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.