by Ty Tagami | Sep 9, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — Georgia’s public health agency is awaiting federal recommendations before setting its own COVID-19 vaccination policy but is willing to “play a larger leadership role” if there are disagreements, the state’s top health official said Tuesday.
Georgia might have to set its own course and priorities and “ensure that accurate information is out” if it disagrees with pending guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and its advisors, state Public Health Commissioner Dr. Kathleen Toomey told the Georgia Board of Public Health at their September meeting.
If federal leadership is “absent” on the vaccination question, she said, “we have to step up and make sure that the public is being served.”
Toomey’s message was delivered as reassurance after misgivings were expressed by several board members.
Dr. James Curran, the board chairman and a former CDC employee, lamented “turmoil” at the federal agency under the new leadership of U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Curran said Kennedy’s employee dismissals have culled the next generation of scientists at the CDC.
Curran also expressed doubt in the reliability of the CDC’s pending COVID-19 vaccine recommendations.
So did board member Dr. Lucky Jain, chair of the Department of Pediatrics at the Emory University School of Medicine. He said faculty with young children have been emailing him with concerns about how to ensure vaccine access. He said they fear Georgia will follow the lead of Florida, which is moving to end all vaccine requirements for school children.
Florida’s plan drew criticism from the American Academy of Pediatrics.
“The ripple effect of removing vaccine entry requirements would affect all of us, not just those with children in school,” the Florida chapter president, Dr. Rana Alissa, said after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and his surgeon general, Dr. Joseph A. Ladapo, announced the new policy.
Jain asked what Georgia was doing “to avoid a situation like what has happened in Florida.”
He wanted reassurance that vaccine access “isn’t diminished over time in Georgia” and said, perhaps jokingly — his comment drew laughter — “is there something that the board can independently do to petition the governor?”
Toomey responded that she spoke with Gov. Brian Kemp’s office about immunization earlier Tuesday.
“I think that there is a huge commitment and understanding of the importance of immunizations, particularly for children — for children’s health,” Toomey said. “And we intend to continue to carry that message.”
Jain also asked for clarity on a statement issued by Toomey’s agency last week indicating Georgia was awaiting guidance from the CDC and its Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. Kennedy alarmed many observers by stripping the advisory panel of its members and gradually replacing them with his own picks.
Toomey clarified that she approved her agency’s message merely because she was waiting to make vaccine recommendations until seeing the federal guidance, which will affect insurance coverage and liability. She also said the state buys vaccine through a federal program, and it has not yet been shipped.
Georgia is not just saying “well, whatever,” she said. “We want to take action when there’s something we need to be addressing, and right now we’re waiting on that final approval because there are other factors within that that we have to consider.”
by Dave Williams | Sep 9, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Environmental advocates and community activists Tuesday supported a proposal to add data centers to the list of large development projects subject to state review.
But they also called for the Georgia Department of Community Affairs (DCA) to lower the threshold for projects that fall under the agency’s definition of “developments of regional impact” (DRIs).
The DCA is proposing new rules that would create a category of DRIs called “technological facility” to include data centers, as well as two other new categories for solar power generating facilities such as solar farms as well as truck stops.
The DCA acted after officials from regional planning commissions across the state asked the agency to add data centers to its DRI rules to help guide local governments in processing developers’ applications for the growing number of data centers springing up in Georgia. Data centers use massive amounts of electricity and water, prompting worries that they will suck up finite resources.
Some local governments have responded to the wave of data centers by restricting them or banning them outright. The Atlanta City Council voted in June to prohibit data centers from setting up in some neighborhoods and require developers to seek a special-use permit for construction.
In May, the Coweta County Commission approved a moratorium on data centers after a developer proposed Project Sail, a massive 13-building data center on more than 800 acres along U.S. 27 near Newnan.
“We need some type of protection at the state level,” Wanda Mosley, a community organizer from the city of South Fulton, said Tuesday during a public hearing on the new rules hosted by the DCA.
The proposed rules would require developers of data centers to disclose information about each project’s energy and water needs.
In cities and suburbs, the rules would apply to data centers covering more than 300,000 square feet. Data centers in rural areas would not come under the rules unless they cover more than 500,000 square feet.
But on Tuesday, Amy Sharma, who chairs the nonprofit Georgia Water Coalition’s data center committee, suggested the DCA lower the threshold of data center projects that would fall under the new rules to those that cover more than 250,000 square feet, regardless of whether they’re in cities, suburbs, or rural communities.
Others who spoke during Tuesday’s public hearing complained that data centers generate a lot of noise in the neighborhoods where they’re sited, create few local jobs, and result in permanent rezonings that remove land from agricultural use.
Data center supporters have countered that they produce valuable property tax revenue, particularly in rural communities with inadequate tax bases.
The DCA is accepting public comment on the proposed rules through Friday. The agency’s board will vote on them Nov. 20.
by Ty Tagami | Sep 9, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — Georgia has a new U.S. attorney, after the federal judges for the Northern District of Georgia appointed Theodore S. Hertzberg to lead the district office Monday.
Hertzberg had been serving as an interim lead after U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi appointed him to that role in May. He succeeded Richard Moultrie Jr., who took the job on an acting basis after then-U.S. Attorney Ryan Buchanan resigned in January at the beginning of President Donald Trump’s second term in the White House.
Hertzberg previously served as an assistant U.S. attorney for nearly 10 years, working for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Georgia in Savannah, then moving to Atlanta in 2018.
He has prosecuted gang leaders, child sex predators, gun traffickers and armed felons, the U.S. Department of Justice said.
Before becoming a federal prosecutor, Hertzberg practiced law in the New York office of Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP and served as a law clerk to Judge Kristi K. DuBose of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Alabama. He graduated from Amherst College and the New York University School of Law.
by Dave Williams | Sep 9, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – A federal judge has upheld a portion of a controversial 2022 Georgia election law dealing with absentee ballots.
In a 50-page ruling Monday, U.S. District Judge J.P. Boulee declared that the state had a “compelling governmental interest” in restricting the distribution of absentee ballot applications by third-party voting rights activists. He ruled that the state was justified in enacting restrictions aimed at “reducing voter confusion, enhancing voter confidence and increasing electoral efficiency.”
The absentee ballot restrictions were part of a broad overhaul of Georgia election procedures the Republican-controlled General Assembly passed in 2021 after Democrat Joe Biden carried the Peach State’s 16 electoral votes in the 2020 presidential election. GOP President Donald Trump, nearing the end of his first term in the White House, claimed widespread voter fraud in Georgia, allegations that were never proven.
Senate Bill 202 also placed limits on the number of absentee drop boxes, imposed an ID requirement for voters casting absentee ballots, and prohibited volunteers from providing food and water to voters waiting in line at the polls.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger praised Monday’s decision.
“This ruling proves what we’ve said all along – Georgia has the best elections in America,” he said. “SB202 is about common sense: protecting voters from confusion, making sure every vote counts once, and keeping our elections free, fair, and secure.”
Representatives of the voting rights groups that brought the lawsuit vowed to continue pursuing the case.
“In the context of increasing government overreach into our elections, the court’s decision to limit advocacy at the expense of the right to free speech is deeply concerning,” said Tom Lopach, president and CEO of the nonprofit Voter Participation Center and Center for Voter Information. “We will continue to fight to protect programs that we know help eligible Georgia voters.”
In a related case, the Justice Department dropped its lawsuit against SB202 after Trump took office for his second term as president.
by Dave Williams | Sep 9, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Georgia’s net tax collections rose by 3.2% last month compared to August of last year, the state Department of Revenue reported Tuesday.
The agency brought in $2.41 billion in tax revenue in August, an increase of nearly $74.1 million over the same month a year ago.
Individual income tax receipts were up by 1.8% during the month, driven largely by a 9.7% decrease in tax refunds issued. Tax payments in August were up slightly by 0.8%.
Net sales tax collections also rose in August, by 8.2%. On the down side, corporate income taxes – a much less significant factor in overall tax revenues – fell by $4.5 million to $39.8 million compared to August of last year, representing an 11% decrease.
Collections of gasoline and other motor fuels taxes rose by $6.3 million last month, representing a 3.2% increase over August 2024.
