Dixon-Yates contract

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The Dixon-Yates contract was an agreement between two private energy companies, Middle States Utilities and the Southern Company, to build a power plant in 1953 for the Atomic Energy Commission in West Memphis, Arkansas.

The contract was named after its two signatories: Edgar Dixon, the president of Middle States Utilities, and Eugene Yates the Chairman of the Board of the Southern.

The Dixon-Yates contract caused a political scandal. The administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower tried to limit the scope of the Tennessee Valley Authority by allowing the contract to go through at the expense of a steam power plant built with public money for the TVA. In 1954 and 1955, Congressional committee hearings were held investigating government involvement in granting a no-competition contract.