by Dave Williams | May 7, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Construction is underway on battery energy storage systems (BESS) at four locations across the state, Georgia Power officials announced Wednesday.
The state Public Service Commission voted late last year to certify the four projects, which will add 765 megawatts of electrical generating capacity to the Atlanta-based utility’s energy supply portfolio. One megawatt is enough electricity to power 750 homes.
“As we expand our diverse energy mix to include more renewable energy, which requires careful advance planning and flexibility to accommodate times when that source is not available, these batteries will be an invaluable part of the electric system,” said Rick Anderson, senior vice president and senior production officer for Georgia Power.
Two of the new BESS facilities will be built adjacent to both Robins Air Force Base in Houston County and Moody Air Force Base in Lowndes County. They will be co-located with existing solar facilities.
A third standalone BESS will be located at the retired coal-burning Plant Hammond in Floyd County. The fourth site will double the battery-storage capacity of the McGrau Ford Battery Facility being built in Cherokee County, with the first phase of that project having begun operations last fall.
The PSC approved battery storage in April of last year as part a huge increase in generating capacity for Georgia Power.
Under an agreement Georgia Power reached with the commission’s Public Interest Advocacy Staff, the utility must submit quarterly reports while the projects are under being built updating spending and the construction schedule.
by Ty Tagami | May 6, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – With Republicans’ top potential candidate on the sidelines for Georgia’s next U.S. Senate election, the 2026 GOP primary promises to be a live one.
When Gov. Brian Kemp announced on Monday that he will pass on a bid for Senate, he kicked off fervent prognosticating about who in his party could unseat the Senate’s top fundraiser.
Democrat Jon Ossoff has piled up $32 million, nearly twice as much as the next Senate incumbent.
Several Republicans from Georgia’s delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives are considered likely contenders. Representatives Buddy Carter, Mike Collins, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Rich McCormick could simply re-aim their House campaign funds at a bid for Senate, giving them a head start on fundraising.
Other high-profile Georgia elected officials, such as Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner John King, may also have enough name recognition and connections to launch a campaign.
Veteran Georgia political activist Cole Muzio, an influential figure in conservative politics, said he thinks those are all probable contenders, but said the field is likely much larger. At this stage, there could be as many as two dozen state politicians and business leaders considering a run in what he called a “shadow primary.” They are probably trying to reach donors and influential leaders, including President Donald Trump and Kemp, to gauge support before announcing their candidacy next week or after, he said.
There were no big announcements Tuesday. Greene was posting on X about transgender athletes and drug cartels. Collins had a post about the anniversary of the Hindenburg disaster.
Meanwhile, Charlie Bailey, the newly elected chair of the Democratic Party of Georgia, taunted the potential challengers, asserting that they would “squabble and grovel for Trump’s favor” before going up against a dug-in Ossoff.
“While they attack one other and cater to the MAGA extreme right, we will build the most effective and unstoppable turnout effort in state history,” he said.
Muzio, a close Kemp ally as founder and president of the Frontline Policy Council, said he is interested in watching whether Trump and Kemp back the same candidates. The two leaders famously fell out in Trump’s first term but have been cordial lately.
Kemp posted on X that he had spoken with Trump before announcing that he would not run against Ossoff, pledging to help the Republican that does.
Though many were shocked by Kemp’s decision, Muzio said he was not surprised. He described the governor as an “alpha” executive who is “wired to be a decision maker.” Kemp would not have relished being one of 100 members of a deliberate and “very” slow legislative body “that’s all about making speeches in empty rooms,” Muzio said. “It’s just not a job that’s going to appeal.”
by Dave Williams | May 6, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Federal disaster relief for Georgia farmers who suffered losses from Hurricane Helene should begin to flow before the end of this month, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said Tuesday.
Congress approved $21 billion in assistance last December to help farmers recover from the disastrous impacts of Helene, which rampaged through a large swath of South, Middle, and eastern Georgia last September, as well as other natural disasters across the country. But the money has been slow in coming.
“Time is of the essence,” U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., told Rollins Tuesday during a hearing conducted by a Senate subcommittee.
Rollins said she has visited Georgia peanut farmers since taking office in February.
“I’ve seen the devastation firsthand,” she said. “It is heartbreaking to witness it.”
Rollins said she expects a portal that will process grant applications submitted by farmers will open within the next few weeks.
“When we open that portal, hopefully it moves almost immediately,” she said.
Helene wreaked at least $5.5 billion in damage to Georgia’s agriculture and timber industries alone. Along with the $21 billion in federal disaster assistance put up by Congress, Georgia lawmakers set aside $867 million in the fiscal 2025 midyear state budget for response and recovery efforts.
by Ty Tagami | May 6, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – As a generation of teachers retire and their burned-out younger colleagues quit sooner, complaining about the workload and the pay, public schools have struggled to keep their classrooms staffed.
Georgia lawmakers thought they had found a solution, passing House Bill 385 three years ago. It allowed retired teachers with 30 years of service to return to the classroom with full pay and pension from the Teachers Retirement System (TRS), provided they sat on the sidelines for one year.
The newly deepened bench helped, but not much, a new state audit has found.
The number of retirees who returned to the classroom represented less than 1% of the state’s teacher workforce, said “Retired Teachers Return to Work,” a report by the Georgia Department of Audits & Accounts.
“HB 385 has had a minimal effect on the continued need for teachers and on TRS,” the performance audit said. “The number of full-time retirees employed each year (approximately 350) is substantially smaller than the statewide teacher population.”
One reason, said the report, is that requirements for 30 years of service and the one-year timeout are more restrictive than similar laws in many other states.
Georgia lawmakers adopted the one-year timeout because they didn’t want to encourage teachers to retire earlier, since that could have exacerbated turnover.
But school systems told the auditors that a waiting period longer than a semester caused retirees to find jobs elsewhere, for instance at private schools, or to get a taste of retirement and decide they didn’t want to work anymore.
With HB 385 expiring next summer, lawmakers started rethinking their plan. They proposed a slightly different approach during this recent legislative session.
Georgia public schools were short 5,300 teachers as of December. Senate Bill 150, sponsored by Sen. Billy Hickman, R-Statesboro, chairman of the Senate Education and Youth Committee, would allow former teachers to return to the classroom 60 days after they retire following 25 years of service.
Lawmakers did not advance the bill, but the Senate Retirement Committee did refer it for a cost analysis. It will still be in play when lawmakers return in January for the next session of the General Assembly.
by Dave Williams | May 5, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Gov. Brian Kemp announced Monday that he will not run for the U.S. Senate next year, turning down a Republican nomination that was his for the taking and throwing the race against Democratic incumbent Sen. Jon Ossoff wide open.
In a post on social media, the two-term GOP governor said friends, supporters, and Republican leaders across the country have encouraged him in recent weeks to challenge Ossoff.
“After those discussions, I have decided that being on the ballot next year is not the right decision for me and my family,” Kemp wrote. “I spoke with President Trump and Senate leadership earlier today and expressed my commitment to work alongside them to ensure we have a strong Republican nominee who can win next November, and ultimately be a conservative voice in the U.S. Senate who will put hardworking Georgians first.”
Kemp has been widely considered the potential Republican nominee with by far the best chance of defeating Ossoff. Other possible GOP hopefuls have been waiting in the wings to see what Kemp will do before deciding whether to enter the race.
Ossoff was elected to a six-year term in the Senate in a January 2021 runoff, defeating incumbent Republican Sen. David Perdue. In light of Kemp’s reelection win in 2022 and Trump’s victory in Georgia last year, Ossoff has been considered the most vulnerable Democrat in the Senate this election cycle.
Democrats jumped on the news as a major setback for the Republican Party.
“Brian Kemp’s decision to not run for Senate in 2026 is yet another embarrassing Republican Senate recruitment failure as they face a building midterm backlash where every GOP candidate will be forced to answer for Trump’s harmful agenda,” said Maeve Coyle, spokesperson for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “Senate Republicans’ toxic agenda and recruitment failures put their majority at risk in 2026.”
Republicans had been counting on a Kemp victory in Georgia to help build the party’s majority in the Senate, where the GOP holds 53 of the 100 seats.
Without Kemp in the race, Ossoff looks like a strong candidate for a second term. The Democrat’s campaign raised more than $11 million during the first quarter of this year, the most ever raised by a Senate incumbent in the first three months of an off-year.
