eisenhower labeled it “creeping socialism” in the 1950s.

But Harris said she’s been delighted and surprised by support for environmental issues from her Republican colleagues on the board, which was expanded from three full-time directors to nine part-time directors in 2006.

“I think it is because the members of the TVA board are from the valley,” Harris, a Bowling Green, Ky., native, said Wednesday in telephone interview from her home in Washington, D.C. “They understand the contribution that TVA made to the valley and is continuing to make to the valley.”

The new directors, who include Republican National Committee Chairman Mike Duncan, have put the region’s interests ahead of partisanship, she said.

“I had reservations about it. But I have to say that this particular board has surpassed, in a positive way, all of my wishes for the institution and for myself personally.”

Harris’ nine-year term ends Sunday and she said she is not interested in seeking another five-year term under the new board system.

At her last board meeting Monday in Florence, Ala., the TVA directors will adopt the agency’s broadest environmental policy ever — embracing the concept of climate change and the need to reduce air pollution and waste and preserve water and land resources.

“ ... It almost brings me to tears, I swear,” Harris said, “because I never thought that TVA would think it important enough to spend the time and resources to come up with a statement ... that basically says this is what we believe in terms of the environment at TVA.”

TVA, which provides electricity to 8.7 million consumers in Tennessee and six surrounding states, also is reviving an energy conservation program to a level not seen since the late 1970s. It adopted a major land policy change last year that restricts shoreline development along the 652-mile Tennessee River system.

These add to a long list of initiatives Harris pursued and saw adopted, including the creation of a citizens resource stewardship council, a marina cleanup program on TVA lakes and the largest homegrown renewable energy program in the South.

Harris came to TVA with an energy management background and her own political credentials. She had worked in the Carter and Clinton administrations and was an aide to both Vice President Al Gore and his wife, Tipper.

Clinton nominated her on Gore’s suggestion along with Tupelo, Miss., Mayor Glenn McCullough, a Republican recommended by then-GOP Senate Leader Trent Lott, for two seats on the three-member TVA board.

Harris remembers being called “the girl director” during a tour of a hydroelectric dam shortly after joining.

Political expediency at the time required a nominee from each party, but nothing was written in law. It still isn’t. And after former Senate Leader Bill Frist restructured TVA management to more closely resemble a corporation, with a nine-member part-time board and new chief executive officer, the Bush administration proceeded to fill those seats with Republicans.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Rid recently held up reappointments of two Republicans on the TVA board, complaining of the “inadequacy of bipartisan representation.” Tennessee Republican Sens. Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker complained the Nevada Democrat was engaging in “partisan, playpen politics.”

Harris said she is going to stay out of it and has no intention of recommending a successor. “That is not my role,” she said.