ATLANTA – Gov. Brian Kemp vowed Wednesday to fulfill a pledge he made on the campaign trail by doubling down on a tax rebate the General Assembly passed last year.
Kemp, who won reelection in November, told Georgia business and political leaders he will seek another $1 billion state income tax rebate. In addition to that, he will propose a second $1 billion rebate of property taxes Georgians pay to their local governments, which should result in a check of about $500 to each taxpayer.
“This is one-time property tax relief,” the governor said during the annual Eggs & Issues breakfast the Georgia Chamber of Commerce sponsors during the first week of each legislative session. “That will help working families offset property taxes.”
This year’s round of tax relief would come from a huge $6.6 billion budget surplus the state has built up in recent years.
“Instead of spending [the surplus] on big government programs … we’re going to put it back in [taxpayers’] pockets,” Kemp said.
Kemp, who will be sworn in for a second term on Thursday, touted his administration’s economic accomplishments during his first four years in office, including nearly $50 billion in investment that has created 130,000 jobs.
The latest jobs announcement came Wednesday morning when Korean solar panel manufacturer Hanwha Qcells unveiled plans to invest $2.5 billion to expand an existing manufacturing plant in Dalton and build a new facility in Cartersville. The expansion is expected to create 2,500 jobs.
Like the Qcells announcement, many economic development projects the state landed during Kemp’s first term are generating jobs in rural Georgia. Last year alone, rural communities received an injection of $8.67 billion. Nearly all of those new jobs will pay more than the average salary in the affected county, Kemp said.
“You have economic opportunity no matter where you live,” he said.
Kemp’s tax rebate proposals are sure to get pushback from legislative Democrats and public policy groups that argue the state should use the budget surplus to improve the quality of education and health care.
“Modest, one-time payments to tax filers and property owners may provide some short-term relief,” said Danny Kanso, senior fiscal analyst for the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute. “But the state must do more to make long-lasting investments in our people by centering benefits on those experiencing the greatest levels of hardship – low- and middle-income Georgians.”
On the other side of the political spectrum, Kyle Wingfield, president and CEO of the Georgia Public Policy Foundation, said the state should accelerate a reduction in income tax rates set to take effect next year rather than lean on one-time tax relief measures.
The breakfast audience at the Georgia World Congress Center in downtown Atlanta also heard from newly elected Lt. Gov. Burt Jones and state Rep. Jon Burns, elected by House members Monday to succeed the late David Ralston as speaker of the Georgia House.
Jones said one of his top priorities will be lending support to Kemp’s plans to crack down on street gangs and repeat violent offenders.
“When people don’t feel safe about the environment they’re In, that’s bad for business,” Jones said.
Burns said he will seek to build on Ralston’s signature accomplishment from last year’s General Assembly session, passage of a comprehensive overhaul of Georgia’s mental health-care delivery system.
“It’s not a one-year deal,” Burns said of the 2022 mental health bill. “We will continue to build on that.”
Burns also announced he will create an oversight committee in the House to coordinate the work several standing committees have been doing to improve the quality of health care in Georgia. Rep. Butch Parrish, R-Swainsboro, who has focused much of his work in the House on health policy, will chair the new committee.
Wednesday’s Eggs & Issues breakfast included a video tribute to Ralston, who died in November after serving a dozen years as House speaker.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – A Korean solar panel manufacturing company announced plans Wednesday to expand an existing operation in Dalton and build a new plant in Cartersville.
The commitment of more than $2.5 billion by Hanwha Qcells, the largest-ever single investment in solar manufacturing in the United States, will create 2,500 jobs.
The project is a direct result of new solar tax credits contained in the Inflation Reduction Act a then-Democratic controlled Congress passed last summer, President Joe Biden said in a prepared statement.
“Hanwha’s Qcells investment will create thousands of good-paying jobs in Georgia, many of which won’t require a four-year degree,” Biden said. “It will bring back our supply chains so we aren’t reliant on other countries, lower the cost of clean energy, and help us combat the climate crisis. And, it will ensure that we manufacture cutting-edge solar technology here at home.”
Hanwha Qcells opened the Dalton plant in 2019, the largest solar manufacturing facility in the Western Hemisphere, generating 750 jobs. An expansion already in progress will create another 470. The new facilities in Dalton and Cartersville are expected to bring Qcells’ total Georgia workforce to more than 4,000 by the end of next year.
“I am honored to announce the growth of Qcells in Georgia for a second time in less than a year,” Gov. Brian Kemp said. “With a focus on innovation and technology, Georgia continues to set itself apart as the No.-1 state for business.”
While the federal solar tax credits ultimately were included in the broader Inflation Reduction Act, the original legislation calling for those tax credits was sponsored by U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff.
“My goal remains to make Georgia the world leader in advanced energy production,” said Ossoff, D-Ga. “That’s why I wrote and passed major legislation to bring more solar manufacturing jobs to our state … with thousands of solar jobs and billions of dollars on the way to Georgia.”
Qcells CEO Justin Lee also credited Georgia’s other senator, Democrat Raphael Warnock, for actively supporting the solar tax credits.
The Qcells expansion is just the latest clean-energy project Georgia has landed. Last year, Hyundai broke ground on a $5.5 billion electric vehicle manufacturing plant near Savannah – the largest economic development project in the state’s history – and announced a joint venture with SK On to build a $5 billion EV battery plant in the Cartersville area.
Solvay Specialty Polymers is investing nearly $1 billion in an EV-battery parts plant in Augusta, supported by a $178 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy.
FREYR, a Norwegian battery company, has announced plans to build a $2.6 billion plant in Coweta County.
In all, solar panel, EV, and battery manufacturing companies have committed to investing nearly $25 billion in Georgia since Biden took office.
“We are in the decisive decade,” said Ali Zaidi, the White House’s national climate advisor. “In this decade, we need to dramatically reduce our [carbon] emissions.”
The Qcells expansion will bring the company’s total solar panel production capacity in Georgia to 8.4 gigawatts next year.
The Qcells project will put the U.S. on track to quadruple domestic solar manufacturing capacity by the end of next year, Zaidi said. That will mean generating up to 33.5 gigawatts of solar power, enough to allow 5 million homes to switch to solar, he said.
“This is what we need to be doing to meet the moment on climate,” he said.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – A state Senate study committee is recommending some new requirements for local development authorities in Georgia and members of their governing boards.
But the panel stopped short of suggesting major reforms some lawmakers and advocates for local governments had sought.
In a 24-page report, the study committee recommended the General Assembly consider legislation imposing additional training requirements for development authority board members and directors and limiting hold-over board members to serving no more than six months beyond their expired terms.
The panel also suggested the Georgia Economic Development Association establish “best practices” to guide development authorities.
“The vast majority of concerns that have been addressed by this committee could be addressed by best practices,” Sen. Max Burns, R-Sylvania, the study committee’s chairman, said last month.
About 1,300 local government authorities have sprung up across Georgia since 1995, when the legislature passed a law authorizing cities and counties to form authorities. Of those, 575 are development authorities or downtown development authorities.
Development authorities typically play an important role in attracting job-creating economic development by offering tax breaks that lure business prospects and floating bonds to help finance projects.
But generous tax incentives packages that take tax revenue away from local governments and school districts have prompted calls for the General Assembly to tighten controls over local development authorities.
In 2018, lawmakers passed a bill requiring authorities to register with the state annually and undergo financial audits.
Last year, the legislature passed a measure capping per-diem payments to directors of development authorities in counties with populations of 550,000 or more. The bill also gave the state ethics commission jurisdiction over complaints aimed at authority directors.
However, a second bill sponsored by Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver, D-Decatur, that would have given cities, counties, and school districts the right to participate in bond validation hearings failed to gain support.
During a half dozen meetings last summer and fall, Republicans on the Senate study committee showed little appetite for letting local governments and school districts in on bond validation hearings or other significant reforms to development authorities that have been scoring major successes in creating jobs.
“I just don’t want to throw out the baby with the bath water,” then-Sen. Jeff Mullis, R-Chickamauga, who left office at the end of December, said during the panel’s final meeting last month. “Georgia is the No.-1 place to do business. I don’t want anything we do to keep us from being No. 1.”
The study committee also recommended the General Assembly authorize local legislative delegations or joint county delegations to pass local laws aimed at preventing multiple development authorities from operating in the same jurisdictions.
Witnesses who testified before the committee said overlapping authorities tend to compete for business, driving up the cost of the tax incentives they offer.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney.
ATLANTA – The Fulton County special grand jury investigating whether former President Donald Trump should be criminally prosecuted for allegedly interfering in Georgia’s 2020 election results has now delivered its final report.
But it’s not yet clear what the report says and whether it will be made public. Though the special grand jury recommended that the report be published, Fulton County Judge Robert McBurney still has to decide whether Georgia law requires a special grand jury’s report to be published.
Arguments about publishing the report are scheduled for Jan. 24, McBurney wrote in a Monday order.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis spearheaded the effort to get the special grand jury appointed. For the past nine months, grand jurors have been investigating whether Trump or others unlawfully interfered in Georgia’s 2020 election results.
“The court thanks the grand jurors for their dedication, professionalism, and significant commitment of time and attention to this important matter. It was no small sacrifice to serve,” McBurney wrote.
Willis will use the special grand jury’s findings to help decide whether to empanel a standard grand jury to consider bringing charges against Trump and/or his associates for their alleged wrongdoing surrounding the 2020 elections.
Trump pressured Georgia Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” 11,780 votes for Trump during a lengthy phone call in January 2021. Democratic President Joe Biden carried Georgia’s 16 electoral votes by a margin of 11,779.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – The Georgia House of Representatives set an example of efficiency Monday its congressional counterpart could only dream of emulating.
Lawmakers elected House Majority Leader Jon Burns, R-Newington, to move up to speaker of the House in just a single ballot and by acclamation.
Burns succeeds the late Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, who died in November at age 68 following an extended illness.
“This is a very bittersweet moment,” Burns told his House colleagues following Monday’s vote. “The passing of Speaker David Ralston has left a hole in the heart of this House.”
House members also reelected Rep. Jan Jones, R-Milton, to continue as speaker pro tempore, the second-in-command position she was first elected to in 2010. Jones took the reins temporarily as speaker after Ralston’s death, becoming the first female House speaker in Georgia history.
Burns was elected to the House in 2004. His Republican colleagues elected him majority leader in 2015.
It took the Georgia House less than an hour to get its leadership team in place, in sharp contrast with the U.S. House of Representatives, where the new Republican majority took four days and 15 ballots last week to choose U.S. Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., as House speaker.
On Monday, both Burns and Jones thanked their colleagues for their support and vowed to work with lawmakers from both parties to move the state forward.
“This House will continue to lead,” Burns said. “It will continue to be independent. … It will continue to champion the policies that make Georgia the best place to live, work, and raise a family.”
On the Senate side Monday, Sen. John Kennedy, R-Macon, was unanimously elected Senate president pro tempore, that chamber’s second-highest leadership position. Newly elected Republican Lt. Gov. Burt Jones did not preside over the Senate as he will during the remainder of the session because he won’t be sworn into office until Thursday.
“My office will be here to serve this entire chamber … whether Republican or Democrat,” Kennedy told his fellow senators. “We may not agree on all issues … but you will be treated respectfully.”
Lawmakers in both legislative chambers also voted unanimously Monday to set the schedule for the entire 40-day session. The House and Senate will take off Tuesday to allow members to return from Monday night’s college football championship game in Los Angeles featuring the Georgia Bulldogs.
The General Assembly will hold a joint session on Thursday for the inauguration of Gov. Brian Kemp to a second four-year term.
After meeting this Friday, the legislature will not meet again on Fridays throughout the session to give lawmakers more time with their families.
Crossover Day, the deadline for bills to clear at least one legislative chamber, will take place on March 6. “Sine Die,” the final day of the session, will take place on March 29.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
