ATLANTA – Nearly 1,800 children in the custody of the state of Georgia were reported missing between 2018 and last year, U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff revealed Friday.
Ossoff, D-Ga., obtained those numbers from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children as part of an investigation a Senate subcommittee he chairs launched eight months ago.
“These numbers are deeply troubling because these are more than numbers. These are children,” he said. “And according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services … children who go missing from care are left more vulnerable to human trafficking, to sexual exploitation, and to other threats to their health and safety.”
Ossoff’s remarks Friday came two days after the Senate Human Rights Subcommittee heard testimony from a Georgia mother whose two-year-old daughter was murdered after the Georgia Division of Family & Children Services (DFCS) placed her in the care of her father’s live-in girlfriend. Another young woman described her ordeal of abuse and neglect while essentially held captive in Georgia’s foster-care system.
Ossoff reported during Wednesday’s hearing that a DFCS internal audit showed the agency failed in 84% of cases brought to its attention to address risks and safety concerns.
Of 1,790 children in the care of DFCS who were reported missing, the national center’s review found some children were listed as missing repeatedly. As a result, the center documented nearly 2,500 episodes of missing children in the five-year span.
A federal law passed in 2014 requires state agencies to report a missing child to both law enforcement and the national missing children center within 24 hours of receiving information about a missing child under their care.
“This investigation is ongoing,” Ossoff said Friday. “The subcommittee is working actively to analyze data and produce additional findings. … This is about vulnerable children who deserve protection from abuse, who deserve sanctuary from neglect. And that is why I will continue relentlessly to investigate failures to protect the most vulnerable children in our state.”
Georgia Power is proposing to build new gas turbines at Plant Yates near Newnan.
ATLANTA – Georgia Power usually asks state energy regulators every three years to approve the utility’s latest plan outlining the mix of energy sources it intends to rely on for power generation during the next two decades.
But what the Atlanta-based utility describes as Georgia’s “extraordinary” economic growth is prompting Georgia Power to seek additional generating capacity less than a year and a half after the state Public Service Commission (PSC) approved its last Integrated Resource Plan (IRP).
The company submitted an IRP update to the PSC Friday proposing additional capacity to handle current projections reflecting energy growth of about 6,600 megawatts of electricity, up from about 400 megawatts Georgia Power forecasted in January of last year. A megawatt is enough electricity to power about 750 homes.
The update calls for expanding the use of renewable energy and battery storage, both sources of power generation long supported by environmental advocates. But it also proposes the construction of new gas turbines at Georgia Power’s Plant Yates in Coweta County, to the dismay of environmentalist critics.
“Georgia has continued to experience rapid economic growth since the filing of our IRP in early 2022,” said Kim Greene, Georgia Power’s chairman, president, and CEO. “Many businesses coming to the state are bringing large electrical demands at both a record scale and velocity.
“This IRP update outlines how Georgia Power can best continue supporting that historic growth while continuing to provide our customers with the clean, safe, reliable, and affordable energy they expect and deserve.”
Specifically, the IRP update includes:
construction of new solar resources to be co-located with battery energy storage systems.
expansion of Georgia Power’s battery energy storage capacity.
construction of three new gas combustion turbines at Plant Yates near Newnan.
certification of a power purchase agreement (PPA) with Mississippi Power, like Georgia Power, a subsidiary of Atlanta-based Southern Co.
certification of a PPA with Florida-based Santa Rosa Energy Center LLC for power from an existing natural gas-fired power plant.
the addition of new and expanded distributed energy resources, such as rooftop solar, and demand response programs, in which customers voluntarily agree to reduce energy use during periods of peak demand.
Potential acquisition of an additional ownership interest in an “existing generation asset” within the Southern Co. footprint. Negotiations are currently ongoing, according to Friday’s filing.
In a news release issued Friday, Georgia Power officials said the IRP update does not change the utility’s commitment to renewable energy. The utility plans to add 10,000 megawatts of new renewable resources by 2035 under the new IRP, up from the 6,000 megawatts projected in the 2022 IRP.
In keeping with last year’s IRP, Georgia Power is pursuing requests for proposals (RFPs) for both distributed generation renewable power projects and larger utility-scale projects.
The company also is working to develop, own, and operate a 265-megawatt battery storage project and plans to seek final approval from the PSC by the end of next year. Commercial operation is expected by the end of 2026.
But a lawyer for the Atlanta-based Southern Environmental Law Center said Friday the IRP update gives little more than lip service to renewable power.
Jennifer Whitfield, a senior attorney with the group, criticized the Plant Yates gas turbine project as “walking back the incremental steps” Georgia Power has taken to transition to clean energy.
“This is a bait-and-switch for companies bringing green and renewable manufacturing jobs to our state, and a financial risk to families already saddled with some of the highest power bills in the country,” she said.
Whitfield cited multiple rate increases the PSC has granted Georgia Power during the last year, including a fossil fuels cost recovery request that hiked average residential customer bills by nearly $16 per month.
“Pushing for more oil and gas is completely at odds with Georgia Power’s parent company, Southern Co.’s, goal of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050,” she said. “Georgia can and should instead meet our energy needs and customer demands by expanding clean, affordable, renewable options like solar power, battery storage, and energy savings programs.”
Georgia Power responded to such arguments in its IRP update by asserting that solar energy and battery storage alone aren’t enough.
“While energy storage resources continue to grow as a percentage of Georgia Power’s portfolio and to support renewable integration, the company cannot overly rely on short-duration storage to fully meet its capacity needs,” the utility wrote. “To serve customer load, the company needs dispatchable resources that are not inherently limited.”
ATLANTA – Crime and the economy are the most pressing concerns for the Atlanta region, the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) reported in an annual survey released Friday.
Crime topped the 2023 Metro Atlanta Speaks survey, with 27% of respondents identifying it as the biggest challenge facing the region. The economy was next, with 24% identifying it as the biggest challenge, followed by transportation at 11%.
“Residents in metro Atlanta, like the rest of the country, have been through a lot in the past few years,” said Mike Carnathan, senior manager of research and analytics for the ARC. “The pandemic upended our lives, inflation has taken a toll on people’s pocketbooks, and housing prices have soared.”
The results of the annual survey were released in conjunction with the ARC’s annual State of the Region breakfast at the Georgia World Congress Center.
Despite the concerns respondents raised in the survey, metro Atlanta’s growth is keeping the region’s economy competitive, ARC Executive Director & CEO Anna Roach told a ballroom full of the region’s political and business leaders.
Roach cited statistics showing the 11-county Atlanta region has gained 90,000 new jobs during the past year and 66,000 new residents.
“Our economic growth continues to draw people to our region,” she said.
Keynote speaker and former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, now serving as the Biden administration’s point man for infrastructure, highlighted legislation Congress has passed since the president took office to help the nation rebound from the pandemic, including the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure bill.
“The invest in America agenda is the heart of Bidenomics, and it’s working,” he said.
Landrieu gave a number of examples of government and private investment in infrastructure that is transforming metro Atlanta and Georgia, including last week’s announcement of a $250 million federal grant for a series of grid improvement and clean energy projects and “The Stitch,” a plan to cap a portion of Atlanta’s Downtown and add 14 acres of green space and affordable housing.
“You have a once-in-a-generation opportunity … to rebuild America by rebuilding the South,” Landrieu told the crowd. “You have my word. We will do what it takes.”
ATLANTA – Georgia has become the first state in the nation to license pharmacies to sell low-THC cannabis oil to eligible patents.
The state Department of Community Health announced on its website Thursday that the Georgia Board of Pharmacy has approved the sale of cannabis oil at independent pharmacies in Warner Robins, Tifton, and Omega, a small city that straddles Tift and Colquitt counties.
Two manufacturing companies licensed by the state to produce and sell low-THC cannabis oil opened dispensaries last spring to sell their products to Georgians suffering from a range of diseases and enrolled in a state-run patient registry.
The 2019 state law that created Georgia’s medical marijuana program also allowed cannabis oil to be sold at independent pharmacies.
“We applaud the Georgia Board of Pharmacy for implementing this provision of the Hope Act, which will dramatically expand access for patients and serve as a national model,” Andrew Turnage, executive director of the Georgia Access to Medical Cannabis Commission, said Thursday.
“Georgia has almost 1,000 ‘independent pharmacies’ that are eligible to apply for a license. We are excited for this opportunity for patients to gain access minutes away from their home while also supporting hundreds of small businesses owners across the state.”
Trulieve Georgia and Botanical Sciences LLC have been opening dispensaries across the state for the last six months. The latest, a Botanical Sciences facility, is due to open Tuesday in Stockbridge.
The list of diseases that qualify patients to receive low-THC cannabis oil includes end stage cancer, seizure disorders, AIDS, post-traumatic stress disorder, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, sickle-cell anemia, autism, and Alzheimer’s disease.
A federal judge Thursday rejected this congressional map Georgia Republicans drew in 2021.
ATLANTA – A federal judge Thursday rejected both the congressional and legislative redistricting maps Georgia’s Republican-controlled General Assembly drew two years ago and ordered new maps prepared in time for next year’s elections.
Facing a Dec. 8 deadline U.S. District Judge Steve Jones set for redrawing the maps, GOP Gov. Brian Kemp issued an order calling a special session of the legislature to begin Nov. 29.
In a 516-page ruling, Jones sided with civil rights and voting rights groups that claimed in three lawsuits that the maps violated the federal Voting Rights Act by denying Black Georgians an equal opportunity to participate in the political process by electing candidates of their choice.
“The court commends Georgia for the great strides that it has made to increase the political opportunities of Black voters in the 58 years since the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965,” Jones wrote. “Despite these great gains, the court determines that in certain areas of the state, the political process is not equally open to Black voters.”
Jones cited the 2020 Census, which found that all of Georgia’s population growth during the last decade was attributable to the increase in minority residents. Yet, the number of majority Black congressional and legislative districts remained the same.
According to the plaintiffs, Georgia lawmakers should have drawn three new state Senate and five new state House districts that would have provided Black voters an equal opportunity to elect their preferred candidates. Instead, the GOP lost only two seats in the House and one in the Senate in last year’s elections.
Thursday’s ruling agreed with the plaintiffs by ordering the General Assembly to draw five additional Black majority seats in the Georgia House and came close to the plaintiffs’ arguments by ordering an additional two Black majority state Senate seats.
“In 2021, the General Assembly ignored Georgia’s diversification over the last decade and enacted a state legislative map that demonstrably diluted the voting strength of Black voters,” said Rahul Garabadu, senior voting rights staff director at the ACLU of Georgia, one of the plaintiffs in the case. “Today’s decision charts a path to correct that grave injustice before the 2024 election cycle. The General Assembly should now move swiftly to enact a remedial map that fairly represents Black voters.”
Georgia Republicans added one seat to their majority in the state’s congressional delegation in the November midterm elections after redrawing the district of U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath, D-Marietta, in Atlanta’s northern suburbs into heavily Republican Forsyth, Dawson, and Cherokee counties. McBath responded by running for and winning an adjacent seat in a Democratic-leaning district.
“Congresswoman McBath applauds the court for upholding the principles of fair and equal representation,” Jake Orvis, McBath’s campaign manager, said in a statement issued immediately following Thursday’s ruling. “While the outcome of the process remains unclear, one thing is certain: Rep. McBath will not be letting Republicans in the state legislature determine when her work serving Georgians is done.”
Republicans countered that they followed the law in redrawing the maps after the 2020 Census.
On Thursday, a Republican voter mobilization group headed by former GOP U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler criticized the decision.
“Today’s ruling by the Obama-appointed U.S. District Court judge is a disappointing but unsurprising victory for liberal activists attempting to interfere in next year’s elections,” said Loeffler, chairwoman of Greater Georgia. “Greater Georgia expects a successful appeal and that partisan efforts to undermine our state’s legislative and congressional races ahead of 2024 will be dismissed.”
The executive order Kemp signed scheduling the special session said the governor also will ask the General Assembly to ratify orders he issued in each of the last two months suspending the state sales tax on gasoline.
