ATLANTA – Georgia’s long-delayed medical marijuana program is about to take off, despite a spate of unresolved lawsuits from companies that lost out in the bidding for licenses.
The Georgia Access to Medical Cannabis Commission is expected to vote Jan. 25 on rules governing all aspects of the program from growing the leaf crop in greenhouses under close supervision to manufacturing low-THC cannabis oil to treat patients suffering from a variety of diseases to selling the product at a network of dispensaries across the state.
“We’ll have a big ramp-up,” said Andrew Turnage, the commission’s executive director.
The commission voted in September to award the first two of six production licenses authorized in a law the General Assembly passed in 2019.
Executives with Trulieve Georgia and Botanical Sciences LLC endorsed the proposed rules during a public hearing Aug. 18 and said they’re ready to go. Trulieve is building a production facility in Adel, while Botanical Sciences will set up shop in Glennville.
“No time should be wasted approving these rules,” Trulieve President Lisa Pinkney told the commission. “We look forward to making a difference for patients in this state.”
“No rules are perfect, but these are very good,” added Tyler Anthony, general counsel for Botanical Sciences. “They protect the public while imposing no overly burdensome compliance concerns. … They provide a great starting point for launching this industry in Georgia.”
Trulieve and Botanical Sciences were awarded Class 1 licenses under the 2019 law in September authorizing them to grow marijuana indoors in up to 100,0000 square feet of space.
It’s the four Class 2 licenses providing up to 50,000 square feet of growth space that are in limbo. Sixteen companies that were unsuccessful in bidding for those licenses filed lawsuits in 2021 claiming the selection process was unfair and arbitrary.
Georgia Rep. Alan Powell, chairman of the House Regulated Industries Committee, attempted to solve the legal logjam legislatively last year with a bill that would have increased the number of licenses to be awarded from six to 22, thus taking care of the 16 litigating companies.
“Georgia doesn’t have enough growers to be competitive,” said Powell, R-Hartwell.
But after Powell’s legislation died on the last day of the 2022 session, Gov. Brian Kemp stepped in by directing $150,000 from the Governor’s Emergency Fund to expedite hearings of the lawsuits.
Turnage said that money was used to send the legal challenges to the Georgia Office of Administrative State Hearings. Following a series of hearings last fall, an administrative law judge ruled in favor of the state in every case, he said. However, the lawsuits remain pending on appeal, he said.
“We’re disappointed with the delays,” Turnage said. “The state made every effort to follow the law.”
With the awarding of the Class 2 licenses still uncertain, Powell said he expects lawmakers will make another attempt to find a legislative solution during the session that began this month.
“The cannabis issue still needs to be fixed,” he said.
Turnage said it’s not the commission’s role either to endorse or oppose a legislative fix.
““We’re not an advocacy group. We’re a regulatory compliance agency,” he said. “We want to have adequate staffing and resources to regulate what we’ve been tasked with.”
With that in mind, the commission is requesting a $125,000 increase on top of its current $908,000 fiscal 2023 budget to move the program forward. That includes licensing the five dispensaries the original 2019 law authorized for each production licensee in addition to a sixth dispensary each will be permitted to open now that the registry of Georgia patients eligible to receive the oil has climbed above 25,000.
Trulieve Georgia initially plans to open four dispensaries in Marietta, Macon, Newnan, and Pooler, according to the company’s website.
Doing the math, allowing each of the six Class 1 and Class 2 licensees six dispensaries will mean 36 locations opening for business across Georgia. Turnage said all could be up and running within six to eight months.
With the 2019 law almost four years old, patients who qualify for cannabis oil but can’t get it legally and other program supporters have long complained about the delays in getting the drug out to market.
But Turnage said the 40-plus states that have launched medical cannabis initiatives have encountered similar delays.
“For every state that has started this program, the average is four years to get through the litigation and issue licenses,” he said. “We’re just a little bit ahead of the average.”
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – The Georgia Department of Transportation is moving forward with its first project involving a new contracting option the General Assembly authorized two years ago.
The State Transportation Board voted Thursday to proceed with a plan to replace the cables on the Talmadge Bridge in Savannah and raise the structure to more easily accommodate cargo ships calling at the Port of Savannah. The work will be done without closing the bridge to traffic, at an estimated cost of $150 million to $175 million.
The bridge was built in the late 1980s, Andrew Hoenig, construction program manager for the DOT’s Office of Alternative Delivery, told members of the board’s Program Delivery Committee.
“There have been a lot of upgrades in cable technology since then, and you also have 40 years of wear and tear and degradation on the cables,” he said.
The project will be the first the state has built using the Construction Management/General Contractor (CM/GC) model of contracting. Unlike contracts the DOT normally undertakes, the CM/GC model gets the contractor involved as the project is being designed, Hoenig said.
“It’s projects that present unique needs that would benefit from contractor involvement early in the process,” he said. “You can tailor the design to the contractors.”
While many bridge projects across the nation have involved replacing cables or creating more draft space for ships to pass underneath, combining the two tasks in the same project is a “unique approach,” Hoenig said.
The project’s initial timetable calls for the DOT to issue a request for qualifications from interested contractors in April, with a June deadline for responses. The agency then plans to release a request for proposals in August, which will be due in November.
The DOT expects to issue a notice for preconstruction services in December, with a contractor on board. When construction will begin remains uncertain.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – New Georgia House Speaker Jon Burns is taking a wait-and-see approach toward some key issues the General Assembly is being asked to consider during his first legislative session in the chamber’s top post.
Burns, R-Newington, said he’s waiting to see how a court challenge to Georgia’s 2019 abortion law plays out before deciding whether any additional anti-abortion legislation is necessary this year.
Ditto when it comes to whether lawmakers should enact a full expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act as legislative Democrats have advocated for years. The General Assembly should give fellow Republican Gov. Brian Kemp’s limited Medicaid expansion a chance before going further, Burns told reporters Thursday during his first news conference since House lawmakers elected him speaker earlier this month.
Burns also pledged to consider a proposal to eliminate general-election runoffs in Georgia, which gained momentum after U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., defeated Republican challenger Herschel Walker in November but was forced into a taxpayer-funded runoff when he failed to win a majority of the vote. Warnock won the December runoff by a larger margin.
“I’ll look forward to this discussion,” Burns said. “I have not made a decision.”
Burn did promise to give the latest proposal to overhaul the state’s decades-old k-12 student funding formula a good look, and he called further improving the delivery of mental health-care services “a front-burner issue.”
The new speaker’s predecessor, the late David Ralston, made overwhelming passage of a comprehensive mental health-care reform bill his major priority last year. Ralston died in November after an extended illness.
Burns said the House will do what it can to move forward Georgia’s bid to become a leader in the electric vehicles industry. He has rechristened the House Science and Technology Committee the Technology and Infrastructure Innovation Committee with that in mind.
“The opportunities for Georgia with [recently announced EV manufacturing plants] Rivian and Hyundai are exciting,” he said. “I’m convinced Georgia can lead the nation when it comes to technology.”
While the Georgia House and Senate have had their fair share of disagreements over the years, Burns predicted the two chambers will enjoy a smooth relationship. He pointed to the recent agreement House and Senate leaders reached to schedule the entire 40-day legislative session with a single resolution, something that hasn’t happened under the Gold Dome in memory.
“That speaks to the issue of are we going to be able to get along,” Burns said. “I think we’re going to get along well.”
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
Georgia Department of Corrections Commissioner Tyrone Oliver speaks to lawmakers on Thursday.
ATLANTA— The Georgia Department of Corrections (GDC) plans to significantly downsize the largest women’s prison in Georgia and replace most of its capacity with a new prison.
The Lee Arrendale State Prison, located in Habersham County, has a 1,476-inmate capacity. Under the latest GDC budget proposal, it would continue to operate as a much smaller 112-bed “transition center,” a minimum-security facility.
“All the employees that we have there currently will still remain employed at that facility to support that new mission,” state Commissioner of Corrections Tyrone Oliver told Georgia lawmakers Thursday.
In Arrendale’s stead, the state plans to create the McRae State Prison in Telfair County.
McRae was owned by a private prison contractor and housed federal prisoners until it closed late last year. The state reportedly purchased the facility for $130 million.
“The ladies that are at that prison [Arrendale] right now are moving to McRae as soon as we get that facility opened up,” Oliver said during state budget hearings.
“While we hate to see the downsizing of this facility, we are encouraged that Commissioner Oliver is taking steps to improve the Department of Corrections statewide,” said Rep. Victor Anderson, R-Cornelia, and Sen. Bo Hatchett, R-Cornelia, in a joint statement.
“These changes are in the governor’s proposed budget…and will be deliberated significantly [through] the House and Senate appropriations process,” added the two lawmakers, who represent the area where Arrendale is located.
The corrections department is also requesting more funding to pay for prison health and pharmacy contracts. The agency needs an additional $12 million in the amended fiscal 2023 budget and another $25.1 million for fiscal 2024, Oliver said.
The department plans to create a new corrections officer role in an effort to encourage employees to stay with the department, which, like many other state agencies, faces a workforce shortage and high turnover rates.
The new “Correctional Officer Three” job will have a starting salary of around $48,000, Oliver said.
“We have correction officer one and two [ranks]. This is creating a correctional officer three position which will provide … some upward mobility for those individuals who are not ready to seek supervisory positions,” Oliver said. “It’s creating a career track for them.”
Michael Register, director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigations, said retaining staffers is a top challenge at his agency as well. He noted that many GBI jobs require specialized training and experience, and the agency is losing many of those employees after investing in that training.
“The largest population of [employees leaving] is individuals that have worked at the agency one to five years, just in time to be fully trained, get some experience, and then they move on,” Register said. “We’ve got to find ways to … recruit the brightest and retain the brightest.”
For example, GBI faces a shortage of medical examiners. Last year, the agency completed almost 5,000 medical exams or autopsies, about a third for people who died from drug overdoses. The department faces backlogs in processing the medical examinations and in other areas.
Currently, GBI has 19 authorized positions for medical examiners, with only nine currently staffed.
GBI is attempting to fill the gaps by sponsoring visas so qualified people from outside of the United States can take up the medical examiner job, Register said. GBI has also hired physician assistants to conduct some basic exams and purchased a CT scanner to help expedite the process.
Most of the $1.2 million increase the GBI is seeking would go toward $2,000 pay raises in line with Gov. Brian Kemp’s proposed across-the-board pay increase for state employees.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – The Georgia Environmental Protection Division (EPD) launched a 60-day public comment period Thursday on an Alabama-based company’s plan to mine titanium near the Okefenokee Swamp that has drawn intense opposition.
The public comment period coincides with the EPD’s release of a draft mining land use plan submitted by Twin Pines Minerals, which is proposing a mine along Trail Ridge in Charlton County near the southeastern edge of the largest black water swamp in North America.
Jurisdiction over permitting for the project shifted back and forth last year between the state and federal governments.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers suspended the EPD’s review of the proposed mine last June. But the federal agency later agreed in an out-of-court settlement with Twin Pines to step aside and let the EPD resume its consideration of the permits, drawing a lawsuit from environmental activists.
On Thursday, the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) urged the project’s opponents to take advantage of the opportunity to comment on the plan.
“It is a critical time for the public to weigh in by sending comments opposing the Twin Pines mine that will destroy hundreds of acres of wetlands on the doorstep of the Okefenokee,” said Megan Huynh, a senior attorney in the SELC’s Georgia office.
“Beyond the state permitting process, Twin Pines cannot legally fill these wetlands — which are once again protected by the federal Clean Water Act — without a federal permit.”
“When leading independent scientists say the mine will dry up part of the swamp and pollute it with salt … one would expect [Twin Pines’] dangerous project to be rejected out of hand by Georgia’s environmental watchdog,” added Josh Mark, an environmental lawyer who led a successful fight in 1990s against a proposed DuPont mining project at the Okefenokee.
“Instead, EPD appears to have ignored this evidence and went so far as to use the wrong data set for its hydrologic analysis in order to seemingly endorse the project. This is a tragic mistake and will put Georgia’s greatest natural treasure at grave risk.”
Twin Pines officials say the mine does not threaten the environment, and the land will be restored to its original content and native vegetation after mining activity is completed. Steve Ingle, the company’s president, welcomed the public comment period.
“This is a great opportunity for people to learn the truth about what our operations will and will not do, and the absurdity of allegations that our shallow mining-to-land-reclamation process will ‘drain the swamp’ or harm it in any way,” Ingle said.
“EPD’s process has been thorough and rigorous, and our responses to their questions have been based on sound science and engineering. We will be transparent in our operations and adhere to the direction of EPD which will closely monitor our activities.”
The public comment period will include two virtual public hearings hosted by the EPD on Feb. 21 and Feb. 23 at 6 p.m.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
