State Senate weighing in on growth of data centers

ATLANTA – Georgia Power would not be allowed to pass on the costs of providing electricity to data centers under legislation before the state Senate.

“I support data centers coming to Georgia. … They can be a significant contributor to property taxes,” Sen. Chuck Hufstetler, R-Rome, the bill’s chief sponsor, told members of the Senate Regulated Industries Committee Friday during an initial hearing on the measure. “But they do require considerable resources. I want them to pay their fair share of those investments.”

The rapid growth of the data center industry in Georgia has prompted concerns among state lawmakers and energy regulators during the last couple of years. When Georgia Power executives asked the state Public Service Commission (PSC) in 2023 to approve 6,600 megawatts of additional electrical generating capacity for the Atlanta-based utility, they said 80% of that new demand was coming from energy-intensive data centers.

The commission voted last month to prohibit Georgia Power from passing on the costs of providing electricity to large-load customers including data centers to residential and small-business customers. The new rule also requires contracts with customers using more than 200 megawatts of electricity to be submitted to the PSC for review.

Khara Boender, senior manager of state policy for the Virginia-based Data Center Coalition, an industry association, said she considers Senate Bill 34 unnecessary because the PSC already has acted on the issue. Boender also complained that Hufstetler’s bill unfairly singles out data centers when there are other large users of electricity in Georgia, including the fast-growing advanced manufacturing sector.

But Hufstetler said legislation is needed to ensure Georgia Power’s residential and small-business customers don’t end up footing the bill for power-hungry data centers.

“This is just too huge an issue for us not to make sure we’re taking care of the citizens,” he said. “We need to protect the citizens of Georgia.”

The committee didn’t act on Hufstetler’s bill Friday. A vote could come at the panel’s next meeting.

Sandersville Railroad wins eminent domain ruling

ATLANTA – A Fulton County Superior Court judge has upheld a ruling by the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) granting Sandersville Railroad Co. the right to take land from several property owners for a planned rail spur.

However, Judge Craig Schwall also issued a partial stay preventing the company from invoking the power of eminent domain to start the project pending an expected appeal of this week’s ruling to the Georgia Supreme Court.

The case began in March 2023 when Sandersville moved to condemn and take land owned by Don and Sally Garrett, which has been in Don Garrett’s family for generations.  Two months later, the Garretts, Blaine and Diane Smith, and Marvin and Pat Smith teamed up to challenge the condemnation. In July 2023, more property owners joined the suit.

The PSC sided with the company, voting unanimously last September that the company’s plans for the 4.5-mile Hanson Spur connecting raw material producers to a CSX rail line constitute a legitimate public use under the state’s eminent domain laws.

“A private railroad’s desire to build a speculative new line entirely for the benefit of a handful of private companies is not a public use under the U.S. and Georgia constitutions and Georgia’s eminent domain laws,” said Bill Maurer, senior attorney with the Institute for Justice, which represents the property owners.

“We look forward to the Georgia Supreme Court’s review, and we are thankful our clients will not have to deal with Sandersville building tracks on our clients’ property until the higher court weighs in.”

The company issued a statement praising Schwall’s ruling and defending the project.

“The Hanson Spur is a critical infrastructure project that will open new channels of trade for local businesses, reduce truck traffic, and serve the public with minimal impacts on our neighbors,” the company wrote.

Sandersville Railroad Co. asserted that the Hanson Spur is expected to generate more than $1.5 million in annual economic benefits for Hancock County and the city of Sparta.

Mid-year state budget sails though Georgia House

ATLANTA – The Georgia House overwhelmingly passed a $40.5 billion mid-year state budget Thursday containing hundreds of millions of dollars in new spending aimed largely at helping victims of Hurricane Helene recover from the devastating storm.

The mid-year budget, which now moves to the state Senate, sailed through the House 166-3.

House lawmakers added $197 million to the $615 million Gov. Brian Kemp requested in relief for residents, business owners, farmers, and timber producers who suffered losses when Helene struck South Georgia and the eastern half of the state last September.

“This will just address initial needs,” House Appropriations Committee Chairman Matt Hatchet, R-Dublin, said of the $250 million included in the mid-year budget to help timber producers affected by Helene, up from the $100 million the governor recommended. “I’m sure we’ll have additional legislation.”

Another priority of the mid-year budget is public safety. The spending plan calls for hiring more than 400 correctional officers to staff a state prison system criticized last fall in a federal audit for failing to protect inmates from widespread violence.

The mid-year budget also would boost funding for body cameras and tasers to help those correctional officers maintain order.

House Minority Leader Carolyn Hugley, D-Columbus, questioned whether two modular prison units the state Department of Corrections plans to construct will provide enough security. The state plans to move inmates into those units temporarily to make room for projects fixing crumbling infrastructure in existing prisons.

“They are very sturdy,” Hatchett responded. “The concrete reinforcement and insulation of doors and locks are the same ones we use (in the existing prisons).”

The mid-year budget also includes $501.7 million to increase surface water supplies in Coastal Georgia to supply the huge Hyundai electric-vehicle manufacturing plant now under construction west of Savannah. A new water intake on the Savannah River is expected to produce 20 million gallons a day by 2030.

Another $250 million would go toward low-interest loans to help finance water and wastewater projects across the state.

The Georgia Department of Transportation would receive more than $500 million for improvements along the state’s interstate corridors.

The House supported Kemp’s request for an additional $50 million for school-security grants, with each school in Georgia getting more than $68,000 to spend as local school district officials see fit.

Another $22 million would go to accommodate the increasing numbers of foster children needing shelter. Hatchett said the state’s ultimate goal is eliminating the “hoteling” of foster kids in Georgia.

Financially struggling hospitals, many of which pitched in to help victims of Hurricane Helene, would get $35 million in one-time funds to help shore up their bottom lines.

Overall, the mid-year budget would increase state spending by $4.4 billion above the fiscal 2025 budget the General Assembly passed last spring. Of that amount, $2.7 billion would come from the state’s massive $16 billion surplus.

House Speaker Jon Burns said the House was determined to pass a mid-year budget as early as possible in this year’s session in order to make the funding available for disaster relief and other vital needs. The mid-year budget, which covers state spending through June 30, was the first bill to reach the House floor this year.

“We’re upholding our commitment here in the House,” said Burns, R-Newington. “We hope our friends across the hall (the Senate) will get the budget out and get it out timely.”

Raffensperger looking to feds to withdraw election lawsuit

ATLANTA – Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is asking the nation’s new attorney general to withdraw a federal lawsuit challenging election reform legislation the General Assembly passed in 2021.

The Biden administration sued to block provisions of Senate Bill 202, which Georgia lawmakers adopted in the wake of lawsuits President Donald Trump filed at the end of his first term challenging the results of Georgia’s 2020 presidential election. Various courts rejected the Republican suits, ruling that Democrat Joe Biden was the legitimate winner of the Peach State’s 16 electoral votes that year.

Senate Bill 202 required voters seeking to cast absentee ballots to show a photo ID, a provision that already applied to in-person voting. The 2021 legislation also limited the number of absentee ballot drop boxes and prohibited non-poll workers from handing out food and drinks within 150 feet of voters standing in line.

Democrats who opposed the bill called for economic boycotts of Georgia, which led to the relocation of Major League Baseball’s All-Star game in 2021 from Truist Park to Colorado. The game will be held at the Atlanta Braves’ ballpark this summer.

“The (Justice Department) should never be leveraged for political purposes,” Raffensperger said this week. “I hope Attorney General Bondi will join us in ending this frivolous lawsuit against the state of Georgia, and release documents exposing the coordination between the Biden (administration) and the liberal left.”

Raffensperger also cited a 2022 University of Georgia poll that found 99% of voters reported no issues casting their ballots, and a follow-up poll in 2024 that reflected a similarly high satisfaction rate, with 98% of voters experiencing no problems voting.

 

House panel OKs $40.5B mid-year state budget

ATLANTA – Georgia House budget writers approved a $40.5 billion mid-year state budget Wednesday that would take advantage of a huge surplus to fund improvements to the state’s prison system and provide disaster relief to victims of Hurricane Helene.

The fiscal 2025 mid-year budget would increase state spending by $4.4 billion over the original budget the General Assembly adopted last spring. Of that increase, $2.7 billion would come out of the surplus.

Gov. Brian Kemp made the prison system and hurricane relief major priorities of the mid-year budget he presented to the legislature last month.

The House Appropriations Committee upped the ante on both, raising the number of additional correctional officers the state plans to hire from the 330 the governor recommended to more than 400 and increasing the hurricane relief package Kemp proposed by $197 million to $811 million.

The prison package follows release of a Justice Department audit last fall that accused the Georgia prison system of violating inmates’ constitutional rights by failing to protect them from widespread violence. Beefing up the system’s staffing and upgrading deteriorating prison infrastructure will require a multi-year effort, committee Chairman Matt Hatchett, R-Dublin, told his House colleagues before Wednesday’s vote.

“This is just the beginning of a costly but essential endeavor,” he said.

To help offset the cost of the increased hiring, the House version of the mid-budget calls for reducing Kemp’s request for the design and construction of new modular prison units from four to two. That would reduce the total prison package from $372 million to $333 million.

Hatchett said the hurricane relief money would help homeowners, business owners, farmers, and timber producers across a large swath of South Georgia and the eastern half of the state struck by Helene in late September recover from the devastating hurricane.

“This storm had a much larger impact than any other disaster in our history, causing generational loss, changing the landscape of our state both literally and figuratively,” he said.

Other highlights in the mid-year budget include a $1 billion one-time income tax rebate and $1.7 billion for transportation and water projects.

The transportation funding includes $530 million to help the state Department of Transportation improve roads and highways vital to the movement of freight throughout Georgia.

The water projects the governor is recommending include $500 million to increase surface water supplies in Coastal Georgia as an alternative to dipping into environmentally fragile groundwater to supply the huge Hyundai electric-vehicle manufacturing plant now under construction west of Savannah. A new water intake on the Savannah River is expected to deliver 20 million gallons a day by 2030.

The mid-year budget, which would cover state spending through June 30, fully funds Georgia’s Quality Basic Education (QBE) formula for students in grades K-12, something the state has only been able to do in recent years after building up a $16 billion surplus.

Another $50 million would go for one-time school safety grants, which Kemp announced last month. Every public school in Georgia would get $68,000 to spend as local school officials see fit.

The mid-year budget is expected to reach the House floor for a vote on Thursday.