President Joe Biden, joined by Vice President Kamala Harris (back), spoke on the recent spa shootings and COVID-19 federal aid at Emory University in Atlanta on March 19, 2021. (White House video)
President Joe Biden swung through Atlanta Friday in his first trip to Georgia since winning the 2020 election to show support for the Asian American community after this week’s mass shootings at local spas and to tout the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 federal relief package.
Joined by Vice President Kamala Harris, Biden canceled a planned evening rally in light of the shootings at three spas that killed eight people including six Asian women. Biden and Harris instead met with local Asian-American leaders and visited the Atlanta-based federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The slayings, admitted to by a lone white gunman, sparked nationwide calls for solidarity with the Asian American and Pacific Islander community. Speaking at Emory University, Biden called on Congress to pass federal legislation against hate crimes targeting Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.
“Hate can have no safe harbor in America,” Biden said. “It must stop, and it’s on all of us, all of us together, to make it stop.”
The president and vice president met with Asian-American state lawmakers from metro Atlanta including Reps. Marvin Lim, Bee Nguyen and Sam Park, and state Sens. Michelle Au and Sheikh Rahman. They were also slated to meet with Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and 2018 Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams.
Biden, the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry Georgia in nearly three decades, also stopped by the CDC’s headquarters near Emory to help boost morale among public-health officials who have battled COVID-19 for longer than a year now.
“We owe you a gigantic debt of gratitude,” Biden said. “And we will for a long, long, long time.”
Additionally, the president touted his signing last week of the new COVID-19 relief package that includes billions of dollars to fund COVID-19 testing and vaccine production, emergency rental assistance, extended higher unemployment benefits and $1,400 stimulus checks for most Americans.
He highlighted Georgia’s $8.3 billion share of state and local aid funds in the package plus another $4 billion to help the state’s K-12 schools reopen safely. That’s on top of a $1,600 tax credit for more than 1 million low-income Georgia families, a $27 bump in supplemental nutrition benefits per person and a roughly $1,000 earned-income tax credit for adults.
Biden also hailed Georgia as the deciding battleground state that handed Democrats control of both chambers in Congress with U.S. Sens. Jon Ossoff’s and Raphael Warnock’s recent runoff wins, which cleared the way for last week’s passage of the latest round of COVID-19 relief.
The president urged opposition to GOP-brought state legislation in the General Assembly aimed at bringing broad changes to Georgia’s absentee and early voting systems, which Republicans have framed as necessary to bolster election integrity. Democrats call the proposals attempts at voter suppression.
“We’re in a fight again,” Biden said. “It’s a fight we need because if anyone ever doubted that voting matters, Georgia just proved it did. … If anyone ever wondered whether voting can change a country, Georgia just proved it can.”
Biden also stressed Georgia under the new relief package is now eligible for $2 billion in federal payments to fully expand Medicaid coverage for low-income residents, though Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and the state’s GOP-controlled legislature have opposed that expansion due to costs.
Kemp, who did not meet with the president, lobbed criticism ahead of the visit over the aid package’s formula for apportioning funds to states based on their unemployment rates instead of population sizes, as was the case for earlier pandemic relief packages divvied out since last March.
The governor has also sought to tamp down criticism over the pace of Georgia’s COVID-19 vaccine program, which has lagged behind many other states since rolling out in mid-December but is poised for a major boost with the addition of the Johnson & Johnson-brand vaccine to weekly shipments.
Kemp’s office highlighted more than 3 million vaccines have been administered as of late Friday, of which roughly one-third have gone to Georgians ages 65 and older who are among the state’s most vulnerable populations.
“Georgia continues to make significant strides in protecting our most vulnerable citizens in the fight against COVID-19, with 72% of our seniors receiving at least one dose,” Kemp said in a statement Friday.
“This targeted, data-driven approach to prevent hospitalization and death at the hands of the virus, coupled with increases in supply from the federal government, has allowed the state to move quickly in expanding vaccination criteria.”
Groups currently eligible for COVID-19 vaccines in Georgia include all residents ages 55 and older, health-care workers, nursing home residents and staff, first responders, judges, courtroom staff and people with physical, mental and behavioral health conditions.
State officials have opened nine mass vaccination sites in Atlanta, Macon, Albany, Savannah, Columbus, Waycross and Bartow, Washington and Habersham counties.
More than 841,000 people had tested positive for COVID-19 in Georgia as of Tuesday afternoon, with more than 201,000 more reported positive antigen tests indicating likely positive results. The virus has killed 16,905 Georgians.
The cooling tower at Plant Vogtle’s Unit 3 stands in the background.
ATLANTA – The first of two new nuclear reactors being built at Georgia Power’s Plant Vogtle likely won’t go into service this November as planned, the Atlanta-based utility announced Friday.
The project could be delayed by one month or more at a cost of about $25 million for each month, Georgia Power disclosed in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The nuclear expansion at the plant south of Augusta was originally expected to cost $14 billion when the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) approved the project in 2009. The price tag has nearly doubled during the intervening years resulting primarily from the bankruptcy of Westinghouse Electric, the original prime contractor.
Georgia Power attributed the delay to “additional construction remediation work” necessary before the reactor undergoes testing and fuel loading. Originally set to occur this month, the testing has been postponed until April.
“While [Georgia Power affiliate] Southern Nuclear continues to target a November 2021 in-service date for Unit 3, the schedule is challenged and … a delay is likely,” according to the SEC filing.
Kurt Ebersbach, senior attorney for the Atlanta-based Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), said he wasn’t surprised by Friday’s announcement, considering the start date for testing has been postponed several times since last August.
He predicted the delay likely will stretch at least three months because of the time it takes to test new reactors and conduct fuel loading.
“Georgia Power customers have been paying for this project for over a decade now and were supposed to begin receiving power from it five years ago,” Ebersbach said. “These new delays mean Georgia Power shareholders will continue profiting handsomely while customers get nothing in return.”
The SELC and other opponents of the Plant Vogtle expansion have long argued Georgia Power should pursue renewable energy more aggressively and stop investing in nuclear power.
Both Georgia Power executives and members of the PSC have countered that Georgia must be able to rely on a diverse range of power-generating options to keep electric rates affordable.
Construction of Unit 3, the first nuclear reactor added to Plant Vogtle since the first two reactors went into service in 1987, is now 98% complete. The nuclear fuel assemblies for the reactor arrived on site in December.
Under the current timetable, the fourth reactor is scheduled to go into service in November of next year.
ATLANTA – Legislative Democrats and advocates for low-income Georgians say the state should spend its windfall from the latest federal COVID-19 relief bill on making a full economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.
But Republican leaders say it’s too soon to commit money the state doesn’t have.
“We got a promise, but we ain’t seen a check yet,” said Georgia Rep. Terry England, R-Auburn, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. “Until you get the cash in the bank, you don’t get too far ahead in thinking what to do with it.”
The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act President Joe Biden signed into law March 11 includes $350 billion in aid to state and local governments affected by the pandemic. Of that amount, Georgia is due to receive $8.1 billion, with $4.7 billion going to the state and the rest to cities and counties.
With state tax revenues coming in stronger than expected despite the pandemic, the $27.2 billion fiscal 2022 budget the Georgia House of Representatives passed early this month would restore 60% of $2.2 billion in spending cuts the General Assembly imposed at the height of the pandemic last June.
That’s not enough, said Danny Kanso, a senior policy analyst at the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute.
“We’re in a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic,” he said. “We have to take advantage of that federal support and use these funds to [fully] restore those cuts.”
Democrats in the General Assembly say expanding Georgia’s Medicaid program is a particularly pressing need, a step they’ve been advocating for the last decade since Congress enacted the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Only 12 states, including Georgia, have declined to expand Medicaid coverage through the 2010 law.
Rejecting a full Medicaid expansion as too costly to the state, Gov. Brian Kemp instead is pursuing a Medicaid waiver that would cover more Georgians but not as many as a full expansion. The Biden administration has rejected the waiver because it is tied to work requirements, a decision the governor is appealing.
Unlike former President Donald Trump, Biden is a big supporter of the ACA and has sweetened the incentives for Medicaid expansion. The Biden administration has increased the federal match for the program from 57% to 72% for the next two years.
With 10 rural hospitals across Georgia closing their doors during the last decade, the state should take advantage of the new offer, said state Rep. Debbie Buckner, D-Junction City.
“The federal government is giving us another chance to provide health coverage through Medicaid,” she said. “We need to do something to help rural Georgia make sure health care is out there.”
But England said it would be unwise to use the COVID-19 relief money to expand Medicaid.
“You typically don’t want to use one-time funds for recurring expenses,” he said. “You might be good for 2½ years, but what do you do after that?”
Kyle Wingfield, president and CEO of the Georgia Public Policy Foundation, said Kemp and the General Assembly could choose to put the federal money toward a number of non-recurring costs.
Options include expanding rural broadband, paying down the debt to the federal government the state has incurred from the deluge of pandemic-driven unemployment claims or further building up Georgia’s “rainy-day” reserves, he said.
“We want to look at things we can make a single expenditure on, not take this money and put the state in worse fiscal shape down the road,” Wingfield said.
Kanso said the best way the state could bring immediate relief to Georgia families that have suffered financial losses from the pandemic would be to spend the federal money as soon as possible.
“This is an enormous opportunity in a moment of dire need,” he said.
To accomplish that, Kemp would have to raise his revenue estimate for fiscal 2022, and the legislature would have to incorporate that increase into the budget.
But England said he doesn’t see that happening. For one thing, he suspects the state Department of Revenue soon will have to send out a flurry of income tax refunds to Georgians whose unemployment benefits were taxed.
“We’re running $800 million ahead now,” England said. “But there’s a good chance $500 million to $600 million of that will go back out the door.”
Even if the General Assembly doesn’t spend the federal money now, lawmakers could come back early in next winter’s legislative session and add all or part of it to the fiscal 2022 mid-year budget, Wingfield said.
“No one really knows what the rules are yet for this money,” he said. “Let’s wait and see what the rules are before we start making decisions.”
Thousands gathered outside the State Capitol to protest police brutality and racial injustice as lawmakers met for the 2020 legislative session on June 19, 2020. (Photo by Beau Evans)
Legislation to crack down on rioting protesters in Georgia that drew scorn from criminal justice advocates has been revived in the General Assembly after stalling earlier this month.
A wide-ranging measure on permitting, criminal penalties and civil liability for violent protesters and tolerant city governments was brought by Sen. Randy Robertson, R-Cataula, and faced debate March 2 in the Senate Judiciary Committee but didn’t get a vote.
Robertson’s proposals then were tacked into a different bill sponsored by Rep. Dave Belton, R-Buckhead, that originally just dealt with educational courses for driver’s licenses. The overhauled bill with Robertson’s proposals cleared the Senate Public Safety Committee by a 5-3 vote on Thursday.
Robertson, who is a retired major with the Muscogee County Sheriff’s Office, said his measure came in response to riots seen at times during protests last summer against police brutality and racial injustice, as well as the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol by supporters of former President Donald Trump.
“We are discussing only unlawful assemblies,” Robertson said at Thursday’s hearing. “We are in no way trying to limit or prevent any group from having a peaceful assembly or peaceful protest.”
Robertson’s measure, called the “Safe Communities Act of 2021,” would make it a felony with fines and prison time to commit violent acts in gatherings of seven people or more, block a highway or road and deface public structures like monuments or cemeteries.
It would also hold city and county governments liable in civil court for interfering in a police agency’s protest enforcement, require permits for protests and rallies, block local officials from reducing police budgets by 30% or more in a year.
Another proposal not included in the measure’s current version would have provided protections for volunteer groups like “neighborhood watches” to assist police in protest enforcement.
Opponents from several groups focused on civil liberties, free speech, criminal defense and county finances have condemned the measure on grounds it could defy free-speech constitutional rights, leave local governments open to costly lawsuits and give legal cover to vigilante and militia groups to intervene in protests.
“[Robertson’s measure] incentivizes counties and communities to crack down on protests or prevent them from occurring in the first place at all, and attempts to punish municipalities for meaningful reining-in of police when it really needs to happen, said Christopher Bruce, political director for the American Civil Liberties Union’s Georgia chapter. “We know that this tramples on our First Amendment rights.”
The bill now heads to the full Senate for a vote and would still need to pass the House of Representatives before going to the governor’s desk.
Thursday also saw the Public Safety Committee pass controversial legislation that would block city and county governments from reducing budgets for most local police agencies in Georgia by more than 5% during any five-year period.
That bill, sponsored by Rep. Houston Gaines, R-Athens, also heads to the Senate for a floor vote.
ATLANTA – First-time unemployment claims in Georgia ticked down slightly last week after increasing for two weeks in a row.
Jobless Georgians filed 24,700 initial unemployment claims last week, down 274 from the previous week, the state Department of Labor reported Thursday.
Meanwhile, the labor department has begun implementing the unemployment benefits extension included in the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief legislation President Joe Biden signed into law last week. The bill will extend weekly supplements of $300 to unemployed Americans through Sept. 6.
“This extension should be seamless for claimants currently receiving benefits,” Georgia Commissioner of Labor Mark Butler said Thursday. “However, many claimants will need to pay close attention to upcoming benefit year-ending dates and reapply for benefits accordingly.”
Butler explained that claimants who have reached the end of their benefit year – the 52-week period that begins on the Sunday of the week a new claim is filed – must reapply for benefits, a process that will require reporting additional work history.
“There has been a great deal of confusion regarding filing a new claim,” Butler said. “Claimants need to be aware that no matter what program you were part of, if you reached the end of your benefit year, you must reapply for regular UI (Unemployment Insurance) benefits to determine if you qualify for a new regular UI claim.”
Since the coronavirus pandemic took hold in Georgia a year ago, forcing businesses to close and lay off workers, the labor department has paid out more than $19.6 billion on more than 4.5 million claims, more than during the last nine years combined before the virus hit.
The job sector accounting for the most first-time unemployment claims last week in Georgia was accommodation and food services with 5,652 claims. The administrative and support services job sector was next with 2,985 claims, followed by manufacturing with 2,287.
More than 207,000 jobs listings are posted online at https://bit.ly/36EA2vk for Georgians to access. The labor department offers online resources for finding a job, building a resume and assisting with other reemployment needs.
