Lt. Gov. Burt Jones presides over the state Senate.
ATLANTA – Gov. Brian Kemp announced at the beginning of the 2024 General Assembly session that he would not push for comprehensive tort reform this year.
But the state Senate passed legislation Tuesday addressing one aspect of tort reform.
Senate Bill 426, which passed 46-2, would limit the ability of plaintiffs in lawsuits against commercial truckers to file suit directly against a trucking company’s insurance carrier. Legislation aimed at such “direct action” lawsuits is a tort reform priority of Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who presides over the Senate.
Motor vehicle rates in Georgia have been on the rise because current state law allows insurers to be named directly in lawsuits filed by plaintiffs who have been injured in crashes with commercial trucks, Sen. Blake Tillery, R-Vidalia, the bill’s chief sponsor, said on the Senate floor.
“This hopefully will help regulate, stabilize, and reduce rates,” he said.
Tillery said about three dozen states have passed bills prohibiting direct action lawsuits in cases involving commercial trucks. The Georgia bill limits direct action suits but doesn’t prohibit them altogether, part of an agreement between the insurance industry and the trial lawyers’ lobby, said Tillery, himself a trial lawyer.
“We’re not going whole-hog toward ending direct action,” he said. “This is a very carefully crafted compromise.”
“The passage of this legislation was desperately needed in order to get Georgia’s business community the relief it needs,” Jones added following Tuesday’s vote. “We are making legitimate strides to level the playing field when a case reaches the courtroom.”
The bill, endorsed by the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, now moves to the state House of Representatives.
ATLANTA – Georgia tax collections rose last month compared to January of last year, the state Department of Revenue reported Monday.
But that 2.1% increase only occurred because the state sales tax on gasoline was in effect last month but was not being collected during the same month a year ago.
Both individual and corporate income taxes fell in January. Individual income taxes declined slightly – by 0.3% – while corporate income tax revenue plummeted by 43.3%.
Net sales taxes rose slightly last month – by 0.2% – compared to January of last year.
For the first seven months of the current fiscal year, state tax receipts increased by 1.7% over the same period during fiscal 2023. However, after subtracting taxes on gasoline and other fuels from the mix, revenues from last July through last month were down 2.7%.
While tax collections have been sluggish for months, Gov. Brian Kemp and legislative leaders haven’t been overly concerned because Georgia has built up a $16 billion budget surplus during the last three years. That’s allowed the governor to propose major spending increases in both the fiscal 2024 midyear budget and the fiscal 2025 spending plan.
ATLANTA – Legislation aimed at ensuring the huge number of solar farms springing up across rural Georgia don’t become permanent eyesores cleared the state House of Representatives Monday.
House Bill 300, which passed unanimously, requires companies that lease property for solar farms to restore the land to its natural state after the lease expires.
Restoration activities include removing the foundations of solar arrays from the ground to a depth of at lease three feet, filling holes that have been dug to accommodate solar panels, and removing cables and overhead power and communications line
The bill also requires the companies to provide financial assurance at least equal to the estimated cost of removing solar arrays and returning the property to its natural state.
The original version of the measure called for creating a state trust fund to finance restoring land used for solar farms. However, the bill’s backers decided a trust fund wasn’t necessary and money to pay for restoration activities could come through the private sector.
ATLANTA – The Georgia Environmental Protection Division (EPD) has released draft permits for a controversial proposed titanium mine near the Okefenokee Swamp.
Alabama-based Twin Pines Minerals is planning to mine titanium dioxide on Trail Ridge, the Okefenokee’s eastern hydrologic boundary.
While company executives have said the project would not harm the swamp, scientific studies have concluded the proposed mine would significantly damage one of the world’s largest intact freshwater wetlands.
“This is a dark day in Georgia’s history,” Josh Marks, an environmental lawyer and president of Georgians for the Okefenokee, wrote late Friday in an email to Capitol Beat.
“EPD may have signed a death warrant for the Okefenokee Swamp, our state’s greatest natural treasure, by moving forward with a project that independent scientists say will draw down the swamp’s water level, making it three times more likely to suffer drought conditions and increasing the risk of landscape-level fires that will destroy private property and release tens of millions of tons of CO2 (carbon dioxide) into the atmosphere.”
The project’s opponents have bombarded the EPD with more than 200,000 public comments against the mine, while more than a dozen cities and counties in the region and across the state have passed resolutions calling for protecting the Okefenokee. Legislation before the General House of Representatives would ban surface mining near the swamp.
Twin Pines President Steve Ingle called the EPD evaluation of the company’s application for permits a “thorough” review of the proposed mine.
“The exhaustive hydrology, geology, biology, and herpetology studies, as we have said all along, have been validated,” Ingle wrote in a prepared statement. “We expect stringent government oversight of our mining-to-reclamation project, which will be fully protective of the Okefenokee Wildlife Refuge and the region’s environment.”
The Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) urged Georgians concerned about the proposed mine to respond during the 30-day public comment period on the permits.
“While this moves Twin Pines one step closer towards its goal to dig for minerals on 8,000 acres along Trail Ridge, these permits are only drafts,” said Bill Sapp, a senior attorney with the SELC. “The reason Georgia EPD posts draft versions of the permit is because our state leaders give the public a chance to make their voices heard.”
ATLANTA – Two years ago, the Republican-controlled General Assembly passed legislation letting parents petition school principals to ban from school libraries books they consider obscene.
This year, the state Senate is considering two additional bills aimed at making it easier to ban books from school libraries.
But a third bill before the Senate would take the push against material considered harmful to minors on a different front. Senate Bill 390 would prohibit city, county, and regional libraries from using either tax dollars or private funds on any materials offered by the American Library Association (ALA).
“They have expanded beyond school libraries,” said Lisa Morgan, president of the Georgia Association of Educators. “Now, they’re going after public libraries as well.”
The ALA has become controversial in right-wing circles in recent years for promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the selection of library materials and for opposing book banning and other forms of censorship. Its president, Emily Drabinski, became a lightning rod in 2022 when she characterized herself as a “Marxist lesbian.”
“The ALA has proven it is not an organization of political neutrality,” Taylor Hawkins, director of advocacy for FrontLine Policy Action, a Christian advocacy group, told members of the Senate Government Affairs Committee Feb. 7. “This is an organization that cannot be trusted.”
Sen. Larry Walker III, R-Perry, Senate Bill 390’s chief sponsor, told committee members the ALA came to his attention when the Houston County Library sought a $20,000 grant from the organization, only to be told any materials the money was used to purchase had to promote DEI or deal with LGBTQ+ issues.
“That was not a reflection of the morals and values of our community and was inappropriate, especially in the children’s section,” Walker said. “They (the ALA) should be apolitical. They should not weigh into these controversial arenas.”
Walker’s characterization of the ALA grant drew pushback from a grassroots group called STOP Moms for Liberty, which bills itself as a defender of public education.
The group contended in a news release that the materials the grant purchased were E-books and E-audios not on the library’s physical shelves and were for adults and young adults. The ALA did not direct the selection of the materials, STOP Moms for Liberty also asserted.
Julie Walker, vice chancellor for libraries and archives with the University System of Georgia, which oversees the state’s public libraries. said local library boards determine what materials to place on their shelves.
“Selection of materials is not influenced by the ALA,” she told the Senate panel.
Sen. Walker told the committee an “unintended consequence” of his bill needs to be worked out as it makes its way through the General Assembly. Since the bill would essentially dissolve the state’s relationship with the ALA, it would leave working librarians and students of library sciences without a way to gain certification.
David Slykhuis, dean of the College of Education & Human Services at Valdosta State University, home to Georgia’s only master’s degree program in library sciences, said graduating students need ALA certification to get jobs.
“Losing accreditation would eliminate Valdosta State as a viable program for most students,” he said.
Walker said the states of Texas, Missouri, Montana, Alabama, Wyoming, and South Carolina have left the ALA. He suggested Georgia library officials work with their counterparts from other states to identify an alternate organization that could be used to accredit library sciences degree programs and certify graduating students.
“Other options will spring up more in line with Georgia values,” Hawkins said.
The committee did not vote on Walker’s bill at the Feb. 7 hearing, but it stands a good chance of passage. It enjoys the backing of influential Republican cosponsors, including Senate Majority Leader Steve Gooch, R-Dahlonega.
