ATLANTA – Nearly 70 businesses have applied for licenses to produce low-THC cannabis oil for medical use in Georgia, the commission in charge of the state’s medical cannabis program announced Wednesday.
The companies are seeking either Class 1 or Class 2 licenses. Under legislation the General Assembly passed in 2019, Class 1 licenses will let the recipient grow marijuana indoors in up to 100,000 square feet of space.
Class 2 licenses will authorize recipients to grow an indoor crop occupying up to 50,000 square feet.
About 14,000 Georgians suffering from a list of chronic diseases eligible for treatment with medical cannabis and registered with the state will be able to receive the oil. The list of diseases that qualify patients for cannabis oil under the legislation include cancer, seizure disorders, multiple sclerosis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Crohn’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, mitochondrial disease and sickle-cell anemia.
The Georgia Access to Medical Cannabis Commission launched the license application process last November.
The commission has put an emphasis on attracting applications from businesses owned by minorities, women and/or veterans.
“Today is a great day for patients who need access to low-THC oil, and economic development for minority-, women-, and veteran-owned businesses,” said Andrew Turnage, the commission’s executive director.
The commission will announce contract awards at the end of the review process, likely in late spring or early summer. Companies then can begin to construct facilities and begin production, a process that could take six to eight months.
Once the manufacturing licenses have been awarded, the commission will develop rules and regulations for granting licenses to dispensaries that will distribute the low-THC oil to patients.
Patients and other members of the public will be able to keep track of the program’s progress and sign up for notifications by clicking on the commission’s website at www.gmcc.ga.gov.
ATLANTA – A Georgia House subcommittee approved legislation Wednesday that would prohibit local governments from adopting building codes based on the source of energy to be used.
House Bill 150, which passed 12-2 and now moves to the full House Energy, Utilities & Telecommunications Committee, has drawn fire from environmental advocates who say it would make it harder for cities and counties to push renewable energy over dirty fossil fuels.
In Georgia, the cities of Atlanta, Augusta, Athens, Savannah and Clarkston have set long-term goals of converting their buildings to 100% clean energy.
“I know a carbon-free energy goal is going to be a long haul,” Neill Herring, a lobbyist for the Georgia chapter of the Sierra Club, told the subcommittee Wednesday. “[But] cities should have the right to choose.”
The two Democrats on the subcommittee who voted against the bill echoed similar arguments that the measure strikes a blow against local control.
“I may have a preference for renewable energy, but that’s not what this is about,” said Rep. Karla Drenner, D-Avondale Estates. “This is about preempting 535 cities [in Georgia] from doing what their elected people were elected to do.”
But the subcommittee’s Republicans said the concept of local control should apply to residents of cities and counties, not their elected officials.
“Many homes in my district are warmed by petroleum gas,” said Rep. Beth Camp, R-Concord. “If a municipality makes a decision to terminate a form of energy, they’re telling people what they can and can’t do in their homes.”
Rep. Bruce Williamson, R-Monroe, the bill’s chief sponsor, said nothing in the measure prohibits local governments from using tax subsidies to encourage builders to use renewable energy.
Atlanta-based Georgia Power, an affiliate of Southern Co., supports House Bill 150 as protecting its commitment to a diverse portfolio of energy supply sources, including coal, gas, nuclear power and renewable energy including solar.
Southern merged with AGL Resources – now known as Southern Company Gas – in 2016.
ATLANTA – Savannah may soon have a major film studio complex to boost its growing film and TV production industry.
The Georgia Film Academy is working with Georgia Tech to redevelop the Atlanta-based university’s Savannah campus at Jimmy DeLoach Parkway and Interstate 95 into a film production studio, Sandra Neuse, the University System of Georgia’s vice chancellor for real estate and facilities told members of the system’s Board of Regents Tuesday.
The professional education courses now offered at Tech’s Savannah satellite campus would be moved to a more central location in the city.
Film and TV production has evolved into an important component of Savannah’s economy in recent years. In 2019, 129 projects – including eight feature films – filmed in Savannah generated $125.6 million in direct spending and $266.3 million in total economic impact, according to the Savannah Economic Development Authority.
But Neuse said the area lacks sufficient purpose-built soundstages and production facilities. A feasibility study showed the 54-acre Georgia Tech Savannah campus would be a good location to build a studio, she said.
Georgia Tech owns an 18,000-square-foot building on the site that would be repurposed for the studio complex. The project also would include two other adjacent buildings totaling 97,000 square feet.
Under the proposal Neuse presented Tuesday, Georgia Advanced Technology Ventures (GATV) – a nonprofit affiliated with Georgia Tech – would lead a request for proposals to select a developer for the project.
GATV also would guide the relocation of Tech’s professional education program.
The project and various lease and sublease agreements needed to redevelop the property will be subject to the board’s approval.
Georgia House lawmakers rehashed a bill Tuesday aimed at pushing back the deadline when voters can request and send in absentee ballots before elections.
The bill, sponsored by state Rep. Barry Fleming, R-Harlem, originally proposed barring county elections officials from mailing out absentee ballots fewer than 10 days before an election in Georgia.
The measure was tweaked Tuesday to set the deadline for voters to hand in applications for mail-in ballots at 5 p.m. on the second-to-last Friday before Election Day and to prohibit local election officials from accepting absentee ballots after the Wednesday before an election.
The House Special Committee on Election Integrity, which Fleming chairs, passed the bill on Tuesday for a second time with the changes included. It heads back to the House leaders who decide which bills reach the floor for full votes.
Fleming said he brought the bill back to the committee after state House Minority Whip David Wilkerson, D-Powder Springs, requested the revisions so that “he could support the bill and would encourage [others to do] the same.”
Fleming’s bill is the first of more than a dozen to start facing committee votes early in the 2021 legislative session as Republican lawmakers eye changes to absentee voting and voter ID laws after Democrats gained major statewide victories during the last election cycle.
Some of those proposals were echoed in a report the Georgia Republican Party released late Monday calling for stiffer voter ID laws and to end Georgians’ ability to vote by mail without giving a reason.
Democratic leaders dismissed the report, with U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams of Atlanta – who chairs the state Democratic Party – labeling it “a last-gasp attempt by an ever-more-extreme organization that is terrified of the power of Georgia voters.”
Georgia Democrats have pledged to fight Republican-backed bills proposing limits on who and how voters can cast absentee ballots, as well as other voting-rights issues. However, the changes to Fleming’s bill appeared to satisfy some Democratic state lawmakers who voted against it last week.
“I know this is a good-faith effort,” said state Rep. Calvin Smyre, D-Columbus, the General Assembly’s longest-serving member. “I believe we’re almost there. We’re much, much closer.”
The bill’s supporters argue it would ease pressure on county elections officials who are juggling early in-person voting and Election Day preparations on top of processing absentee-ballot applications. Voters would also know their ballots arrived in the mail on time before the polls close, according to supporters.
“I think this does a lot toward protecting the integrity of those who have voted by mail before so that those ballots can be handled with a good chain of custody,” said state Rep. Chuck Martin, R-Alpharetta.
Opponents have warned the bill could spur longer lines at polling places and harm voters who requested absentee ballots weeks in advance but still had not received them in the mail by the new deadline.
Election-focused bills are taking center stage in the legislative session now underway after the 2020 election cycle saw Democrats carry Georgia in the presidential election and win both of the state’s U.S. Senate seats.
Democrats are framing Republican-sponsored election bills as attempts at voter suppression, accusing Republicans of changing the rules of the game to slow Georgia Democrats’ recent elections momentum.
Republicans have said they’re necessary to restore confidence after claims of voter fraud in the 2020 contests spurred distrust among many conservative voters in the state’s election integrity.
Joining Fleming as sponsors on the bill are House Speaker Pro Tempore Jan Jones, R-Milton; Rep. Buddy DeLoach, R-Townsend; Rep. Rick Williams, R-Milledgeville; House Regulated Industries Committee Chairman Alan Powell, R-Hartwell; and Ways and Means Committee Chairman Shaw Blackmon, R-Bonaire.
ATLANTA – Georgia tax collections continued on a strong pace last month, the state Department of Revenue reported Tuesday.
State tax revenues rose by $175.6 million last month compared to January of last year, a 7.5% increase.
Another positive showing for monthly tax receipts comes as good news to Georgia lawmakers beginning to go to work on Gov. Brian Kemp’s $27.2 billion fiscal 2022 state budget plan.
With tax revenues coming in higher than expected during the first half of the fiscal year through December, the General Assembly won’t be faced with a repeat of the $2.2 billion in spending cuts the legislature was forced to impose last year.
Individual income taxes increased by 6.3% in January, thanks largely to a 40.8% decline in tax refunds issued by the revenue agency. Net sales taxes also rose by 10.2% during the month.
Corporate income tax collections soared by 51.2% compared to January 2020, as estimated payments rose by 45.1% while refunds plummeted by 60.1%.
While state tax collection trends are looking encouraging at the present, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee warned late last month the good times aren’t likely to last.
Rep. Terry England, R-Auburn, told his House colleagues state revenues likely will get hit at tax-filing time as the Department of Revenue issues refunds to a large number of unemployed Georgians whose benefits were taxed.
