by Dave Williams | Jun 16, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Georgia Power and Mitsubishi Power have successfully completed a second trial blending hydrogen and natural gas fuels at Plant McDonough-Atkinson in Smyrna, the two companies announced Monday.
The demonstration project is the first to validate a blend of 50% hydrogen fuel and the largest test of this kind in the world to date. The 50% blend resulted in a 22% decrease in carbon-dioxide emissions compared to 100% natural gas.
A first test at the plant was completed in 2022 using a 20% hydrogen blend.
Natural gas currently provides 40% of Georgia Power’s annual energy generation.
“Natural gas serves a critical role in our generation mix, providing flexibility, baseload power and quick response to customer demand,” said Rick Anderson, senior vice president and senior production officer for Georgia Power. “(It) will continue to be an important fuel as we plan to meet the energy needs of a growing Georgia through a diverse portfolio of generation resources.”
The 2025 Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) Georgia Power submitted to the state Public Service Commission (PSC) earlier this year calls for the construction of three new Mitsubishi Power gas turbines capable of using hydrogen at the utility’s Plant Yates in Coweta County.
“It has been a privilege to partner with Georgia Power on this landmark project,” Mark Bissonnette, executive vice president and chief operating officer of power generation at Mitsubishi Power Americas, said of the hydrogen fuel test. “This is a significant milestone for both companies to help Georgia Power reduce carbon emissions across its generation fleet.”
The continued use of natural gas as well as coal is a sticking point with environmental groups that oppose that portion of the proposed IRP. The PSC is scheduled to vote on the plan July 15.
by Ty Tagami | Jun 16, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — The head of a multi-million-dollar drug trafficking and money laundering ring faces at least a decade in prison after pleading guilty to federal charges involving methamphetamine “conversion” laboratories.
Monica Dominguez Torres, 36, of Mexico, pleaded guilty Friday to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute methamphetamine and conspiracy to commit money laundering, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia announced Monday.
The agency said her organization operated labs that converted liquid methamphetamine from Mexico into hundreds of kilograms of crystal meth, some of it destined for sale in the Atlanta area.
“Dominguez’s elaborate criminal operation has been dismantled, and more than $3.5 million of illicit drug proceeds have been seized as a result of our federal, state, and local law enforcement partners’ diligent work,” U.S. Attorney Theodore S. Hertzberg said.
When agents arrested Dominguez at her home in Conyers in February of last year, they found and seized more than $1.7 million in cash, five firearms and three vehicles, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
Dominguez, who is scheduled for sentencing Sept. 15, led a criminal organization that laundered drug proceeds and sent the money to Mexico, the government said. Their methods included buying five residences, among them a seven-bedroom waterfront home in Jonesboro, most of them with cash. They also bought nine luxury vehicles worth about $780,000.
Dominguez also spent nearly $400,000 at Louis Vuitton and more than $425,000 at Burberry, over about four and a half years, the government said.
The investigation was conducted by numerous federal and state agencies plus the sheriff’s offices in Cobb and Paulding counties. It was part of a nationwide initiative targeting cartels and transnational criminal organizations.
In April, federal agencies in Atlanta announced 22 arrests involving two Mexican drug cartels and the seizure of more than 100 pounds of fentanyl. That was enough to kill every Georgian twice, Jae W. Chung, acting special agent in charge of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s Atlanta division, said at the time.
Chung said after Dominguez’s guilty plea that she and her organization had been “removed from our streets,” adding, “this criminal organization had no regard for the destructive impact on our communities.”
The announcement included no information about Dominguez’s conspirators but said she faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years to life in prison for her trafficking conviction. The money laundering conviction carries a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.
by Dave Williams | Jun 16, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Eleven people have been arrested on drug, gun, and other charges following an investigation into gang-related criminal activities in Middle Georgia.
The Bibb County Sheriff’s Office launched Operation “Westside Wakeup” in January, with Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr’s Gang Prosecution Unit joining a short time later. The unit, which Carr launched nearly three years ago, has been expanded to include a new regional prosecutor and an investigator based in Macon.
“We’re working each day to disrupt and dismantle the growing gang networks that are terrorizing our communities, and those who engage in violent crime will be held accountable,” Carr said.
“This operation illustrates how the illicit drug trade reaches from the cell block to the city street,” Bibb County Sheriff David J. Davis added.
In addition to the 11 arrests, the law enforcement agencies recovered about 17 pounds of marijuana, 1.28 pounds of powder and crack cocaine, three ounces of Ecstasy, 1 ounce of fentanyl, an array of firearms, and about $110,000 in U.S. currency.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, and the FBI aided in the investigation.
by Ty Tagami | Jun 13, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — A botched FBI raid on a suburban Atlanta home has led to a U.S. Supreme Court decision against the government in a lawsuit brought by the victims.
In October 2017, a six-member SWAT team rammed the door of “a quiet family home” and tossed in a flash-bang grenade. The raiding party had relied on a GPS device to locate a suspected gang hideout, failing to notice the address on the mailbox. The agents had mistakenly entered the home of Hilliard Toi Cliatt, his partner Curtrina Martin, and her 7-year-old son Gabe.
They sued the federal government under the Federal Tort Claims Act, but the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta upheld a district judge’s decision in favor of the government, which had claimed sovereign immunity.
The Supreme Court’s decision Thursday revives the residents’ lawsuit, returning it to the courts in Atlanta.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, who wrote the decision for the unanimous ruling, summed up the question at hand: “If federal officers raid the wrong house, causing property damage and assaulting innocent occupants, may the homeowners sue the government for damages? The answer is not as obvious as it might be.”
A tort is a wrongful act that causes harm or injury and is subject to monetary damages and other legal remedies. Sovereign immunity generally shields government from tort lawsuits, but that shield can be penetrated, sometimes in the case of “wrong-house” raids, Gorsuch wrote.
It is a complicated area of law, based on legal precedents that go back to the late 1800s with a sordid affair involving a former state supreme court justice in California who was shot dead by a federal marshal. The marshal, a former Tombstone, Ariz., police chief, was protecting a U.S. Supreme Court justice but was arrested by California authorities.
He convinced the U.S. Supreme Court to free him, the high court reasoning that allowing states to prosecute marshals for acts in the line of duty would “frustrate” federal law.
The 11th Circuit’s decision for the government reflected that history, but the U.S. Supreme Court justices concurred that the Atlanta circuit had issued an “outlier” opinion at odds with how most other courts have ruled on tort and sovereign immunity in such cases.
Georgia law allows a homeowner to sue a private person for damages in the event of a house raid and assault, and the high court determined that the 11th Circuit had improperly relied on cases such as that one from the 1800s, adding, “the 11th Circuit did not identify any federal statute or constitutional provision displacing Georgia tort law.”
The Institute for Justice, which represented the plaintiffs, said the decision explains that federal tort law “allows people to sue the federal government when its agents violate individual rights — intentionally or by accident.”
by Dave Williams | Jun 13, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Elections for state and federal offices usually take place only in even years.
But this year, Georgia voters will head to the polls to fill two seats on the five-member state Public Service Commission, starting this Tuesday with Republican and Democratic primaries.
Incumbent Republican Commissioner Tim Echols faces a challenger for the GOP nomination in PSC District 2, which includes eastern Georgia from Atlanta’s eastern and southeastern suburbs to Savannah. Democratic Primary voters will decide which of three candidates takes on incumbent Republican Commissioner Fitz Johnson in November in District 3, which covers the metro counties of Fulton, Clayton, and DeKalb.
The odd-year election stems from a 2022 lawsuit that challenged the way members of the PSC are elected. Four Black Fulton County residents and their lawyers argued that electing commissioners statewide instead of by district dilutes Black voting strength in violation of the federal Voting Rights Act, making it harder for Black voters to elect a candidate of their choice.
A lower federal court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, but the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals overturned that decision and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up an appeal. The ongoing case resulted in the postponement of both the 2022 and 2024 PSC elections.
District 2 Republicans
Lee Muns, a former member of the Columbia County Board of Education who ran unsuccessfully for the Columbia County Commission, is up against veteran Commissioner Tim Echols in District 2. It’s unusual for an incumbent to draw a primary challenge, and Muns said he wouldn’t run if he thought his opponent was doing a good job.
“We’ve seen the cost overruns at (nuclear Plant) Vogtle and the lack of looking forward to the future,” Muns said. “(Voters) are concerned about the oversight of the current commission.”
Muns has more than 35 years of experience in industrial construction, having founded multiple successful businesses. Before going into business on his own, he helped build Units 1 and 2 at Georgia Power’s Plant Vogtle in the late 1980s.
“I’m a business owner,” he said. “I understand budgets. I understand supply-chain issues. … I understand how much overhead you need to run an operation.”
If elected, Muns said he would push to freeze any Georgia Power rate increases until the PSC requires full transparency and accountability for Georgia Power and other utilities the commission regulates.
Georgia Power agreed last month to freeze customer rates for the next three years. But an agreement the company reached last month with the PSC’s Public Interest Advocacy Staff nixed the next rate case Georgia Power had been due to file with the commission and the multiple rounds of public hearings that would have taken place.
Muns said the proposed rate freeze is a “political ploy” timed to coincide with this year’s elections.
“It’s trying to throw this out to voters and blind them,” he said. “Voters are smarter today than they used to be.”
Muns said he supports prohibiting Georgia Power from recovering from residential and small business customers the costs of supplying energy to the power-hungry data centers that are popping up across Georgia. Legislation that included such a requirement was introduced in the state Senate this year but failed to gain traction.
Echols said the PSC already has provided such a safeguard by approving a resolution last January forbidding Georgia Power from passing on the costs of serving new large-load customers – including data centers – to ratepayers.
“We have taken precautions to make sure large loads like data centers pay all incremental costs to generate and transmit their energy,” he said. “I feel good about the protections we have put in place for ratepayers.”
Echols, who grew up in Clayton County but lives in Hoschton near Athens, was elected to the PSC in 2010 and reelected in 2016. His term was supposed to be up in 2022 but was extended when the election was postponed.
After graduating from the University of Georgia with a bachelor’s degree and two masters degrees, Echols started a Christian nonprofit educational ministry for teens. He also is an enthusiastic supporter of electric vehicles and has owned one for years.
Echols embraces the wave of data centers moving to Georgia as good for the state’s economy.
“Georgia is poised to become the artificial intelligence capital of America – just like with fintech,” he said. “Data centers bring in seven-figure tax revenue for counties that land the projects – and that is attractive.”
Echols also supports the nuclear expansion at Plant Vogtle that was completed last year, seven years behind schedule with massive cost overruns. Vogtle’s Units 3 and 4 were the first new nuclear reactors built in America in decades.
“Vogtle is an important milestone for Georgia Power and the entire state,” he said. “That said, to build more reactors we need some sort of financial backstop from the federal government.”
One thing Echols and Muns agree on is Georgia Power’s decision to continue relying on coal and natural gas as part of the utility’s portfolio of energy generation sources.
District 3 Democrats
The three Democrats seeking their party’s nomination in PSC District 3 beg to differ.
“We are supposed to transition out of coal,” said Robert Jones, a California native with a resume that includes working in software sales, as a technology executive, as a senior analyst at the California Public Utilities Commission, as an executive at Telecom Utility, and as a global business leader at Microsoft. “All the environmental evidence says we should do it.”
“Expanding fossil fuel infrastructure will lock Georgia into decades of reliance on oil, coal, methane gas, further contributing to greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, which we’ve seen in all these storms throughout the country,” added Keisha Sean Waites, a former member of the General Assembly and – more recently – the Atlanta City Council.
“You can’t meet that 2050 no net-carbon goal (set by Georgia Power parent Southern Co.) and build new fossil fuel plants,” said Peter Hubbard, a clean-energy advocate for a Georgia nonprofit. “Renewables could power the grid reliably, but there’s always been a headwind from the fossil fuels industry.”
Jones said he’s the only candidate – or sitting commissioner – with the extensive utility management experience needed to assess the impact power-generating financing proposals from utilities would have on business and residential customers.
“My background of having worked in utility regulation is particularly relevant to the challenge Georgia voters face at this time,” he said.
Waites brings extensive government experience to the race, having spent 15 years working for the U.S. Small Business Administration and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Waites is wary of the rapid growth of data centers in Georgia because of their impacts on both the environment and electric ratepayers.
“A data center uses the equivalent of a small town daily in water consumption and power,” she said. “I have to make sure we don’t use small businesses and residential customers as a financial backstop for Georgia Power.”
Waites also suggested that the use of solar energy could be expanded if the PSC would increase the cap on its rooftop solar initiative from the current 5,000 homeowners.
Hubbard has testified as an expert witness before the commission during the last four rounds of hearings on Georgia Power requests for additional electrical generating capacity. He said the utility is asking for more capacity than it needs.
“You can’t assume all these giant companies building data centers want to build them in Georgia,” he said. “(Georgia Power) is overestimating demand. … They use these forecasts to justify new projects. But the load demand isn’t there.”
The winner of the District 2 Republican primary between Echols and Muns will face Democrat Alicia Johnson in November, while the Democrat who wins the District 3 primary will take on GOP incumbent Fitz Johnson. Appointed to the PSC in 2021, this will be the first time Johnson has sought election to the post.
With early voting wrapping up on Friday, the polls across Georgia will be open on Tuesday from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m.
