ATLANTA – President Joe Biden Friday appointed former state Rep. Calvin Smyre to an independent board that advises the White House on intelligence issues.
Smyre, a Democrat from Columbus who served for 48 years in the Georgia House of Representatives, will join the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board, which offers the president objective, expert advice on the conduct of U.S. intelligence.
During decades in the General Assembly, Smyre rose to become the “dean” of the House, serving as chairman of the House Rules Committee and chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. He played a key role in making Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday a state holiday, replacing the 1950s-era state flag and its Confederate battle symbol with a new state flag, passing a hate crime law, and repealing Georgia’s 19th-century citizens arrest law.
Biden nominated Smyre in 2021 to serve as U.S. ambassador to the Dominican Republican and switched it to ambassador to the Bahamas the following year. However, the U.S. Senate thus far has declined to confirm the nomination.
Last year, the State Department appointed Smyre to serve as the United States’ representative to the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly.
Smyre retired in 2014 from an executive position with Columbus-based Synovus Financial Corp. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Fort Valley State University and an honorary doctorate from the Morehouse School of Medicine.
ATLANTA – Opposition is growing across Georgia to cryptocurrency mining, the process of creating Bitcoins and other forms of virtual currencies at giant server farm sites.
Residents of Gilmer County in the North Georgia mountains recently beat back a proposed rezoning to allow a cryptocurrency server farm in that rural community. Just north of Gilmer, the Fannin County Commission has enacted a ban on crypto mining.
And several hundred miles to the south, the Southern Georgia Regional Commission, which represents 18 primarily rural counties, has published a model ordinance counties can use to put restrictions on the development of cryptocurrency farms.
Opponents complain that server farms generating cryptocurrency are extremely noisy, impose a huge drain on electricity and water resources, and don’t generate enough jobs to justify those negative consequences.
“It’s the biggest con on the public ever,” said Cyndie Roberson, cofounder of Gilmer County Citizens Against Crypto Mining, which brought out hundreds of residents to a meeting of the county’s planning commission to oppose the project.
“So many attended, people were wrapped around the courthouse,” Roberson said.
The General Assembly took up the issue during this year’s session in the form of a bill aimed at growing the industry by offering a sales tax exemption on equipment purchased to equip cryptocurrency server farms and prohibiting local governments from passing noise ordinances specifically targeting crypto mining.
The industry already has gained a solid foothold in Georgia. Roberson’s group has documented 30 cryptocurrency mining operations in 20 communities across the state, from Rome and Dalton in Northwest Georgia to Swainsboro, Sandersville, and Brooklet in the southeast.
In fact, Georgia mines the second-most cryptocurrency in the country behind Texas.
“Bitcoin mining is more than just an economic activity,” Bo Ginn, who manages the Sandersville crypto mining operation for Nevada-based CleanSpark Inc., told state lawmakers during a hearing on the bill in February.
“It’s an important technological advancement that brings substantial investment, innovation and job creation to Georgia, especially to our rural communities,” he said.
But Rep. Penny Houston, R-Nashville, said she and her constituents have had a “terrible experience” since a crypto mining server farm began operating in Adel.
“The noise is absolutely atrocious,” she said. “They bring no money in, no jobs in, except for people who are there guarding the place.”
Houston also complained about the amount of electricity crypto mining uses. Large data centers are having an impact on Georgia’s power grid, as state lawmakers demonstrated this year when they passed legislation – subsequently vetoed by Gov. Brian Kemp – that would have temporarily suspended a tax break aimed at attracting more data centers to Georgia.
“We’ve built two (nuclear) reactors over at Plant Vogtle, and we’re using so much power, we’re going to have to build another one,” Houston said. “When we have to build another reactor, it’s going to be the taxpayers of this state who have to pay for it.”
Rep. Scott Hilton, R-Peachtree Corners, who introduced this year’s cryptocurrency bill, said it is not at the top of his priority list for the 2025 General Assembly session. However, he said he believes the legislature eventually should address the cryptocurrency issue.
The model ordinance might be a place to start. It allows the development of crypto mining operations but sets standards for noise levels and appearance server farms would have to meet before they could set up shop.
“I think those who are seeking to move these here would be amenable to reasonable accommodations,” Hilton said.
Bob Sherrier, a staff attorney with the Atlanta-based Southern Environmental Law Center, said he would rather let local governments regulate crypto mining operations than impose state control.
“Some industrial areas (suitable for a server farm) are next to residential,” he said. “It should be within the control of local government to say, ‘That area’s OK, and that area’s not.’ “
ATLANTA – U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff is vowing to put “maximum pressure” on Postmaster General Louis DeJoy to improve service at the regional mail processing center in Palmetto.
“This is not on postal workers,” Ossoff, D-Ga., said Thursday after touring the facility and meeting with local postal service officials. “This is a question of management, competent management.”
Ossoff first raised the issue of delays in mail processing at the Palmetto center during a Senate committee hearing in mid-April. At the time, he cited statistics showing that only 36% of the first-class mail processed at the facility was being delivered on time.
DeJoy told the committee the delays were the result of problems encountered during the rollout last winter of a restructuring plan aimed at making the postal service economically self-sufficient. The plan was first implemented at the processing center in Palmetto and at a second center in Richmond, Va.
The Atlanta-area consolidation involved moving nearly 10,000 employees from 10 locations to the new Palmetto distribution center.
“This transition for our region was not well thought out, not well planned, and not competently executed,” Ossoff said.
The restructuring plan is on hold for now. DeJoy announced two weeks ago that the postal service would pause the plan at least until next year to give the agency a chance to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it.
Days later, he unveiled specific solutions for the Palmetto center, including bringing in more than 100 personnel from other centers and revising transportation schedules between the Palmetto facility and other local mail processing centers.
“Since the first week of March, our service performance scores in the region have shown consistent improvement,” according to a statement issued by the postal service Thursday. “While we are not entirely satisfied with the current levels, this positive trend indicates that the challenges we faced in March are being actively addressed.”
While on-time delivery has improved to about 60%, Ossoff he will keep monitoring the situation.
“I will continue to apply maximum pressure so that seniors in Georgia are not going without prescriptions, so that small businesses in Georgia are not unable to receive supplies or get products to market, so that voters in Georgia are not unable to cast their ballots timely by mail,” he said.
ATLANTA – Gov. Brian Kemp celebrated the completion of the Plant Vogtle nuclear expansion Wednesday while acknowledging the obstacles that had to be overcome in building the first nuclear reactors in the U.S. since the 1980s.
The third of four reactors at the plant south of August went into commercial operation last July, while the fourth came online last month.
“Vogtle 3 and 4 don’t just represent an incredible economic development asset for the state and a milestone for the entire country,” Kemp said during a ceremony at the plant in Burke County. “They also stand as physical examples of something I remind myself every day: ‘Tough times don’t last. Tough people do.’
“The men and women here in front of me are tough people, their coworkers are tough people, their businesses are tough, and they’ve outlived the tough times that stood in the way of making today possible.”
Kemp paid tribute to the late U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson for playing an instrumental role in building all four Vogtle reactors.
“It was Johnny who – when he was in the state House – worked to pass legislation enabling construction of Units 1 and 2,” the governor said. “And it was Johnny, as a powerful voice in the U.S. Senate, who championed and secured the production tax credits for Units 3 and 4.”
The “tough times” Georgia Power and its utility partners endured in making the Vogtle expansion a reality included seven years of delays that more than doubled the cost of the project from an original estimate of $14 billion to more than $30 billion.
The Georgia Public Service Commission voted late last year tolet Georgia Power recover almost $7.6 billion of its share of those costs from ratepayers, while the company agreed to absorb about $2.6 billion. That’s expected to increase the average monthly residential customer’s bill by $8.97 for Unit 4, on top of a $5.42 rate hike that took effect when Unit 3 began operating.
Those inflated costs have prompted representatives of environmental and consumer advocacy groups to complain over the years of delays that Georgia Power should have more aggressively pursued renewable energy as a less costly alternative to the nuclear expansion.
“It is clear that Georgia Power is looking out for its own economic interests and not concerned about moving Georgia to a clean-energy economy, let alone protecting the health of Georgians who live in and around this nuclear power plant,” said Kim Scott, executive director of Atlanta-based nonprofit Georgia WAND.
On Wednesday, Kemp hinted that another expansion might be in Plant Vogtle’s future.
“In all my discussions with Georgia Power executives, I’ve shared our support for this effort and urged them to ‘Get this thing built,’ ” he said. “Today, we celebrate the end of that project. Now, let’s start planning for Vogtle 5!”
ATLANTA – With the traditional summer vacation season getting underway, Georgia continues to suffer from a chronic shortage of game wardens to serve its 2 million hunters and 600,000 to 700,000 anglers.
The state Department of Natural Resources (DNR) boasted 250 game wardens back in 2000. But a series of budget cuts had dropped that workforce as low as 181 in fiscal 2017 before it rebounded to 234 in the fiscal 2025 budget that takes effect July 1.
“We’re still not up to where we were 24 years ago,” said Col. Mike England, director of the DNR’s Law Enforcement Division. “How many people are in Georgia in 2000, and how many do we have now?”
The DNR isn’t alone when it comes to workforce shortages. The $36.1 billion state budget the General Assembly adopted in March includes $3,000 pay raises for workers in state agencies suffering high turnover rates on top of the 4% cost-of-living increases most state and university system employees are getting.
While game wardens are among the workforce groups that will qualify for those additional raises, the increases also are going to a wide range of employees including state troopers and child welfare workers.
But England said game wardens face more difficult work schedules than their colleagues, which contributes to high turnover rates.
“We don’t work shifts,” he said. “Game wardens are on call 24 hours a day.”
Because hunters and anglers tend to pursue their hobbies on weekends, game wardens are only off duty one weekend per month, England said.
“Our officers can’t go home and drink a beer because they may be on call,” he said. “They get tired of the schedule.”
Mike Worley, president and CEO of the Georgia Wildlife Federation, said the shortage of game wardens has not affected the agency’s ability to process applications for hunting and fishing licenses in a timely manner.
“Our technology has helped us a lot,” he said. “There is really not a backlog for hunting and fishing licenses. It’s really about the enforcement.”
Worley said the shortage encourages law breakers to engage in such criminal activities as bringing deer into Georgia that might carry disease or smuggling turtles and other reptiles out of the state for sale on the black market.
“When I run into a game warden in the field, I find them very courteous, thoughtful, and respectful,” he said. “(But) how often are you checked by one of these officers? It’s not often. … There are folks who will roll the dice and take their chances because we don’t have enough of them.”
The DNR’s budget for the coming fiscal year includes $577,000 to hire six additional game wardens. England said that won’t do more than put a dent in the workforce shortage.
“All we’re doing is chipping away a little at a time,” he said.
With games wardens working such long hours because they’re spread so thin, England said it has taken a special type of person to stick with the job.
“Our people are very dedicated,” he said. “They love their job. Those who don’t move on.”
