Plant Vogtle’s Unit 3 nuclear reactor was completed last summer.
ATLANTA – A malfunction within the cooling system at the second of two additional nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle is forcing Georgia Power to delay the unit’s in-service date until the second quarter of this year.
Georgia Power announced Thursday in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that vibrations associated with certain piping within the cooling system at Vogtle Unit 4 were discovered during start-up and pre-operational testing. The problem has been fixed.
Both the vibrations and the methods used to fix them were similar to those experienced before Vogtle Unit 3 went online last summer.
Before discovery of the vibrations, completion of Unit 4 had been expected to occur during the first quarter.
The new schedule isn’t expected to affect the total capital cost forecast for the project. However, any slippage in the timetable for completion beyond March 31 would reduce Georgia Power’s return on equity to zero, which would reduce earnings by about $30 million for each month until the work is finished.
The state Public Service Commission (PSC) voted in December to let Georgia Power pass on to customers almost $7.6 billion of its costs in building the two additional nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle, the first built in the United States since the 1980s.
The project, originally expected to cost $14 billion when the PSC approved it in 2009, has more than doubled due to a series of cost overruns and delays in the construction schedule. The project will increase the average residential customer’s bill by $8.95 per month.
Environmental groups critical of the Plant Vogtle expansion argue nuclear energy is a bad investment and that Georgia Power would be better off more aggressively pursuing the development of renewable energy sources.
Georgia Power officials say the project is a sound long-term investment that will provide safe, reliable, and emission-free energy for up to 80 years.
ATLANTA – The Republican-controlled Georgia Senate passed legislation Thursday that would mostly do away with the granting of no-cash bail to criminal suspects in Georgia.
Senate Bill 63, which passed 30-17 along party lines, would prohibit judges from ordering no-cash bail unless the accused has been charged with a crime that does not carry a jail or prison sentence.
The ban on no-cash bail would apply to a long list of violent and non-violent crimes, from murder and rape to possession of marijuana with intent to distribute and such white-collar crimes as forgery and financial transaction card fraud.
The Senate passed the bill last year but couldn’t reach agreement with the state House of Representatives before the 2023 legislative session adjourned. The version of the measure that passed Thursday was a compromise reached by a joint House-Senate conference committee.
One change in the final version of the bill would ban no-cash bail for non-violent offenses including criminal trespass and theft by taking only if the suspect is being charged with a second offense.
Senate Majority Whip Randy Robertson, R-Cataula, the legislation’s chief sponsor, said getting rid of no-cash bail would “make our communities safer” at a time violent crime is on the rise.
But Sen. Josh McLaurin, D-Sandy Springs, cited FBI statistics showing crime in the United States has declined in recent years. For example, property crime is at its lowest level since 1961, McLaurin said.
“This bill is a ‘solution’ to a problem that doesn’t exist,” he said.
McLaurin also argued that expanding the ban on no-cash bail in Georgia would worsen jail overcrowding by taking away the discretion judges enjoy under current law to release criminal suspects who they believe are not a threat to public safety or a flight risk.
“Instead of giving judges the tools they need, we’re squeezing judges … forcing them to put more people behind bars,” he said.
But Sen. John Albers, R-Roswell, chairman of the Senate Public Safety Committee, said the inmate population at the Fulton County Jail – which had been the most overcrowded in the state – has come down in recent months.
The conference committee report now heads to the Georgia House for an up-or-down vote.
ATLANTA – The state Senate overwhelmingly passed legislation Thursday to legalize sports betting in Georgia, but only after approving a major change in the bill that would require a statewide referendum on the measure.
Under Senate Bill 386, which passed 35-15, the Georgia Lottery Corp. would oversee sports betting, awarding licenses to 16 online sports betting providers.
Five licenses would go to Atlanta’s pro sports teams: the Braves, Falcons, Hawks, Dream, and Atlanta United. The Augusta National Golf Club, the Professional Golf Association (PGA), and the Atlanta Motor Speedway would receive one license each.
Seven licenses would be open to sports betting providers through an application process overseen by lottery officials. The lottery corporation also would receive one license.
The bill calls for 20% of the adjusted gross revenues derived from sports betting to go toward Georgia’s HOPE Scholarships and pre-kindergarten programs.
The bill’s supporters argued sports betting is happening already in Georgia without any ability for the state to regulate the industry or obtain tax revenue from betting. If legalized, sports betting would provide at least $100 million a year to HOPE and pre-k.
“It is a new funding source,” said Sen. Harold Jones, D-Augusta. “We are leaving a new source of funding on the table if we don’t move forward.”
The original bill, sponsored by Sen. Clint Dixon, R-Buford, would legalize sports betting without taking the issue to Georgia voters in the form of a constitutional amendment. Changing the state’s constitution requires a two-thirds vote of the House and Senate, supermajorities sports betting supporters have been unable to muster during past legislative sessions.
But legalizing sports betting should require a constitutional amendment, just as the Georgia Lottery did when the General Assembly approved the lottery back in the early 1990s, said Sen. Bill Cowsert, R-Athens.
Cowsert, who is sponsoring separate sports betting legislation that would require a constitutional change, amended Dixon’s bill on the Senate floor Thursday to mandate a constitutional amendment before sports betting could become law in Georgia.
Cowsert said sports betting was never contemplated in the 1992 referendum Georgia voters approved creating the lottery.
“There’s no way the people of Georgia … believed it would authorize the General Assembly to say sports betting is a lottery game,” he said. “To pass this bill without making it contingent on the voters is disingenuous at best.”
Senators approved Cowsert’s amendment 30-17 before passing the underlying bill. The legislation now moves to the state House of Representatives.
ATLANTA – Criminals who attack utility workers in Georgia would be subject to stiffer fines and prison sentences under legislation that cleared a state House committee Wednesday.
The House Judiciary Committee unanimously approved the Utility Worker Protection Act, sending it next to the House Rules Committee to schedule a vote of the full House.
House Bill 1033 is a follow-up to legislation the General Assembly passed last year providing enhanced penalties for intentionally damaging “critical infrastructure” including electricity, water, sewers, telecommunications, public transportation and public transit systems, hospitals, and emergency medical and rescue services.
“Last year, we protected the infrastructure,” Rep. Rob Leverett, R-Elberton, the bill’s chief sponsor, told members of the committee. “Now, we’re trying to give extra protection to the people who work on and maintain that infrastructure.”
Lee Swann, an investigator for the Georgia Transmission Corp., said attacks and threats of violence are not only occurring to electrical workers but to telecom employees.
“It’s a very real problem for us,” he said. “These are the people who are establishing the services to keep businesses running and keep your constituents online.”
Craig Camuso, regional vice president for government affairs for freight rail line CSX Corp., said rail workers and foresters clearing rights of way also are increasingly being victimized.
“This is happening more and more,” he said. “People are getting more brazen.”
Leverett’s bill would increase penalties that could be meted out for several categories of crimes against utility workers including simple assault, aggravated assault, simple battery and aggravated battery. Those found guilty of aggravated assault or aggravated battery would face prison sentences to three years to 20.
The legislation specifies that enhanced penalties only would apply to attacks on utility workers engaged in their official duties at the time of the offense.
ATLANTA – Gov. Brian Kemp signed legislation Wednesday defining antisemitism and incorporating it into Georgia’s hate crimes law.
“There is no place for hate in this great state,” Kemp said during a ceremony at the state Capitol. “In Georgia, we stand with our Jewish brothers and sisters, today and every day.”
House Bill 30 was introduced in the General Assembly last year and overwhelmingly passed the House. However, it failed to make it through the state Senate.
The bill’s backers in both legislative chambers renewed their efforts early in this year’s session, with the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas militants on Israeli civilians as a backdrop.
Kemp said a troubling rise in antisemitic acts across the nation and in Georgia in recent years has included not just harassment and intimidation but violence.
The legislation codifies in state law the definition of antisemitism used by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, an intergovernmental organization founded by Sweden’s prime minister in 1998. It allows prosecutors to seek enhanced penalties when crimes have been committed because the victim is Jewish.
Kemp described the bill Wednesday as a follow-up to hate crimes legislation the General Assembly passed in 2020 following the murder of Black jogger Ahmaud Arbery near Brunswick.
When the legislation was debated on the House and Senate floor last week, some lawmakers argued it violates the First Amendment right to free speech because it would allow Georgians to be charged with a hate crime for simply criticizing the Israeli government’s war on Hamas that has killed thousands of Palestinian civilians.
But the measure ended up passing both chambers by large margins, 44-6 in the Senate and 129-5 in the House.
