ATLANTA — People who want to protect the Okefenokee delivered a petition with 26,000 signatures Wednesday to a company they fear might mine near the swamp, asking for a permanent pledge not to.
Last year, conservationists assembled about $60 million to buy a stretch of land adjacent to the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge that was owned by a company with plans to harvest titanium dioxide, a mineral used to whiten everything from toothpaste to snacks.
The Conservation Fund may have neutralized one threat by acquiring Twin Pines Minerals’ land, but environmentalists say it was not the only property on Trail Ridge that could invite mining.
They have been targeting Chemours, which mines materials such as titanium dioxide to feed its global chemicals business and is active in the region.
“We know that interest in mining Trail Ridge persists even though the Okefenokee Swamp is too precious to risk for an abundant mineral that is used to make paint, toothpaste and Oreo filling white,” Jennette Gayer, director of Environment Georgia, said in a statement Wednesday.
Her group and others delivered their petition to Chemours on Wednesday, Earth Day.
The company seemed unmoved.
A spokeswoman said a prior Chemours statement on the topic still stands.
In that 2022 statement, the company said it was committed to responsible mining with “thorough planning and design” to protect sensitive features, such as wetlands and groundwater. It said Chemours had no plans to mine on Trail Ridge because it had mineral flowing from enough other sites in Georgia and Florida to satisfy demand “well into the 2030s.”
The statement also said Chemours had no intention of doing business with Twin Pines for five or 10 years, which became moot after the purchase by conservationists last year.
That absence of a new commitment disappointed Josh Marks, president of Georgians for the Okefenokee.
“What has been so frustrating is that they want to preserve the option to extract and process minerals from the Okefenokee for toothpaste and junk food,” he said by email.
He pointed to a 2024 article in The Current in which the owner of other land near the Okefenokee supported the idea of Chemours mining nearby.
Marks said Chemours’ 2022 statement about safely mining is outdated given a study last year by the University of Georgia. Researchers there found more evidence that the Okefenokee is linked to an underlying aquifer and that drawing water from the aquifer would effectively draw water from the swamp.
Twin Pines Minerals had contended that its plans to draw an average of 1.4 million gallons of water a day from the aquifer would not harm the swamp.
Environmentalists say lowering the aquifer would wreak havoc on a rich ecosystem that is among the best preserved blackwater wetlands in the world and home to endangered and threatened species.
They also say mining could harm a part of the swamp that will soon be open to visitors.
The Georgia Department of Natural Resources was awarded $7 million from a stewardship fund to buy nearly 4,000 acres of the land that The Conservation Fund purchased from Twin Pines, according to Environment Georgia.
The land will be part of a new Wildlife Management Area that will open to the public next year.
ATLANTA — U.S. Rep. David Scott, a Democrat who made history as the first African American to chair the House Agriculture Committee, has died, his office announced Wednesday.
Scott, 80, had represented the 13th congressional district for nearly a quarter century, representing much of the area south and east of Atlanta.
“To the public, he was a devoted leader who spent more than 50 years serving his community, the state of Georgia, and the American people,” his office said in a statement Wednesday afternoon. “He will be remembered not only for his leadership but for his kindness, compassion, and enduring impact on those around him.”
David Albert Scott was born on a farm in Aynor, S.C., a month after Germany’s surrender in World War II and two months before Japan would surrender.
He graduated from Florida A&M University and earned an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania and them started an advertising business.
Three years after finishing his studies, he worked on Andrew Young’s successful congressional campaign.
Two years later, in 1974, he won his own election to the Georgia House, serving there nearly a decade before switching to the state Senate.
Scott rose in the state Senate to chair the powerful Rules Committee, a role he held when Rep. Carolyn Hugley, D-Columbus, was still learning her way around the Gold Dome.
“I will always remember the grace he showed me,” said Hugley, now the House minority leader. She said in a statement that he was “a fighter,” and she applauded his role in passing the Affordable Care Act after he reached Congress. “He will be missed.”
Scott served in the state Senate until winning his own successful congressional campaign in 2002.
In 2020, the U.S. House Democratic caucus named him chairman of the Agriculture Committee, a key position for a lawmaker from a state like Georgia where agribusiness is significant.
He was up for election this year, when a new crop of graduates from Georgia’s General Assembly decided to challenge him.
Scott faced six opponents in the May 19 primary, one each from the state House and Senate.
Early voting starts Monday. That does not leave enough time to remove Scott’s name from ballots, according to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office.
Voters will see notices at polling places that say any votes cast for Scott will not count, a spokesman for Raffensperger’s office said. Similar notices will be sent to absentee by mail voters, the spokesman said, adding that Gov. Brian Kemp will call a special election to fill the remainder of Scott’s term.
But Scott’s death put politics on hold.
“Today, politics fades and humanity remains,” said Everton Blair Jr., a former Gwinnett County school board member who is running in the Democratic primary to succeed Scott.
U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff said in a statement that “Georgia is a better place thanks to the service of Congressman Scott.”
Scott was married to Alfredia Aaron Scott. They had two daughters, Dayna and Marcye, and two grandchildren, Kimani and Kaylin.
ATLANTA — An extended spell of dry weather has led to major wildfires in South Georgia, prompting Gov. Brian Kemp to declare a state of emergency covering more than half the state.
Kemp’s order on Wednesday covers 91 of Georgia’s 159 counties. It will be in effect for 30 days and includes a ban on burning yard debris and agricultural material there.
“With much of Georgia remaining in extreme drought conditions, wildfires have already surpassed the state’s 5-year average and continue to spread,” Kemp said in a statement.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency approved assistance grants for two locations: the Pineland Road Fire in Clinch and Echols Counties and the Highway 82 Wildfire in Brantley County.
“We are praying for the families who have lost their homes in these devastating conditions, as well as for the first responders working around the clock,” Kemp said.
ATLANTA — With weeks to go before Georgia’s primary election, nearly all the leading candidates for governor attended a forum Tuesday in hopes of distinguishing themselves from their competitors.
Only Keisha Lance Bottoms, a Democrat and former Atlanta mayor, skipped the event at The Battery Atlanta hosted by the Georgia Association of Manufacturers.
Republicans Chris Carr, Brad Raffensperger, Burt Jones and Rick Jackson delivered messages about their support for industry. So did Democrats Derrick Jackson, Michael Thurmond, Jason Esteves and Geoff Duncan, while also calling for more government spending, especially in health care.
Duncan, who was a Republican when he was Georgia’s lieutenant governor, switched parties after clashing with President Donald Trump over the 2020 election. He said his transition away from the GOP had enlightened him on a Democratic “toolkit” that could be expensive while also helping millions. As governor, he said he would be “looking for opportunities to stop ignoring poverty,” using the state’s ample reserves to help pay for pre-kindergarten, assistance for the poor and Medicaid expansion.
He acknowledged the financial advantage of two of the leading candidates on the Republican side.
“Rick Jackson and Burt Jones are having to light $100 million on fire to punch each other in the face,” he told reporters after his time on the stage.
Jones, Duncan’s successor as lieutenant governor, helps run a profitable family gas company. Jackson, a health care entrepreneur, entered the race with no background in government.
Jackson painted his outsider status and wealth as an asset.
Politicians sometimes do the wrong thing to please their donors, he said. “The only reason I’m running is to represent people that don’t have a voice. I could care less about what donors say. I can actually afford to do the right thing.”
Jones said the day’s discussions about policies on affordability, energy and taxes were ultimately less determinative than a gut check by voters.
“Everybody’s talking about the same thing,” he said. “And so at the end of the day, the voters have to decide who it is that they think can best execute on these promises.”
Chris Carr, the Georgia attorney general, delivered a similar line but with a twist that seemed aimed at Jackson and Jones. He said a rich guy and a rich guy’s dad were trying to buy the election, but “candidate quality matters.”
Carr said he supported a “humane” approach to immigrants brought here as children and that he would keep a state tax credit for affordable housing. He took a harder line against data centers than other Republicans, saying no community should have one “crammed down their throat.”
Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, appealed to older voters, saying he would support eliminating income taxes on retirement benefits while capping property tax increases that outpace the rise in Social Security checks. He told reporters that one solution to the health care crisis could be “charity clinics” where doctors have a “sliding fee structure” based on what patients can afford.
State Rep. Derrick Jackson, pointed to his leadership roles in the military and at General Electric and said he supported Medicaid expansion, a standard refrain among the four Democrats.
Jason Esteves, a former Atlanta school board chair and state senator, appealed to younger voters, saying he represented a “new generation of leadership.” Like nearly every candidate, he said a solution to Georgia’s workforce challenges would be to expand alternative pathways to a job. He said he would support tax credits for apprenticeship programs.
Most from both parties agreed that Georgia needs to steer more youths toward trade schools.
Michael Thurmond, who had perhaps the most expansive resume of the day, led the DeKalb County School District out of an accreditation crisis when he was an unconventional hire as superintendent over a decade ago. He went on to become the elected CEO of DeKalb.
Before all that he was the elected labor commissioner during the Great Recession, leading him to boast that he had connected more Georgians with a job than any candidate.
“White collar, blue collar, no collar. It’s not the color of the collar,” he said, “but it’s the green in the dollar that makes all the difference.”
ATLANTA — A little amendment to the last bill to pass the Georgia General Assembly this year could cause quite a stir if Gov. Brian Kemp signs it into law.
Or the Senate’s tweak to House Bill 1409 could do nothing, except give lawmakers pause about pursuing sex with a staffer.
The measure, which passed the Senate unanimously during the lunch hour on April 2, technically the last day of the legislative session, went on to pass the House 12 hours later, at 12:53 am, with broad bipartisan support.
The underlying bill updates a Georgia law that requires adults who interact with children to report suspected child abuse.
The amendment connects Georgia to recent events in Washington, D.C., where California Democrat Eric Swalwell and Texas Republican Tony Gonzales each resigned from the U.S. House on Tuesday.
Swalwell stepped down and suspended his campaign for California governor after he was accused of sexually assaulting a former staffer. Gonzales admitted in a radio interview to having an affair with an aide who later took her own life by lighting herself on fire.
Georgia state Sen. Randy Robertson, R-Cataula, said he was moved to introduce what lawmakers referred to as “the Epstein amendment” after he read about her death.
“I’m going to encourage our congressional delegation to look at what we did here and go up and take the same stand,” Robertson said this week after Swalwell and Gonzales resigned. “They represent us, so I think they have an obligation, the same as state senators and state representatives, to be transparent with the people who put them in office”
Sen. Randy Robertson, R-Cataula, discusses House Bill 1409 on the Senate Floor during what was technically the final day of the 2026 Legislative Session, Sine Die, on Thursday, April 2, at the Georgia Capitol in Atlanta. This legislation sought to update the mandate for reporting child abuse. Another senator added what came to be called “the Epstein amendment,” a transparency mandate Robertson had added to other bills. (Ashtin Barker/Capitol Beat)
Calling it the Epstein amendment is a misnomer since he was a financier rather than a lawmaker, but the connotation of sexual abuse is what led to the nickname for Robertson’s transparency mandate.
HB 1409, should the governor sign it, will require that the leaders of the House and Senate treat any settled claim of “sexual harassment, discriminatory harassment, discrimination, or retaliation” as an open record, subject only to the scrubbing of the complainant’s identity. Refusal to release such records after a request would be treated as a misdemeanor punishable with a fine of up to $1,000, or $2,500 for each additional violation within a year.
Robertson, who got another bill approved that would make it illegal for clergy to have sexual contact with people taking their counsel, said he felt lawmakers should hold themselves to the same standard.
He had been trying to get his transparency amendment approved since March 6, the deadline to “cross” bills from the Senate to the House, when he stuck it onto another bill about public access to mugshots and police videos. That bill did not pass. Nor did another he tried to attach it to. But other senators started copying him.
When Senate Minority Whip Kim Jackson, D-Stone Mountain, added it to another bill, he said he looked back at her and smiled.
It is not a partisan proposal, Robertson said.
Jackson agreed to a point. She had attached Robertson’s language to a bill she opposed and hoped to kill, yet she said this week that sexual harassment is “rampant” in Congress and in legislatures across the country. Before she was elected, she toured the state Capitol with a YWCA group, and she said the lobbyist leading them warned about wearing clothing that might attract unwanted attention.
“Robertson is on the right side of history on this,” she said. But she also said that she thinks he just forced his colleagues — by that she meant Republicans — to support the measure. “You can’t vote against it, right?”
She said she thinks the disclosure mandate could use safeguards to protect against publicizing false claims of harassment, but she said she would still like Kemp to sign it into law. The Legislature can tend to those details in the future, she said, but in the meantime the transparency requirement would protect aides and other women who work under the Gold Dome.
“I think we’re all safer with having it brought to the light,” she said.
The version of the amendment that ultimately passed was tacked onto HB 1409 by Sen. Blake Tillery, R-Vidalia, who is running for lieutenant governor.
He acknowledged that the language in his amendment had originated with Robertson, and he said he was moved to act by the failure of Congress to impose transparency on itself.
“The U.S. Congress voted to not do that,” he said on the Senate floor. “I think our body is better.”
