President Donald Trump rallied for then-Republican U.S. Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler ahead of the Senate runoff elections on Jan. 4, 2021. (Photo by Beau Evans)
ATLANTA – An anti-Donald Trump Republican political action committee has launched a six-figure ad campaign in Georgia and three other swing states focusing on the latest criminal indictment handed down against the former president.
The 30-second ad sponsored by the Republican Accountability Project plays clips of violence at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, over sound from Trump’s speech at the Ellipse that morning.
“Trump did this,” the ad states. “He’ll do it again unless he faces consequences.”
Trump was charged in federal court in Washington, D.C., Tuesday with four felony counts of interfering with the results of the 2020 presidential election that saw Democrat Joe Biden defeat the Republican incumbent. Trump is scheduled to be arraigned Thursday on the charges.
Tuesday’s indictment was the third lodged against Trump this year, including charges that he paid hush money to ex-porn actress Stormy Daniels during the 2016 election campaign to cover up a sexual relationship and that he kept classified documents after leaving office at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. Trump has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Trump also faces a fourth potential indictment in Fulton County for his alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia. Biden became the first Democratic presidential nominee to carry the Peach State since Bill Clinton in 1992.
The new ads will run in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Wisconsin, all states Biden narrowly won in 2020, as well as nationally on Fox News.
ATLANTA – The head of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources’ Parks and Historic Sites Division will become director of the DNR’s Environmental Protection Division (EPD) later this month.
The state Board of Natural Resources voted unanimously Wednesday to approve Gov. Brian Kemp’s nomination of Jeff Cown to head the EPD. Cown will take up the post on Aug. 16 at an annual salary of $190,000.
Cown has spent 33 years with the DNR, the last five as director of the parks division. Before that, he served for 28 years with the EPD, including a five-year stint as chief of the agency’s Land Protection Branch.
“With an accomplished and dedicated history in this field, he will be an asset to the division as it continues the essential work of ensuring Georgia remains a good steward of our natural resources while balancing the needs of our citizens,” Kemp said Wednesday.
“He’s the steady hand we need right now,” added board member Ray Lambert, who made the motion to appoint Cown.
Cown will succeed Rick Dunn, who left the EPD last month to become director of the Governor’s Office of Planning and Budget.
Cown said a top priority in his new job will be to retain and recruit adequate staffing at the EPD.
“We don’t want to overwork the people who are there,” he said after Wednesday’s vote.
Two issues Cown will face are Alabama-based Twin Pines Minerals’ plan to mine titanium oxide at a site near the Okefenokee Swamp and how the state will regulate coal ash stored in ponds adjacent to coal-burning power plants.
Twin Pines is seeking permits from the EPD to open a mine along Trail Ridge in Charlton County. The proposal generated more than 100,000 comments during a recent 60-day public comment period from opponents warning the project would threaten the environmentally fragile blackwater swamp, the largest in North America.
The Georgia Water Coalition, a partnership of 256 organizations, is asking the EPD and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to prohibit coal ash ponds from being closed in place with ash sitting in groundwater.
Cown said his background with EPD includes experience with both mining and disposal of solid waste including coal ash. He promised to conduct a thorough scientific review of both issues and communicate the findings to the public in a way that builds trust in the agency.
“I need to get into that and see where we are,” he said.
Cown earned a bachelor’s degree in agricultural engineering from the University of Georgia and is a graduate of the Institute of Georgia Environmental Leadership.
ATLANTA – The state should require hospitals planning to close or eliminate core medical services to give 180 days written notice, the head of a statewide consumer advocacy group said Tuesday.
That six months lead time should involve a review that would include a third-party assessment and a public hearing, Liz Coyle, executive director of Georgia Watch, told members of a Georgia House study committee meeting in Augusta.
Wellstar Health System provided only 30 days notice last year when it closed the Atlanta Medical Center, Coyle said.
“It happened so fast, and the community is still devastated,” she said. “We want this to be a much more public process.”
The study committee is looking for ways to modernize Georgia’s Certificate of Need (CON) law governing capital investments in the construction of new hospitals or the addition of new health-care services. The law requires project applicants to demonstrate a need for the new hospital or service in a given community.
Coyle said 180 days is how long it typically takes applicants to go through the CON review process, so it makes sense to require that much lead time before a hospital can shut its doors.
While the Georgia Department of Community Health is currently considering a 180-day notice requirement, she said she would like to see the General Assembly codify it into state law.
Hospital closures aren’t just affecting the Atlanta region. Jimmy Lewis, CEO of HomeTown Health LLC, told the committee 15 rural hospitals in Georgia have closed in the last 20 years.
“When we lose a hospital, we lose an economic generator,” Lewis said. “When these close, that community goes away.”
Coyle said requiring hospitals to give 180 days notice of an impending closure would give community leaders time to identify and obtain sources of funding to keep the facility open. She cited a poll Georgia Watch conducted in April, working with the University of Georgia, that found 82.9% of respondents support requiring a six-month review of proposed hospital closures.
Coyle suggested the lack of transparency in the current closure process may be contributing to the number of closures.
But Rep. Mark Newton, R-Augusta, an emergency room physician, said requiring that much public notice of a closure could aggravate the financial problems a hospital is having by prompting vendors to cancel contracts and employees to leave for more secure jobs.
Coyle also recommended other ways of increasing transparency besides the 180-day notice of a hospital closure, including legislation requiring hospital administrators to file quarterly financial reports that would be accessible to the public.
But Rep. Sharon Cooper, R-Marietta, who chairs the House Public Health Committee, said such a mandate could be overly burdensome for small hospitals.
“The cost of people to do this is beyond the resources of rural hospitals,” she said.
Coyle said the resource problem could be solved by getting state government accountants to compile the required reports.
The study committee on CON modernization will hold its next meeting in Albany before wrapping up its work with a final meeting in Atlanta. The panel is expected to make recommendations in time for the 2024 General Assembly session starting in January.
ATLANTA – The first of two new nuclear reactors being built at Plant Vogtle has gone into commercial operation, Georgia Power officials announced Monday.
Unit 3 at the plant south of Augusta went into service early Monday morning, seven years after originally scheduled and at more than double the original cost estimate.
The new unit is the first newly constructed nuclear reactor in the U.S. in more than 30 years and can power an estimated 500,000 homes and businesses.
“The Plant Vogtle 3 & 4 nuclear expansion is another incredible example of how Georgia Power is building a reliable and resilient energy future for our state,” said Kim Greene, the Atlanta-based utility’s chairman, president and CEO. “Today’s achievement … marks the first day of the next 60 to 80 years that Vogtle Unit 3 will serve our customers with clean, reliable energy.”
Chris Womack, president and CEO of Georgia Power parent Southern Co., called Monday a “historic day” for the company, for Georgia, and for the energy industry.
“With Unit 3 completed and Unit 4 in the final stages of construction and testing, this project shows just how new nuclear can and will play a critical role in achieving a clean energy future for the United States,” he said.
The second new reactor, Unit 4, is projected to go into commercial operation late this year or early in 2024. Last week, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission gave its final go-ahead for Unit 4, issuing a finding that the new reactor will be operated in conformance with federal regulations.
In light of the delays and cost overruns, the project’s critics for years have been calling on Georgia Power to abandon nuclear power and pursue other options including renewable energy. Last week, a panel of experts told members of the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) during a hearing that Georgia Power’s 2.7 million customers will pay significantly more for the nuclear expansion than if the company had used natural gas.
Georgia Power officials say nuclear energy is the only zero-emission baseload energy source available today, providing high reliability and efficient operations around the clock. The company currently gets 25% of its electrical generating capacity from nuclear power, including the existing units 1 and 2 at Vogtle and Georgia’s other nuclear facility at Plant Hatch in Baxley.
The cost of Georgia Power’s 45% share of the project has risen to $15.2 billion, $9 billion above what the utility projected when the PSC approved the nuclear expansion 14 years ago. As a result, the average residential customer’s bill will increase $14.10 per month during the first five years after the project is completed, up from the $9.60 hike in monthly bills estimated in 2009.
“While capital-intensive and expensive projects may benefit Georgia Power’s shareholders who have enjoyed record profits throughout Vogtle’s beleaguered construction, they are not the least-cost option for Georgians who are feeling the sting of repeated bill increases,” said Bob Sherrier, staff attorney for the Atlanta-based Southern Environmental Law Center.
“For customers who have been paying for this project for well over a decade, we hope that Georgia Power and the commission will prioritize proven cost-effective solutions like solar and energy efficiency programs that will help Georgians control energy costs and lower their monthly bills.”
The other 55% of the project’s costs are being picked up by three utility partners: Oglethorpe Power, MEAG Power, and Dalton Utilities.
“Nuclear energy is increasingly important to the clean energy transition, and Oglethorpe Power’s significant ownership in the Vogtle construction project is a testament to the important investments we’re making that drive us toward a cleaner and more sustainable energy future,” Oglethorpe Power President & CEO Mike Smith said Monday.
“We understand the importance of keeping the lights on in a way that preserves both affordability and reliability – and we are proud that the clean energy generated by Unit 3 will help us deliver on that mission for years to come.”
TIFTON – Rural Georgia has benefited disproportionately from a wave of unprecedented economic development across the state during the last four years, with more than three-quarters of projects going outside metro Atlanta.
But there’s a downside to the progress: With a statewide unemployment rate of just 3.2%, there aren’t enough workers to fill the 400,000 job openings expected in the next decade.
The small city of Thomasville in Southwest Georgia is doing something about it with an initiative launched in 2019 aimed at a lack of preparedness among students for holding good-paying jobs in today’s workforce and at barriers to work including inadequate child-care options, lack of transportation and a shortage of affordable housing.
The key to Imagine Thomasville has been local political, business, and education leaders connecting with each other rather than staying inside their respective silos, Shelley Zorn, president and CEO of the Thomasville Payroll Development Authority, said July 26 during the Georgia Chamber of Commerce’s annual Rural Prosperity Summit on the campus of Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College.
“What I like about this is we weren’t creating a lot of new programs and services,” Zorn said. “It just helped being in a room and knowing what’s out there. … A lot of good work is going on because we coordinate with each other.”
Zorn’s organization partnered with the Thomasville & Thomas County Chamber of Commerce to start Imagine Thomasville four years ago only to be sidetracked by the pandemic. The work got underway in earnest in 2021 when the organizations hired the Atlanta-based Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education (GPEE) – a Georgia Chamber affiliate – to conduct a year-long survey of hundreds of local residents.
The results revealed several challenges including the need for better communication among local leaders. Lauren Radford, a local health-insurance broker, was put to work at the head of a committee tasked with improving those relationships.
Radford brought together a diverse cross-section of Thomasville residents in terms of race and socioeconomic status to talk in honest terms about inequality.
“These are uncomfortable conversations, but it’s necessary,” she said. “We are having to establish trust that never existed before. We’re getting there.”
To get at the workforce preparedness issue, it was necessary to focus on education, and the challenges are daunting.
Forty percent of Georgians 25 and older have no credential or degree beyond high school, said Dana Rickman, the GPEE’s president. However, 65% of Georgia adults will need some form of post-secondary credential “of value” by 2033, Rickman said.
Closing that gap between workforce needs and educational achievement will be difficult given the shortage of qualified students.
Currently, of every 100 Georgians who enter high school, 81 will graduate on time, 62 will enroll in some form of higher education within two years of graduating high school, while only 43 will make it through the second year of post-secondary education.
“We’re losing 57% of the pipeline,” Rickman said.
Rickman said early learning is a key to improving those discouraging numbers. But in Thomasville, there’s a shortage of early-care and early-learning opportunities for kids.
Zorn said a survey reported 2,750 children up to the age of 5 in Thomasville but only 1,333 child care spots.
Lisa Billups, executive director of the Thomasville Community Resource Center, is tackling the child-care shortage with a program that involves teaching 2- and 3-year-olds to read at home. Center employees visit families for 30 minutes twice a week for 26 weeks bringing books.
The program started with five families but has grown its capacity to 40. However, 60 families have expressed interest, Billups said.
“We can’t keep up with the demand,” she said.
Billups said one side benefit to the program is it gives the center an opportunity to encourage parents to sign up for GED classes so they can earn at least a high school diploma.
“I believe education is the great equalizer,” she said.
Thomasville City Councilman Mike Chastain said the city is taking on two barriers to employment. A newly founded nonprofit is focusing on housing by providing land and funding, he said.
The city also recently landed a grant of $175,000 to pursue a variety of transportation improvements, Chastain said.
“Government is not the solution, but there are things we can do to have a positive impact,” he said.
Georgia Chamber President and CEO Chris Clark said the good news is not as many young people are leaving rural Georgia for jobs in urban areas as in past years. Members of Generation Z, the latest cohort to begin joining the workforce, tend to be more risk averse than their Millennial elders and, thus, less likely to leave home, he said.
“There’s a light out there,” Clark said. “These workforce issues will be better.”
