by Dave Williams | Sep 4, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – A citizen activist from Fayette County asked state lawmakers Thursday to carefully consider the effects a wave of data centers is having on local communities.
Diana Dietz, a retired public health nurse, told members of a state House subcommittee “giant industrial poles” associated with a massive data center under construction in the county southwest of Atlanta are removing trees from what used to be scenic residential areas.
Project Excalibur, being built on a 615-acre site by global digital infrastructure leader QTS, is among a growing number of data centers springing up across Georgia primarily to serve the increasing demand for power artificial intelligence technology is placing on the nation’s electrical grid.
“This is not anti-AI. This is not anti-data centers,” Dietz said. “But you truly need to see the impact that is happening.”
House Speaker Jon Burns formed the Special Committee on Resource Management last January to develop a plan for meeting the anticipated effects of a growing demand for energy and water supplies in Georgia. Data centers use massive quantities of both resources.
While Burns, R-Newington, said the committee would not focus exclusively on data centers, the huge warehouses filled with servers are the most high-profile manifestation of the need for additional electrical generating capacity.
Both Dietz and Mark Woodall, legislative chairman for the Georgia chapter of the Sierra Club, complained that local development authorities are helping to underwrite the construction of new data centers through tax breaks without providing sufficient transparency or opportunity for public input.
To meet the increasing demand for electricity, Atlanta-based Georgia Power is asking the state Public Service Commission (PSC) to certify 9,900 megawatts of new generating capacity environmentalists including Woodall say would rely heavily on harmful fossil fuels.
“This invasion of data centers is killing our progress toward clean energy,” Woodall said Thursday.
Woodall said producing that additional generating capacity would cost an estimated $15 billion.
“We think consumers need to be protected from that $15 billion,” he said.
Aaron Mitchell, senior vice president of strategic growth for Georgia Power, told the special committee’s Subcommittee on Energy, the utility has put mechanisms in place to make sure “large-load” customers including data centers don’t pass on the costs of the power they need to residential ratepayers.
The PSC adopted a rule in January that requires Georgia Power customers using more than 100 megawatts of electricity to pay the transmission and distribution costs incurred as construction of their projects progresses.
“We’re ensuring (new) large-load customers are covering their costs,” Mitchell said. “Existing customers are protected.”
After Dietz complained that the Fayette County Development Authority and QTS haven’t been sufficiently forthcoming with details on Project Excalibur, Rep. Brad Thomas, R-Holly Springs, the special committee’s chairman, suggested she bring those concerns to local elected officials.
by Ty Tagami | Sep 4, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — Sasha Contreras was in Spanish class at Apalachee High School when the shooting started on Sept. 4 last year.
It was far enough away that she could not hear the gunfire, but an hour earlier she had been in math teacher Ana Cristina Irimie’s class.
Sasha, 17, said she left Irimie’s class happy, not realizing it would be the last time she would see her teacher alive.
Irimie was among those killed that morning, along with students Christian Angulo and Mason Schermerhorn and coach Ricky Aspinwall.
Colt Gray, who was 14, has been charged with murder, and his father, Colin Gray, was charged in connection with arming his son.
Barrow County, meanwhile, has struggled to make sense of the incident.
Several current and former Apalachee High students gathered at the state Capitol Thursday to honor the dead while wrestling with their lingering trauma.
Kyra McConatha, who was a senior there, is in college now. She was attending a statistical reasoning class and remembers texting a final goodbye to her mother. She said she still dwells on who might come through one of the unlocked doors on her college campus.
Contreras said that is a common feeling at Apalachee High, where the hallway that was the site of the shooting remains closed.
“To this day,” she said, “we are hyper aware of our surroundings.”
She remembers crying in the field after the shooting, looking for her mother, who had been substitute teaching in a class in the same hallway as the gunfire. Contreras’ older sister, Layla, kept the text message that her sister sent her that morning. The lack of punctuation — “Layla it’s real it’s a shooting it’s me sasha I love you” — underscored the urgency.
The people who lived through that event said they hoped the memory of the dead does not fade. They remarked about how routine school shootings have become, but they had no solutions to end them.
Georgia lawmakers reacted to the mass shooting by adopting a sweeping school safety bill in March. House Bill 268 was a priority for Republican House Speaker Jon Burns and passed with broad bipartisan support.
The 57-page measure requires schools to maintain records on students with troubling behavior and then share those records promptly when the student transfers to a different school, as happened at Apalachee High. The new law also pays for more mental health services, giving each school district up to three state-funded student advocates, one for every 18,000 students.
The General Assembly also passed House Bill 105, effectively treating slain teachers in the same way as armed officers by doubling to $150,000 the compensation to loved ones when a teacher is killed “in the line of duty.”
Thursday’s commemoration was coordinated by Democrats in the state House. Their caucus leader, Rep. Carolyn Hugley, D-Columbus, said she is a grandmother and a gun owner.
“I know first-hand the responsibility that comes with that right,” Hugley said, “and I believe deeply that we can protect the Second Amendment, and we can protect second graders at the same time.”
No Republicans participated although state Sen. Frank Ginn, R-Danielsville, who represents part of Barrow County, stood nearby, watching.
Mental health, not guns, is the problem, he said, adding that he understands the grief. Ginn lost a son in a farming accident. “The pain never goes away,” he said.
Sasha said the shooting feels “surreal … like it happened not even a week ago.”
by Dave Williams | Sep 3, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – The U.S. subsidiary of a Korea-based manufacturer will invest $223 million to build a rare earth permanent magnet manufacturing plant in Columbus, Gov. Brian Kemp announced Wednesday.
The JS Link America project will create more than 520 jobs in Muscogee County.
“JS Link America strengthens Georgia’s role in securing the U.S. supply chain in industries such as aerospace, mobility, and energy,” Kemp said.
JS Link, founded in 2000, is a Korean biotechnology company specializing in research and development. Permanent magnets are a critical component in a variety of industries, including automobiles, wind turbines, elevators, home appliances, robotics, and consumer electronics.
“JS Link plans to be a part of a value chain focused entirely on Western nations to meet the growing demand for permanent magnets sourced from strategic allies such as Korea,” said Jun Y. Lee, JS Link America’s CEO. “This new chain will cover the entire process, from the procurement of essential rare-earth materials to the final manufacturing of the magnets.”
The Columbus plant will occupy 130,000 square feet, with a projected annual production capacity of 3,000 tons. Operations are expected to begin in late 2027.
The company will be filling positions in engineering, production, construction, administration, and management. Interested individuals can learn more about JS Link America at en.jslink.co.kr.
The Georgia Department of Economic Development’s Global Commerce team worked on the project in partnership with the Development Authority of Columbus, Georgia Power, and the Technical College System of Georgia’s Quick Start program.
by Ty Tagami | Sep 2, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — Former leaders of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gathered at the Georgia Capitol Tuesday at the invitation of Democratic lawmakers to express their concerns about the future of the Atlanta-based disease-fighting agency and the potential impact on the public.
The timing follows President Donald Trump’s decision last week to fire CDC Director Susan Monarez one month after the U.S. Senate confirmed her to the role.
Her termination came after U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ousted the scientific advisors who make vaccine recommendations to the CDC. Kennedy appointed new members to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Policy, which then raised questions about historic vaccination regimens that Kennedy had also questioned.
Dr. Debra Houry, who was the agency’s chief medical officer, was among several who quit last week after Monarez’s firing.
Houry worried that her former agency’s pending recommendations about the COVID-19 vaccine could make it more difficult to get immunized. She said vaccine skepticism is already having an impact.
“This past year, we saw over 200 pediatric deaths from the flu. That’s unacceptable. We shouldn’t be seeing kids dying from the flu,” Houry said.
Houry exited the CDC with Dr. Daniel Jernigan, who spent three decades at the agency and supervised the center for emerging diseases and vaccine safety.
Jernigan said he quit because he felt Kennedy was not being transparent about the process for developing vaccine policy. He said he believed Monarez was fired because she wanted to let science drive public health policy.
Jernigan also said the Trump administration had disrupted CDC funding that goes to states and local health agencies and that it could undermine local programs.
“That could be impacts on foodborne illness, detection of problems with restaurants, problems with giving vaccinations to kids … not knowing if your food is safe, if the water is safe,” he said.
Tuesday’s event was convened by Democrats in the state House and Senate who, with some of their eight CDC guests, blamed the Aug. 8 shooting at the agency’s headquarters near Emory University on misinformation and political rhetoric.
Rep. Saira Draper, D-Atlanta, called on Gov. Brian Kemp to publicly back the federal agency and to create a multi-state public health alliance. The governor declined to comment.
Despite the concerns expressed Tuesday about transparency under Sec. Kennedy, the CDC had already earned mistrust from a significant swath of the public. A woman named Melinda Hicks underscored that sentiment when she peppered Houry and Jernigan with questions about vaccine safety. A friend had died of “brain bleed” after taking a COVID-19 vaccine, said Hicks, who lives in Atlanta.
Houry and Jernigan tried to answer as she interrupted them, saying the CDC had multiple monitoring systems and tracked vaccine-related deaths.
Hicks said in a brief interview later that she had not been vaccinated herself and that she supported the firing of Monarez.
by Dave Williams | Sep 2, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Georgia lawmakers are taking a fresh look at a state-run venture capital fund that was created a dozen years ago.
The General Assembly intended to jumpstart Invest Georgia in 2013 with an infusion of $100 million, Charlie Thompson, the fund’s board chairman, told members of a state House study committee Tuesday. But so far, only about $50 million has been forthcoming from the state, said Thompson, founding principal of the investment firm Eco-Capital Advisors.
“Georgia has done a phenomenal job creating an ecosystem of startups,” he said. “But for these businesses to scale, they need investment capital. Companies starting here are not staying here.”
“One of the reasons Invest Georgia was put together was not just to start them, but to gestate them, grow them, and mature them,” added Rep. Todd Jones, R-South Forsyth, the study committee’s chairman.
Invest Georgia has used the state’s money to invest in 18 venture capital funds. In turn, those VCs have invested in 119 Georgia companies, which have created more than 4,300 jobs. A requirement of the legislation creating Invest Georgia is that it invest only in companies based in Georgia.
Every $1 dollar the state-run fund has invested has yielded a return of $1.60, Thompson said.
Sean Banks, a partner in Atlanta-based TTV Capital, told committee members his was the first VC fund Invest Georgia invested in. Since 2016, Invest Georgia funds have helped TTV Capital support startup companies, mostly in the financial technology space, to raise Atlanta’s profile as “Transaction Alley” for the fin-tech industry.
“Invest Georgia has been a wonderful stake for us in the ground,” Banks said. “They’ve been a phenomenal partner.”
But Thompson said Invest Georgia needs more resources if it is to move beyond startups.
Jones said the study committee will look for ways to give Georgia-based companies a “home-field advantage,” likely through some form of tax incentives.
Rep. Stacey Evans, D-Atlanta, another member of the committee, suggested lawmakers examine the current rules for “alternative” investments in the state’s pension funds to free up more investment opportunities.
The resolution creating the panel gave it under Dec. 31 to issue findings and recommendations to the full House.
