ATLANTA – U.S. Rep. Drew Ferguson, R-West Point, announced Thursday he will not seek reelection next year after serving four terms in Congress.
“Georgia is a special place, and it’s calling us home,” Ferguson said in a prepared statement. “Julie and I look forward to spending more time with our children and grandchildren while continuing to work to keep Georgia the best state in America to live and do business.”
Ferguson served as chief deputy whip for House Republicans from 2018 through last year. He is a member of the House Ways and Means and Budget committees.
“Serving on the Ways and Means Committee has allowed me to focus on tax, trade and health care – issues important to American competitiveness on the global stage,” he said.
Ferguson’s 3rd Congressional District is considered a safe seat for Republicans. It runs along the Alabama line from northern Muscogee County north through Haralson County, and stretches east through Spalding, Lamar, and Upson counties.
A native of West Point, Ferguson was elected the city’s mayor in 2008. A graduate of the University of Georgia and the Medical College of Georgia, he established a dental practice in his hometown.
Georgia Commissioner of Transportation Russell McMurry
ATLANTA – Georgia will need to spend at least $81 billion on transportation improvements by 2050 to keep people and freight moving on highways that otherwise will becoming increasingly congested, state Commissioner of Transportation Russell McMurry warned Wednesday.
“There’s a lot to be done,” McMurry told members of the State Transportation Board toward the end of a presentation heavy with positive yet alarming statistics.
Manufacturing, agricultural production, and warehouse distribution are all expected to grow exponentially in Georgia by 2050, resulting in a doubling of freight tonnage from 2015, the last time Georgia lawmakers passed major transportation funding legislation.
The increased traffic that growth will bring will cause the costs businesses will be forced to absorb to rise from $14.4 million in 2015 to $33.3 million by 2015, a 131% increase, McMurry said.
The state embarked on a major transportation improvement program in 2016 that includes significant upgrades to interstate highway interchanges, widening of interstate highways, construction of commercial vehicle lanes, and last-mile road improvements near the Port of Savannah.
Work also is underway to widen roads and build new interchanges surrounding two major electric-vehicle plants east of Atlanta and west of Savannah.
But of the $81 billion in work McMurry outlined on Wednesday, only $26 billion is in the state’s pipeline. McMurry said planning for the projects not drawn up as yet must begin soon.
“The projects we build and develop take a long time,” he said. “It’s easily a decade to do big things,”
McMurry said other states in the Southeast that are spending more per capita on transportation projects than Georgia are getting the money to pay for those improvements from budget surpluses.
Georgia is sitting on an unprecedented $16 billion surplus, including $11 billion in undesignated funds.
Georgia businesses could join forces with the state Department of Transportation in pushing for major new funding commitments for highway improvements.
McMurry said he already has given the presentation he made Wednesday to the Georgia Chamber of Commerce.
ATLANTA – The release of fatal liquid nitrogen at a poultry processing plant in Gainesville nearly three years ago was “completely preventable,” according to a newly released federal report.
Six workers died at the Foundation Food Group (FFG) plant in January 2021 when a liquid nitrogen control system in a freezer room failed due to a bent tube that allowed the room to be filled with a deadly cloud, the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) found.
The severity of the incident was worsened by FFG’s inadequate emergency preparedness, including a failure to install air monitoring and alarm devices. As a result, at least 14 workers entered the freezer room or the surrounding area to investigate the incident or try to rescue coworkers, with three of those workers and a firefighter suffering serious injuries from asphyxiation.
“Workers were not aware of the deadly consequences of a liquid nitrogen release,” said Drew Sahli, the CSB investigator in charge. “Ultimately trying to save their colleagues led to them sacrificing their own lives. This is a known hazard, and better training and communication could have prevented such a tragedy.”
After the incident, FFG sold the plant to Gold Creek Foods, which is its current owner. Gold Creek does not have liquid nitrogen freezing processes in the building where the incident occurred.
The CSB report made 12 safety recommendations, including calling on the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to establish a national standard addressing hazards arising from the storage, use, and/or handling of cryogenic asphyxiants.
The agency also suggested that the Compressed Gas Association and the National Fire Prevention Association improve their guidance on the safe use of cryogenic asphyxiants, including liquid nitrogen,
“The CSB’s recommendations are important for preventing incidents involving liquid nitrogen and lessening their severity if they do occur,” CSB Chairman Steve Owens said. “The hazards of liquid nitrogen must be clearly communicated to workers, and the safety management systems for operations that use liquid nitrogen must be improved.”
The Chattahoochee River (photo: Rebecca Grapevine)
ATLANTA – The states of Georgia and Alabama have reached an agreement expected to end a long-running legal dispute over water allocation from the Chattahoochee River Basin.
Under the agreement, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will consider a first-of-its-kind proposal to operate its dams and reservoirs to achieve minimum water-flow objectives at Columbus, Ga., and Columbia, Ala., on the Chattahoochee along the states’ border.
In addition, the Corps agrees to maintain the necessary minimum elevation at Lake Seminole, a Corps-managed reservoir about 20 miles southwest of Bainbridge.
If the Corps adopts the agreement following a public-comment period, Alabama will drop a lawsuit it brought in 2017 challenging the federal agency’s operations in the region, including the Corps’ policy allowing Georgia to make water-supply withdrawals near Atlanta.
While this specific lawsuit is only six years old. the so-called tri-state “water wars” between Georgia, Alabama, and Florida date back to 1990.
“This agreement is a win-win for our states, with neither side sacrificing what is important to them,” Gov. Brian Kemp said Tuesday. “The Chattahoochee River is the lifeblood of Southwest Georgia, and this proposal would give citizens and businesses certainty about the flow of water they need for business and leisure alike.
“Just as significant, adoption of this proposal would end the current issues related to water supply for metro Atlanta at Lake Lanier, which is crucial to the future of our state.”
“Alabama and Georgia have a lot in common,” Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey added. “But we have spent a lot of time – and a lot of money on attorney fees – fighting in court over water. This proposal is a big deal for Alabama as the Corps has never before set minimum water-flow objectives in the parts of the Chattahoochee that affect us.
“It would provide Alabama with long-term assurances that, in times of drought, our citizens will be protected, and our stakeholders will know how much water is coming their way.”
The agreement announced Tuesday is the most significant since September of last year, when representatives of water supply systems in Gwinnett, Forsyth and Hall counties finalized an agreement with the state of Georgia guaranteeing them water from Lake Lanier through 2050.
Two years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with Georgia in a lawsuit brought by Florida over water allocation from the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint (ACF) Basin. Steps water planners in the Atlanta region have taken during the last two decades to reduce water consumption figured into that ruling.
“As leaders in water stewardship, we are gratified the parties have come together on an agreement that both protects metro Atlanta’s water supply and provides the downstream flows Alabama requested,” said Katherine Zitsch, senior water policy advisor at the Atlanta Regional Commission.
Tuesday’s agreement is not the end of water wars litigation. Alabama is continuing to pursue a legal challenge to the Corps’ 2021 decision to meet metro Atlanta’s water-supply needs from Allatoona Lake, part of the Alabama-Coosa-Tallapoosa (ACT) River Basin.
ATLANTA – The economic growth Georgia experienced this year will slow down in 2024 but not enough to cause a recession, the dean of the Terry College of Business at the University of Georgia said Monday.
“Georgia is well positioned to weather an economic slowdown, and our economy will outperform the U.S. economy,” Ben Ayers told a crowded ballroom at the Georgia Aquarium in the kickoff of UGA’s annual Georgia Economic Outlook series. “Our economy will not bust.”
Ayers said he expects Georgia’s Gross Domestic Product to increase by 1.1% in 2024, smaller than the 3% growth the Peach State saw this year but well above the sluggish national growth rate of 0.8% economists are predicting for 2024.
The number of jobs in Georgia will rise by 0.7% next year, which is slower compared to the 2.3% gain estimated for Georgia in 2023 but higher than the national job growth rate of just 0.3%, Ayers predicted.
Ayers said demographics and the large number of economic development projects in the pipeline are key factors propping up Georgia’s economy. The state’s population grew by 1.2% last year and is expected to double the nation’s growth in 2024, he said.
Meanwhile, Georgia landed a record 426 economic development projects this year, the third straight year the state has set a record in that category.
Ayers said he expects the state’s unemployment rate to rise next year from this year’s 3.4%, but only to 4%.
Inflation, which hit 8% last year, is being cut in half this year to 4%, Ayers said. He said he expects inflation to continue to fall to 2.5% by the end of 2024.
Ayers said risks to Georgia’s economy include continued conflict in the Middle East and Ukraine, potential stock market disruptions, further labor unrest or a government shutdown. But none of these likely would be enough to trigger a recession, he said.
Avery Shenfeld, managing director and chief economist for CIBC, a Chicago-based commercial banking firm, gave a similar economic forecast for the nation. He predicted the U.S. will avoid falling into a recession even as inflation continues to cool from a 40-year high.
The Consumer Price Index has declined to 4% but remains well above the 2% inflation rate the Federal Reserve is seeking.
“We’ve been able to cool (inflation) without slowing economic growth,” Shenfeld said.
Shenfeld predicted sluggish economic growth through the third quarter of next year should begin to pick up late in the year.
“It’s going to end with lower inflation and, therefore, lower interest rates,” he said.
The Georgia Economic Outlook series will continue next month and in February with programs in Athens, Albany, Augusta, Columbus, Jekyll Island, Macon, and Savannah.
