Spaceport Camden rendering (Camden County Commission)
ATLANTA – The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has decided to revisit part of the environmental review process required to approve a controversial commercial spaceport in Camden County because of a major change in the project’s design.
While revising the environmental impact study (EIS) will require a second public comment period, sponsors of Spaceport Camden say the new development actually represents progress for their plans.
Camden County officials have been working since the middle of the last decade to build a commercial spaceport they say would create up to 2,000 jobs and convince the next generation of aerospace engineers, many of whom graduate from Georgia Tech, to stay in Georgia to pursue their careers. The project enjoys the backing of Gov. Brian Kemp and the state’s congressional delegation.
Homeowners on nearby Little Cumberland Island have spearheaded opposition to the spaceport as a public safety and environmental threat.
Officials with the National ParkSp Service also have spoken out against the project, warning it could disrupt tourism at the popular Cumberland Island National Seashore, while the Defense Department has raised concerns over the proposed launch site’s proximity to the Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base.
The county submitted a revised license application to the FAA in January that calls for launching only small rockets from the site rather than the medium-to-large rockets envisioned in the original plan.
Conservation and environmental groups opposed to the spaceport sent a letter a month later asking the FAA to order the supplemental EIS.
“Small rockets fail at a much higher rate than medium-to-large rockets, so the FAA must now consider the environmental impacts of these risky, unproven vehicles,” said Brian Gist, senior attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center. “Given the enormous risks Spaceport Camden poses to public health, private property and Cumberland Island, this is not the time for shortcuts and half measures.”
Jimmy Starline, chairman of the Camden County Commission, said the FAA order for a revised environmental impact study is good news for the spaceport because it means the federal agency has signed off on other key project milestones.
“With only environmental review and policy review outstanding, Spaceport Camden has cleared critical safety and launch location reviews,” Starline said. “Camden County has had good conversations with the Pentagon and leadership at Kings Bay, and we are confident that we can deconflict any remaining issues pertaining to the Department of Defense.”
“The EIS has been the longest and most expensive part of this project,” commission Vice Chairman Gary Blount added. “I am hopeful we are nearing an end to that process.”
Meanwhile, county officials announced late last month that Camden has entered into a public/private partnership agreement with Organic Code Development LLC, an investment group that specializes in aerospace, to add a technology and research business park to the spaceport’s launch site.
ATLANTA – Piedmont Healthcare is signing up COVID-19 patients for two new clinical trials, the Atlanta-based nonprofit health system announced Tuesday.
One of the trials, intended for patients who have tested positive for the virus, will evaluate the efficiency of the anti-inflammatory drug Gimsilumab. The other will investigate the value of repositioning patients to improve their oxygen levels.
“Piedmont’s mission is to serve its patents,” said Dr. Charles L. Brown III, CEO of Piedmont Healthcare’s Physician Enterprise. “Offering clinical trials designed to fight COVID-19 during this pandemic, we are delivering on our promise.”
Word of the new clinical trials came as the death toll from coronavirus in Georgia rose to 1,274. The number of Georgians who have tested positive for COVID-19 also increased Tuesday to 29,640.
COVID-19 has two phases: an initial viral phase followed by an inflammatory phase. The drug Gimsilumab is designed to block inflammation in parts of the body and cool down the immune system’s response.
The trial will include 270 patients and is expected to be completed in October.
The second clinical trial will study whether having COVID-19 patients with mild symptoms lie prone on their stomachs soon after arriving at the hospital can improve their oxygen levels. The therapy has been shown helpful to patients suffering from Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS).
Piedmont is enrolling 200 patients for the second trial, which is expected to be completed a year from now.
“These clinical trial options, with the experimental therapies they bring to our patient populations, are exciting in that they look at fighting the disease from different perspectives,” said Dr. Amy Hajari Case, Piedmont’s director of pulmonary and critical care research. She will serve as principal site investigator for both trials.
ATLANTA – Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is proposing to streamline the processing of business license applications to help the state’s economy recover from the coronavirus pandemic.
Raffensperger’s office oversees more than 135,000 different business licenses in Georgia. Lowering the barriers to licensure would make it easier for businesses to open up and hire Georgians thrown out of work when the economy shut down, he said.
“We want to make sure people do a good job,” Raffensperger said Tuesday during a webinar for small business owners sponsored by the Georgia Chamber of Commerce and Georgia Hispanic Chamber. “[But] we don’t want to create barriers that keep them from enjoying their professions and tie them up in needless red tape.”
Raffensperger said COVID-19 has not killed Georgians’ ambitions to start and grow businesses. Despite the pandemic, more than 730,000 Georgia businesses have renewed their licenses this year, while 24,737 new businesses have applied for licenses, he said.
“That shows the entrepreneurial spirit within all of us as business owners,” he said. “COVID-19 has been a wakeup call. … It’s going to give us an opportunity to grow and adapt, not just retreat.”
The secretary of state’s office already has acted to ease requirements for a nursing license to help get more nurses on the front lines of the fight against COVID-19. In March, the office’s Professional Licensing Boards Division began issuing temporary permits for out-of-state nurses to work in Georgia.
Raffensperger said he will ask the General Assembly to approve his plan to ease licensing restrictions when lawmakers resume the 2020 legislative session later this spring. The session was suspended indefinitely in mid-March due to coronavirus.
ATLANTA – It was open season on former U.S. Rep. Karen Handel Monday when four Republican opponents who have never held public office teed off on her in an hour-long debate streamed by Georgia Public Broadcasting.
Business owner Blake Harbin, former Small Business Administration loan specialist Mykel Barthelemy, businessman and author Joe Profit and retired hair salon owner Paulette Smith portrayed Handel as a career politician who lost Georgia’s 6th Congressional District seat two years ago to a Democratic “newby” with little name recognition.
The winner of the June 9 Republican primary will take on first-term incumbent Democrat Lucy McBath in what once was a heavily Republican district stretching from East Cobb County through North Fulton and North DeKalb counties.
“How in the world can you win as a challenger when you couldn’t win as an incumbent?” Profit asked in a direct exchange with Handel. “You cannot win.”
Handel responded by pointing to a record of accomplishments both in the public and private sectors, including creating jobs as CEO of the North Fulton Chamber of Commerce, balancing Fulton County’s budget as county commission chairman without raising taxes and putting in place a photo ID requirement for voters as Georgia secretary of state.
After running unsuccessfully for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, Handel captured the 6th Congressional District seat in 2017 in a special election over well-funded Democrat Jon Ossoff. McBath, a gun control advocate who lost her son to gun violence, upended Handel two years ago by a narrow margin.
“I am the strongest candidate in this race … the only Republican with the organization and the money to win,” Handel said. “I’m proud of my service and engagement in the community.”
Besides attacking Handel, the other candidates touted their qualifications to serve in Congress.
Harbin, who founded his own mortgage company after recovering from a serous accident, and Profit, a former running back with the Atlanta Falcons who founded a multi-franchise restaurant operation, said their business expertise is especially critical to help with the economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic
“I’ve been in business for decades,” Profit said. “I have the knowledge, the experience and the work ethic to help [President Donald Trump] reopen the economy.”
“Now more than ever, we need people in Congress who know how to create something from nothing,” Harbin added. “I’ve built a business from scratch. I’ve hired and brought jobs right here to the 6th District.”
Barthelemy, who is African-American, said the Trump presidency has been good for black Americans. She cited his support for increased funding for historically black colleges and universities and praised his work to reduce black and Hispanic unemployment to record lows before COVID-19 devastated the economy.
“President Trump has done more than even [former President Barack] Obama has done for the black community,” she said.
Both Smith and Barthelemy said they don’t live in the 6th District. Federal law does not require members of the House of Representatives to live in the district they represent.
But Smith, who lives in Kennesaw, said she has spent a lot of time there and knows its people well.
“I’m running because I love my district,” she said. “The Democratic Party has done nothing. I have to stand up and do something.”
Barthelemy lives in Sandy Springs, “a few yards” from the 6th District, as she described it.
U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler speaks at the State Capitol after qualifying for the 2020 election on March 2, 2020. (Photo by Beau Evans)
ATLANTA – U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga., is fighting back against attacks from political opponents with three TV ads touting generous acts she has undertaken to help in the battle against coronavirus.
A $4 million ad campaign launched Monday labels as “liberal lies” and a “witch hunt” allegations the wealthy Atlanta businesswoman bought and sold millions of dollars in stocks shortly after a Jan. 24 closed-door briefing she and other senators attended on the emerging COVID-19 pandemic.
Loeffler announced last month she planned to put an end to the distraction by liquidating her family’s holdings in stocks in individual companies and moving those investments into exchange-traded funds and mutual funds.
The 30-second ads point to Loeffler’s decision to donate her Senate salary to the fight against coronavirus, her contribution of $1 million to the nonprofit foundation run by Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital in Albany, which the pandemic hit particularly hard, and her role in launching an online portal to help families get the assistance they need.
“While the left, media and her opponents play politics … she has worked around the clock to deliver relief to those impacted by COVID-19,” Loeffler campaign spokesman Stephen Lawson said. “Kelly will not be distracted by their false attacks.”
Loeffler, appointed last December by Gov. Brian Kemp, to succeed retiring Sen. Johnny Isakson, will have to overcome a lengthy list of challengers in November if she is to retain the seat and finish out Isakson’s six-year term.
More than 20 candidates from both parties will be on the ballot Nov. 3 in a “free-for-all” election likely to require a runoff. The challengers include Republican U.S. Rep. Doug Collins of Gainesville and the Rev. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, pastor at Atlanta’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church.
