ATLANTA – The state Senate overwhelmingly passed legislation Monday aimed at protecting teenagers from cyberbullying and other negative effects of social media.
The “Protecting Georgia’s Children on Social Media Act” was a top priority of Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who presides over the Senate.
“Social media can be a very useful tool, however there are instances in which we must rein in Big Tech in order to protect the health and safety of our children,” Jones said following the 51-1 vote. “This legislation is a tremendous step forward in our effort to combat cyberbullying and protect Georgia’s children.”
Numerous studies have found overuse of social media to pose a significant danger to young people, particularly girls, increasing their risk of suicide.
Senate Bill 351 would require social media companies to take concrete steps to verify the age of their users. Existing rules requiring schools to monitor bullying would be updated to reflect the realities of modern technology.
The legislation also would require the state Department of Education to develop and periodically update programs to educate students to use social media safely and require local school systems to adopt, implement, and enforce social media policies and submit them to the Georgia Board of Education for review. Districts that fail to comply would be subject to losing state funds.
The bill’s chief sponsor is Sen. Jason Anavitarte, R-Dallas, chairman of the Senate Republican Caucus.
Anavitarte’s bill now moves to the Georgia House of Representatives.
ATLANTA – Legislation guaranteeing Georgians the right to hunt and fish in the state’s navigable rivers and streams cleared the Georgia House Monday.
House Bill 1172, which passed 107-60, is a follow-up to a bill the General Assembly passed on the final day of last year’s legislative session. Senate Bill 115 was quickly introduced and enacted after a property owner along the Upper Flint River filed a lawsuit seeking to ban public fishing along his stretch of the river.
After the measure took effect last summer, some waterfront property owners expressed concerns over a provision that declared Georgia citizens’ right to use the state’s waterways under the “public trust doctrine.”
While House Bill 1172 removed that provision, the legislation retains its underlying purpose of ensuring Georgians’ right to hunt and fish in navigable waterways, House Majority Whip James Burchett, R-Waycross, the bill’s chief sponsor, said before Monday’s vote.
“We’re balancing private property rights with the right to hunt, fish, and pass,” he said.
The bill’s opponents argued that removing the public trust doctrine from the measure would strip away legal protections for people who want to hunt and fish.
“I reject the false narrative that the Flint River is a private waterway,” said Rep. David Jenkins, R-Grantville.
Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver, D-Decatur, urged lawmakers not to act on the bill because a second lawsuit filed by a private property owner remains pending.
But Rep. Al Williams, D-Midway, who served on a legislative study committee that examined the fishing rights issue last fall, said last year’s Senate Bill 115 left unclear whether property owners along navigable waterways would be protected from recreational boaters trespassing and leaving trash behind.
“How would you like to own a home on a beautiful stream, and every morning when you get up you have to clean up?” he said. “You would want your property preserved if you lived on a navigable stream.”
One of the concerns the bill’s opponents have raised is how to determine which of Georgia’s waterways are navigable and which are not. Hoping to resolve that issue, Burchett has introduced separate legislation specifying 64 waterways that are presumed to be navigable.
Meanwhile, House Bill 1172 is now headed to the Georgia Senate.
ATLANTA – State Senate Republicans attacked President Joe Biden Monday for failing to enforce the nation’s immigration laws following the murder of an Augusta University nursing student on the campus of the University of Georgia.
Jose Ibarra, a 26-year-old Venezuelan man in the country illegally, has been arrested and charged with the murder last Friday of Laken Riley, who was killed while jogging by a lake near the intramural fields at UGA.
“If this thug had not been in Athens, Georgia, illegally, Laken Riley would still be with us today,” Sen. Shelley Echols, R-Gainesville, told her Senate colleagues Monday. Echols has a daughter who is a sophomore at UGA.
Ibarra was arrested last September for child endangerment but was released.
“This could have been prevented,” said Sen. John Albers, R-Roswell, who represents the Riley family in the Senate.
Senate Democrats objected to Republicans using a violent crime allegedly committed by one illegal immigrant to demonize all of the millions of people who have entered the U.S. illegally.
Sen. Nabilah Islam Parkes, D-Duluth, said statistics show immigrants commit fewer crimes than native-born Americans.
“Immigrants are not members of a violent invading horde,” she said. “We must not succumb to tribalism and bigotry.”
Senate Minority Leader Gloria Butler, D-Stone Mountain, blamed former President Donald Trump for blocking bipartisan reform legislation the U.S. Senate passed earlier this month for his political gain.
But Sen. Greg Dolezal, R-Cumming, blamed Biden for failing to enforce existing laws aimed at illegal immigration.
“On Day One of his administration, he relaxed the immigration laws in this country,” Dolezal said.
Monday’s Senate debate over illegal immigration came after Gov, Brian Kemp and Georgia House Speaker Jon Burns, R-Newington, responded during the weekend to the murder in Athens by criticizing the Biden administration for failing to enforce the laws.
“Laken Riley’s tragic death struck the hearts of Georgians everywhere and has rightfully sparked national outrage,” Kemp said.
“As I have said many times before: every state is now a border state because of Joe Biden’s inaction, and today I am again demanding answers and information from the Biden administration that will help us protect our citizens when the federal government will not.”
ATLANTA – Georgia Power executives gave state energy regulators chapter and verse last month on why the company needs a huge increase in electrical generating capacity to serve its 2.7 million customers.
Soon, environmental and consumer advocates will get their turn.
The Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) will hold a second round of hearings Feb. 29 and March 1 on Georgia Power’s request for 6,600 megawatts of additional capacity, up from just 400 megawatts the company forecast it needed two years ago.
Georgia Power executives attribute the anticipated huge increase in demand for electricity to unprecedented economic growth in the Peach State. That growth has generated more than 38,000 jobs and $24 billion in capital investment since the PSC approved the utility’s most recent Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) in 2022, Jeff Grubb, the company’s director of resource policy and planning, wrote in testimony filed with the PSC ahead of last month’s first round of hearings.
IRPs, normally submitted to the commission every three years, lay out the mix of energy sources Georgia Power intends to rely on for power generation during the next two decades.
“Nothing in the company or state’s history could have anticipated growth of this magnitude,” Grubb wrote. “Importantly, similar growth is also being experienced by other utilities nationally as they face similar trends in increased electricity demand.”
Francisco Valle, Georgia Power’s director of forecasting analytics, said the explosion of electric vehicle manufacturing, EV battery production and emerging clean-energy technologies in Georgia are driving much of the demand for power. But the biggest factor – accounting for about 80% of the demand – is the growing number of energy-intensive data centers popping up across the state.
“You can’t just locate a data center anywhere in the country,” Valle said. “You have to have the infrastructure to be able to provide the service for them. Georgia checks the boxes in many levels for these customers.”
Some of the additional electricity Georgia Power is seeking permission to generate would come from stepping up investment in renewable energy projects, including battery storage and distributed generation such as rooftop solar.
But much of the new power would be generated by natural gas, including the construction of three new gas combustion turbines at Plant Yates near Newnan, a power purchasing agreement (PPA) with Mississippi Power – a sister company of Georgia Power – and a second PPA with Florida-based Santa Rosa Energy Center LLC. Such “dispatchable” sources of power can be turned on and off by the utility depending on real-time need.
“Until there’s new technologies that we aren’t aware of yet, you’re going to need dispatchable resources for cold winter mornings,” Grubb testified last month. “There’s always going to need to be some resources that can hit those really peak times.”
Representatives of environmental groups that have filed as intervenors in the case are questioning whether Georgia Power needs such a huge increase in generating capacity.
Kim Scott of Georgia WAND said earlier forecasts of the company’s capacity needs have failed to materialize.
“Georgia’s grid is vastly overbuilt with reserves of 40%, or nearly three times the annual amount recommended by the National Electric Reliability Corp. for the Southeast, which is 15%,” she said. “Does it make sense to add more capacity … when the grid was already overbuilt?”
Valle disagreed with Scott’s characterization of Georgia Power’s forecasting prowess.
“Our forecast is very accurate,” he said. “When you compare the performance of the forecast year after year … the average deviation that we have had for the last 10 years is less than 1%. … So, it’s very much on target.”
Tim Echols, the commission’s vice chairman, expressed similar skepticism as Scott about the company’s forecast, noting that Georgia Power already has raised customer rates several times in the last couple of years.
“My greatest concern is that your estimates are wrong,” Echols told the Georgia Power executives who testified at last month’s hearing. “We secure all this power and your revenue falls short and we have to go to ratepayers and claim that. … We just can’t do that.”
“What if you’re wrong, and you put upward pressure on rates by building for demand that doesn’t come?” Commissioner Tricia Pridemore added.
But Grubb in his pre-filed testimony wrote that Georgia Power likely won’t have to raise rates because the increased electrical generating capacity will produce enough revenue to offset the cost of the additional resources.
The PSC is scheduled vote on the proposal April 16.
ATLANTA – The nonprofit health-care organization CareSource is donating $1 million to a program that helps young people aging out of Georgia’s foster care system.
The General Assembly passed legislation unanimously in 2022 creating a tax credit to help fund wraparound services aimed at removing barriers to education for youths leaving foster care. The list of services includes tuition assistance at technical schools or state colleges, food, medical care, rental assistance, and money for transportation.
Under the Fostering Success Act, individual taxpayers can receive dollar-for-dollar state income tax credits for up to $2,500 per year contributed to a qualified foster support organization, while married couples filing jointly can receive up to $5,000. Corporate donations are limited to 10% of the company’s annual tax liability. The program raised nearly $10 million during its first year.
“By providing young people with the resources they need to become independent and educated, we help to create paths to healthier futures and strengthen their communities by decreasing the risk of homelessness, poverty, and incarceration,” said Bobby Cagle, executive director of CareSource Georgia and former commissioner of the Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning.
Georgia currently has more than 11,000 children in foster care, and about 700 age out of the system each year. Research shows that more than 30% of those young people will experience homelessness, 70% will be forced to rely on welfare programs, and almost 90% of boys will spend time in jail.
“Many young adults who age out of the foster care system have no support network and often little hope for the future,” said Heidi Carr, executive director of Fostering Success Act Inc., which helps administer the tax credit program. “We empower these young people to pursue their dreams by connecting them to resources and organizations that can offer support.”
The $1 million contribution from CareSource Georgia follows a $5 million donation the organization announced last month to help financially struggling rural hospitals.
CareSource Georgia operates a managed-care health plan that serves more than 450,000 Georgians.
