Protect Indigenous sacred sites, teach Tennessee students about indigenous history of the state, build government-to-government partnerships with tribal nations, and return remains and sacred objects from state museums.
The word "Tennessee" comes from Tanasi, a Cherokee town on the Little Tennessee River. Before this was Tennessee, it was already home. At Red Clay, the Cherokee Nation held its last councils before removal. More than 8,000 Cherokee were held at Fort Cass before being forced west. Roughly one in four died on the journey.
To begin the process of healing from these injustices, we will strengthen legal protection for Indigenous sacred sites. We'll work with tribal nations and the State Board of Education so every Tennessee student knows Red Clay was the Cherokee Nation's last capital and that the Trail of Tears started in their state. We'll build government-to-government partnerships with the Cherokee Nation, Chickasaw Nation, and other tribes with historical ties to Tennessee. And we'll accelerate the return of remains and sacred objects held by state museums.
Tennessee's story didn't begin in 1796. Honoring the people who came before us makes our state more complete, not less.
Billions in settlement money is sitting on the table. Tennessee collects only if every water system files.
Two national PFAS settlements are already paying out to public water systems: 3M's package worth $10.3 billion and a combined Chemours, DuPont, and Corteva settlement adds $1.185 billion. Both are claims-based. The money reaches Tennessee only if every eligible water system files. We'll make sure every claim gets submitted.
Tennessee's Attorney General has already sued more than 20 PFAS manufacturers. We'll press every case to judgment or settlement and establish a Tennessee PFAS Cleanup Fund to ring-fence all recoveries, following Minnesota's model, which turned an $850 million 3M settlement into a $720 million dedicated cleanup fund.
Roughly one in five Tennesseans rely on private wells with no federal monitoring. These families have no way to know what's in their water. So our fund will pay for two things: getting PFAS firefighting foam out of Tennessee fire stations and testing and treating private wells. All of this without new taxes or existing revenue - the companies that made the chemicals pay to clean them up.
Tennessee farmers and forest landowners get paid for practices that build soil carbon, maintain tree cover, and keep nitrogen and phosphorus out of rivers and streams.
Tennessee has about 14 million acres of forestland and almost 11 million acres of farmland. Both are carbon sinks. But right now, landowners get nothing for providing that service. Three programs will change that.
We'll pay farmers to adopt regenerative agricultural practices like cover cropping, no-till, and rotational grazing, proven practices that build soil carbon while maintaining, and often improving, yields, and connect them to voluntary carbon markets for ongoing revenue. A Forest Carbon Program will pay private landowners to maintain and expand forest cover through conservation easements.
We'll also work with Tennessee to improve water quality. The Tennessee Agricultural Enhancement Program has invested more than $309 million across nearly 98,000 projects since 2005. We'll add nutrient-reduction practices as eligible cost-share categories, including cover crops, saturated buffers, and riparian plantings. Tennessee's own data attributes 85% of nitrogen and 89% of phosphorus loads to nonpoint, precipitation-driven sources. This uses an existing program farmers already trust to cut the pollution flowing into Tennessee's rivers.
Keep TVA public, and demand rigorous cost oversight on the small modular reactor Tennessee taxpayers are helping fund at Clinch River.
In Tennessee, TVA operates four nuclear reactors across two plants, generating enough clean baseload power to serve more than 4.5 million homes. TVA is also now developing a small modular reactor (SMR) at Clinch River, backed by $400 million from the Department of Energy and up to $50 million in state funds committed in the state budget. Research shows flexible nuclear operations can reduce renewable curtailment by up to 58%, meaning more of our solar actually gets used. Nuclear energy anchors our grid, and SMRs complement our renewable energy and grid modernization investments. Tennessee is already invested, but we need to get the oversight right.
We support the technology, and will insist on the accountability to keep Tennesseans safe. SMR technology carries real cost pressures, timeline risks, and ongoing risk from management of nuclear waste. We'll make sure no corners are cut because Tennessee ratepayers deserve rigorous accountability for every dollar spent.
Lastly, Tennessee Valley Authority is a public utility and must stay that way. No privatization or sell-off, unless we can transfer ownership of our grid to Tennessee itself, which could further unlock renewable energy generation at all levels in our state.
Extend the ELVIS Act's voice protections to every form of synthetic media, ban AI-driven social scoring and mass surveillance, and hold AI companies to standards when their decisions affect Tennesseans' jobs, housing, healthcare, or freedom.
Tennessee started this fight. The Ensuring Likeness, Voice, and Image Security Act was the first law protecting against AI voice cloning. But AI systems are now deciding who gets hired, who gets insured, and what your kids see online, with almost no oversight.
We'll ban social scoring, subliminal manipulation, and real-time mass surveillance. AI systems simulating relationships with children will be prohibited. When AI makes decisions about jobs, healthcare, housing, or criminal justice, we'll require impact assessments, annual audits, human oversight, and consumer notification.
AI-generated media will carry provenance markings, extending the ELVIS Act's protections to all synthetic content. Companies following the National Institute of Standards and Technology AI standards earn a rebuttable presumption of compliance. Cut corners and you're exposed. And a Tennessee AI Commission will classify systems and recommend enforcement.
Tennessee sits in the most aquatically biodiverse river system on the continent, and the federal government will pay most of the cost to protect it.
Tennessee's rivers are home to more freshwater species than almost anywhere on Earth. The Cumberland River Aquatic Center has already produced 170,990 juvenile mussels across 17 species, 11 of which are federally endangered. The constraint on saving this biodiversity is money, not capability.
We'll draw down every available dollar from the federal State Wildlife Grants program, which covers up to 75% of planning and 65% of implementation costs. Tennessee's 2025 State Wildlife Action Plan was approved by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in May 2026, unlocking that match. We'll also scale the propagation center and expand recovery across the Tennessee and Cumberland river systems.
Tennessee recycles less than almost every other state. The fund that's supposed to fix that is sitting on $24 million. Spend it.
Tennessee diverts roughly 14% of its waste, well short of its own 25% statutory goal. Middle Tennessee's last major landfill is projected to reach capacity around 2029. The state's response has been to import out-of-state garbage and site new mega-landfills on rural counties that absolutely do not want them.
We'll stop those sites from opening and spend the recycling money Tennessee already collects. The Solid Waste Management Fund took in $11.6 million in 2024 but disbursed only $8.8 million, accruing a total $24.2 million surplus sitting idle. We'll direct that money to convenience centers, recycling equipment, and organics grants in the rural counties with the worst access.
We'll also defend the Jackson Law, which givescounties and cities the right to reject new landfill proposals. A 2026 state task force is actively trying to weaken it at the waste industry's urging. We'll protect that authority and publish model host-community-agreement standards so counties consenting to host landfills stop getting shortchanged.
Publish an annual Wellbeing Report and Environmental Quality Report in plain English, showing whether Tennesseans are measurably better off than last year and at what cost to the land and water we pass on.
Tennessee's agencies produce good data, but nobody puts the whole picture together to answer the question taxpayers deserve: are Tennesseans measurably better off this year than last, and what cost to the land and water did we pass on?
We'll create a Tennessee Outcomes Commissioner under the Comptroller, with a six-year term that spans governors. The Commissioner publishes two annual reports: a Wellbeing Report tracking economic security, health, education, housing, and opportunity across all 95 counties, and an Environmental Quality Report tracking water quality, air quality, soil health, and forest cover. Both reports will be published in machine-readable format and made available to the public in plain language. A statutory cap of 30 indicators keeps the reports focused and readable.
The Governor will be expected to address the findings in the annual budget message. Transparency, not compulsion.
