The Georgia Ports Authority’s first inland rail terminal in Murray County opened in 2018.
ATLANTA – The Georgia Ports Authority is spending $127 million to build a second inland rail terminal in Gainesville.
The Blue Ridge Connector will link Northeast Georgia with the Port of Savannah. The new terminal will open in 2026.
“Through improved connectivity, developments like the Blue Ridge Connector maximize the impact of Georgia’s extensive logistics network,” Gov. Brian Kemp said Tuesday. “Inland terminals have a proven track record of powering economic development for rural Georgians by extending port services to the doorstep of manufacturing and supply chain operations.”
The Blue Ridge Connector will join the Appalachian Regional Port in Northwest Georgia’s Murray County, the first inland terminal operating by the Georgia Ports Authority, which opened in 2018.
Norfolk Southern Railroad will connect the new inland port to the ports authority’s Mason Mega Rail Terminal in Savannah.
Counting the Blue Ridge Connector, the state has now invested $374 million in rail capacity. About 18% to 20% of the ports authority’s container cargo now moves by rail.
“This important investment will help our customers streamline their supply chains while reducing congestion of Georgia highways,” said Griff Lynch, the authority’s president and CEO. “As we have seen at the Appalachian Regional Port … improved rail service to the region will increase transportation efficiency and act as a magnet for jobs and economic development.”
Every container moved by rail to the Blue Ridge Connector will avoid a 600-mile round trip by truck between Savannah and the Gainesville area.
“That’s a massive benefit to cargo owners seeking to reduce their carbon footprint,” Lynch added.
The federal government is putting up to $46.8 million toward the new inland terminal in the form of a grant from the Federal Maritime Administration.
Georgia Commissioner of Transportation Russell McMurry
ATLANTA – The Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) is looking for a developer to build a publicly accessible hydrogen fueling station in Southeast Georgia.
The DOT released a Notice of Intent to Advertise last last week and plans to put out a Request for Proposals during the first quarter of next year to seek bids from developers seeking to partner with the state on the project. The hydrogen fueling station is intended to be used by commercial fleet vehicles.
Hydrogen-powered electric fuel cells are a promising technology for commercial vehicles including large trucks. They could be used for fast recharging of heavy vehicles, enabling goods to be delivered over long travel distances.
While the technology is in the early stages of development in the U.S., it has been deployed successfully in several other countries.
“This is the first step in the process that will ready Georgia for vehicles of the future that support alternative fuels for transportation,” state Commissioner of Transportation Russell McMurry said. “I am pleased that GDOT continues to innovate and is preparing for the future of commercial vehicles, especially on the heels of Georgia’s manufacturing revolution.”
The proposed scope of work is expected to include the design, permitting, site development, construction, operation, and maintenance of both a temporary and a permanent hydrogen fueling station. The winning bidder will be responsible for supplying the hydrogen fuel and well as operating and maintaining the fueling station.
GDOT intends to enter a public-private partnership contract with the winning developer, which will qualify the project for federal funding.
An industry forum is expected to be held next month for interested developers.
ATLANTA – The General Assembly’s Republican majorities gave final passage to new legislative district maps Tuesday over objections from minority Democrats that the state House and Senate maps violate the Voting Rights Act.
Voting along party lines, the Georgia House of Representatives adopted a new state Senate map senators had passed late last week. A short time later, the Senate approved a new state House map House lawmakers had passed last Friday.
Tuesday’s votes completed action on revisions to two of three 2021 redistricting maps U.S. District Judge Steve Jones ruled out of compliance with the Voting Rights Act in a decision handed down in October. The two legislative maps now head to Gov. Brian Kemp’s desk for his signature.
The third map containing new congressional district lines cleared the state Senate Tuesday in another party-line vote. The House will vote on the congressional map later this week, wrapping up a special redistricting session Kemp called following the judge’s ruling.
As ordered by Jones, the new House map creates five additional Black-majority districts, two in the southern end of metro Atlanta, one in the western portion of the metro region, and two in and around Macon.
“It fully complies with Judge Jones’ order,” said Sen. Bo Hatchett, R-Cornelia, vice chairman of the Senate Reapportionment and Redistricting Committee.
But Senate Minority Leader Gloria Butler said Republicans went beyond the areas the judge identified as in need of redrawing to reduce Black voting strength in several other districts.
Sen. Tonya Anderson, D-Lithonia, accused Republicans of “partisan gerrymandering” aimed at maintaining the House’s GOP majority.
“Georgia Republicans thumbed their noses at a federal court order,” she said. “This map weakens the power of Black voters. It exists only to entrench the power of the majority party.”
Democrats also complained that the House maps pair four sets of incumbents who would have to run against each other, including three pairs of Democrats but only one pair of Republicans.
Similar arguments divided House Republicans and Democrats during Tuesday’s debate over the proposed state Senate map.
Rep. Rob Leverette, R-Elberton, chairman of the House Reapportionment and Redistricting Committee, said Republicans complied with Jones’ order that they create two additional Black-majority Senate districts in the southern end of metro Atlanta. Unlike the House map, the Senate map did not pair any incumbents, he said.
“This plan complies with the order and fulfills our obligation as a General Assembly,” Leverette said.
But Rep. Saira Draper, D-Atlanta, said the Senate map accomplished the goal of complying with the court order by moving almost as many Black voters out of existing Black-majority districts as into the two new Black-majority districts. A net of only 3,000 Black voters were moved into Black-majority districts, she said.
“This proposal is nothing more than an effort to maintain the status quo,” Draper said.
The Senate map the House adopted Tuesday is expected to allow Republicans to maintain their current 33-23 majority in the upper legislative chamber. Democrats had put forth an alternative map likely to help them gain two seats.
But Leverette said scoring political gains is not the purpose of the Voting Rights Act.
“The Voting Rights Act doesn’t protect political parties,” he said. “It protects voters.”
ATLANTA – A Republican-dominated legislative committee approved a new congressional map for Georgia Monday over objections that it doesn’t comply with a federal court order that found the current map violates the Voting Rights Act.
The proposed map, approved by the Senate Reapportionment and Redistricting Committee along party lines, would create an additional Black-majority district as U.S. District Judge Steve Jones ordered in an October ruling.
But in doing so, Republicans would transform an adjacent district currently dominated by minority voters – including Blacks, Hispanics and Asian Americans – that could be expected to elect a minority candidate into a heavily white district.
“We have eliminated a minority-opportunity district, which goes completely against the judge’s order,” Senate Minority Whip Harold Jones, D-Augusta, told committee members shortly before Monday’s vote.
The proposed map would include significant changes to Georgia Congressional District 6. The new 6th District would include much of central and South Fulton County, South Cobb County, eastern Douglas County, and northern Fayette County. As a result, the district’s Black voting-age population would be 51.75%.
The 7th Congressional District, which covers the southern half of Gwinnett County and a portion of Fulton County under a map the General Assembly drew in 2021, would move completely out of Gwinnett into a larger part of North Fulton; all of Forsyth, Dawson, and Lumpkin counties; eastern Cherokee County and western Hall County. It would have a white voting-age population of 75%.
Ken Lawler, co-chairman of Fair Districts GA, a nonpartisan organization that encourages fairness and transparency in redistricting, said altering District 7’s racial makeup from 67% minority voters to 75% white, would not pass muster with Judge Jones.
“By losing District 7 as a minority district … it does not meet the requirements of the court order,” he said.
Cindy Battles, director of policy and engagement with the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, said the Republican map targets Democratic U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath, who currently represents the 7th District, in a partisan attempt to maintain the GOP’s 9-5 margin in the state’s congressional delegation.
Georgia voters are currently evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, which the proposed map fails to reflect, she said.
Battles also complained that the proposed map splits racially diverse Gwinnett County four ways, between districts 4, 9, 10, and 13.
“Dividing this county four different ways is diminishing (minorities’) voting capacity,” she said.
But Sen. Shelly Echols, R-Gainesville, the committee’s chair, said the Republican map complies with the court order by creating an additional Black-majority congressional district in western portions of metro Atlanta. Echols referred to a series of pages in Jones’ 516-page order that refer to Black-minority districts – not coalition or minority-opportunity districts – as his goal.
“The Voting Rights Act protects distinct minority groups, not coalitions,” Echols said.
The congressional map is expected to reach the Senate floor for a vote on Tuesday.
ATLANTA – Gov. Brian Kemp said Monday he will ask Georgia lawmakers to provide additional tax relief during the upcoming legislative session by accelerating a state income tax cut lawmakers adopted last year.
House Bill 1437 set in place a reduction in the state’s income tax rate from 5.75% to 4.99%, to be phased in over several years.
Kemp said he will propose amending the 2022 legislation by moving up the timetable for the reductions, which would set the tax rate in tax year 2024 at 5.39% rather the 5.49% set by the current version of the bill. The Governor’s Office of Planning and Budget estimates accelerating the tax cuts would save taxpayers $1.1 billion during the tax year starting Jan. 1.
The governor touted his proposal as the latest in a series of tax cuts in Georgia, including $2 billion in income tax rebates during the last two years, more than $1 billion in property tax relief, and two temporary suspensions of the state sales tax on gasoline that saved motorists more than $2.2 billion.
“While big government and big spenders in Washington and states like California and New York further their tax-and-spending policies … we’re choosing a different path in the Peach State,” Kemp said.
“We believe in the principle that tax dollars belong to those who earned them in the first place,” added Georgia House Speaker Jon Burns, R-Newington.
Lt. Gov. Burt Jones welcomed the new proposal as moving Georgia toward his eventual goal of eliminating the state income tax altogether. Jones, who presides over the state Senate, praised the gradual approach the governor is taking.
“We need to do it in a fiscally responsible manner,” he said.
Georgia can easily afford the tax cuts. The state has built up a surplus of $16 billion during the last few years, including $11 billion in undesignated funds.
