The Georgia Public Service Commission, with member Tim Echols attending remotely, voted Friday, Dec. 19, 2025 to let Georgia Power add nearly 10 gigawatts of capacity, a massive expansion that will cost billions of dollars. (Ty Tagami/Capitol Beat)
ATLANTA — State regulators granted Georgia Power the authority for an historic expansion of its capacity to generate electricity in a unanimous vote Friday.
The decision by the five elected members of the Public Service Commission, all Republicans, allows the privately-owned monopoly to build five gas-powered plants and supporting infrastructure while contracting for additional power from other suppliers.
Critics said the expansion, equivalent to five times the power output of the Hoover Dam, could cost up to $60 billion, saddling generations of Georgians with the bill.
The company asked for and got permission to add nearly 10 gigawatts of generating capacity, close to a 50% increase of its capacity. It said its forecasts showed voracious future demand from tech companies that will be building server warehouses to power the internet and artificial intelligence.
In a statement after the vote, Kim Greene, chairman, president and CEO of Georgia Power, called the demand “projected unprecedented growth,” noting that the company had filed customer contracts with the commission this year for three gigawatts in new demand.
Critics contended that the forecast revenue, based on “trade secret” information that the public cannot see, was overly optimistic. If the demand does not materialize, they said, Georgia Power’s other customers would be left with the bill for the construction of that unneeded capacity.
To offset those concerns, the company pledged to shield existing customers from the cost of the expansion but only through 2031. Thereafter, the agreement allows for amendments to hit the brakes if demand does not materialize.
“Large load” customers, such as data centers, will pay for the expansion through the rates they are charged, the company said, but there remains a risk that the data centers do not come.
So Georgia Power addressed that by signing a “stipulated agreement” to allocate costs based on the current revenue forecasts that assume the demand will be there.
This “downward pressure” on rates will equal $8.50 a month for the typical residential customer, the company said.
Lawyers for opponents, including environmental organizations and renewable energy advocates, said there were undisclosed assumptions in Georgia Power’s calculations that they contended could create a countervailing “upward pressure” on residential bills.
They wanted the company to enter its calculations into the public record, so the commission could more easily hold it to account for its pledge in the future.
Lawyers for the Southern Environmental Law Center filed motions calling for the disclosure and for a 30-day delay on the vote.
“The point of this motion is not about whether it’s a good deal or a bad deal,” said Jennifer Whitfield, one of the lawyers. “It’s about … Georgia Power showing its work for the conclusions that are in the agreement so that we can enforce that agreement down the road.”
Her colleague, Bob Sherrier, added later: “We have a problem with the stipulation putting a number on the downward pressure but not a number on the upward pressure.”
Jason Shaw, chairman of the commission, denied the request, saying his agency already had all the necessary information from Georgia Power.
Then the commissioners voted for the expansion, with audience members shouting “shame,” “disgusting” and “sell out!”
Before the vote, members of the public got time to speak.
Some extolled the benefits of reliable power, saying big companies will not bring jobs to Georgia if the state cannot stay ahead of demand.
“It’s about being proactive rather than reacting too late,” said Susanne Reynolds, director of the Development Authority of Early County in southwest Georgia.
But most were furious about the expansion because of the potential cost for customers and the impact on the environment of burning more fossil fuel.
They also were unhappy with the timing of the vote, less than two weeks before January.
That is when two new commissioners, both Democrats, will take over the seats of the two Republicans they beat decisively in an election last month
Julie Jabaley said she would work hard to unseat the remaining three Republicans.
She was among the protesters escorted out of a similar hearing last week after they were told they had violated the commission’s rules on “decorum,” a word that Jabaley mocked.
“If you vote on this proposal today as is you demonstrate an utter lack of respect for thousands of petitioners who have tried to decorously convince you that there’s a better way to fulfill your mission that consumers receive safe and reasonably priced services,” she said.
Jabaley said she wanted “clean, smart energy for the future” and was concerned about the cost of the expansion.
“If you proceed,” she said, “you will absolutely not be decent to the tens of thousands of Georgia Power customers on fixed or low incomes.”
ATLANTA — Advocates for the environment and renewable energy say in a formal filing with the state utilities regulator that Georgia Power’s pledge to hold down homeowners’ utility bills during a proposed expansion of capacity for data centers is an empty promise.
The monopoly utility wants permission to increase its electricity generation by 10 gigawatts ahead of an anticipated surge in demand by tech companies that are developing power hungry artificial intelligence. The massive expansion now has the blessing of the Public Service Commission’s public interest advocacy staff despite earlier concerns.
The agency’s staff had judged the company’s demand forecasts to be unrealistic and had said normal ratepayers would end up footing the bill for the expansions if data center companies did not ultimately come to Georgia to use all the new power.
They recommended in November that the commission certify only three new gigawatts “to protect customers from having to pay for unnecessary capacity costs.”
Then, last week, the staff pivoted, recommending approval of Georgia Power’s request in exchange for a pledge to put “downward pressure” on billing. For the typical residential customer, the company said, that amounted to $8.50 a month from 2029 through 2031.
It was a sudden announcement, on the morning of the final public hearing before Friday’s vote. Lawyers for expansion opponents lacked time for thorough review before the hearing. This week they filed formal rebuttals that call for a delay on voting by the five-member commission to give time to rewrite the contracts.
The Southern Environmental Law Center’s filings on behalf of Georgia Interfaith Power & Light and the Southface Energy Institute say the contracts need clearer language to ensure the ratepayer protections are enforceable, given the 45-year lifespan of the methane gas power plants that Georgia Power wants to build.
“If Georgia Power’s load forecast doesn’t materialize, certifying costs limits the tools available to the Commission,” the lawyers wrote in a brief filed with the commission Tuesday. Georgia Power wants to add $50 billion to $60 billion to customers’ bills, it said. “Once these costs are certified, state law severely restricts the Commission’s ability to disallow these costs in the future.”
The lawyers wrote that the $8.50 reduction is a “phantom promise” that does not ensure ratepayers will see it in their bills.
One reason is the “trade secret” deference given Georgia Power to withhold information, which opponents’ lawyers say they need to calculate details of that downward pressure. They wrote in an accompanying petition that numbers provided verbally last week were “concerningly high.”
The tentative agreement that commission staff reached with Georgia Power last week, called a “stipulated agreement,” assures only one piece of a three-part equation involving revenue and benefits, they wrote. “Without transparency as to the assumptions underlying the promised ‘downward pressure,’ future enforcement of that promise will be elusive.”
Two of the five commissioners were handily beaten by Democrats in last month’s election, an outcome that had Republicans worried about next year’s general election. GOP candidates in other races characterized it as a backlash against recent increases approved by the full commission.
All of the current commissioners are Republicans. They are scheduled to vote on Georgia Power’s expansion Friday, including the two defeated Republicans who will hold their seats through the end of the year.
The hearing starts at 9:30 a.m. at the commission’s offices in downtown Atlanta. But the lawyers for the opponents petitioned for more information from Georgia Power about the “actual impact” of financial promises in the stipulated agreement “and to support enforcement of those promises” in the future.
They asked for at least 30 days to review any response. By then, the two Democrats would be seated. Both oppose the Georgia Power’s expansion.
But on Thursday a lawyer for Georgia Power asked the commission to deny the petition, writing that the company had submitted “ample” documentation already and that no additional hearing was required before the vote.
ATLANTA — After more than a year of rebuffing Republican attempts to compel her testimony before the Georgia Senate, Fani Willis went to the state Capitol Wednesday to give three hours of often combative testimony to a special committee that she deemed to be a political farce.
Senate Republicans created the committee to investigate “alleged and admitted” misconduct by Willis, whom they have been pursuing since her decision to indict Donald Trump and 18 alleged co-conspirators in the wake of the 2020 election.
The hearing featured questions about her use of public funds as Fulton County district attorney, whether she had coordinated with the administration of President Joe Biden, her handling of open records requests and her payment to a subscription service she used to track the value of the media coverage of her and her office.
It also featured Georgia’s last Democratic governor, Roy Barnes, as her attorney, who frequently interrupted to advise her not to answer questions.
Sen. Greg Dolezal, R-Cumming, led the committee in the place of Sen. Bill Cowsert, R-Athens, whom Dolezal said was recuperating from surgery.
When Barnes cut Dolezal off after dismissing the relevance of some of his questions, Dolezal said they were about the investigation while Barnes said they were merely to infer wrongdoing.
Willis then added, “also to divide the country.”
Each side accused the other of political grandstanding. Dolezal asked about a $10,000 a year subscription service that reported media coverage worth tens of millions of dollars, according to a projected slide of an email to Willis from her media relations staffer.
Dolezal also offered documents that indicated the same staffer had worked as a Democratic political consultant and that Willis had contributed to the political campaign of Charlie Bailey, now chairman of the state Democratic party, when he ran for lieutenant governor in 2022. (She pointed out that the money was for his primary campaign against another Democrat.)
Willis, in turn, had handed out photocopies of social media posts that showed both Dolezal, who is running for lieutenant governor, and Cowsert, who hopes to be attorney general, using the investigation for political messaging.
She repeatedly insulted Dolezal, telling him at one point that he had asked “a really ignorant question” about whether she had considered investigating Trump before his infamous phone call to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.
She also insulted the premise of the panel itself, calling it a “QAnon committee.” She said white senators were pursuing her because she is Black and she had indicted white and influential people. She said repeatedly that they wanted to be “daddy.”
After the hearing, Sen. Harold Jones II, D-Augusta, the Senate minority leader and a member of the committee, questioned the purpose, as well. He said Dolezal, who by committee rules was the only one besides Jones who got to ask questions, had simply rehashed old information about billing while raising “esoteric” questions about Willis’ handling of open records requests.
He said none of the questions got to the core issue of why Willis chose to indict. He said that was because the defendants had tried to overturn the election and she had done the right thing.
Although four defendants took plea deals, the rest avoided trial. Last month, Peter Skandalakis, executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, asked a judge to dismiss the case and the judge agreed.
Skandalakis had taken over as special prosecutor after the courts sidelined Willis on ethical grounds because of her romantic entanglement with a contract lawyer she had hired to help her with the case.
Dolezal said the committee would have to cut through the “theatrics” and name calling in her testimony to determine what to do next. He said the committee should look at Willis’ handling of state funds and open records and at her use of a special purpose grand jury to investigate the defendants before indicting them.
He also said he was glad to finally force her to answer questions on behalf of “my friends who spent hundreds of thousands of dollars defending themselves against these politically motivated charges.”
The device that Jaivime Evaristo, co-author of new research about water “fingerprints” linking the Okefenokee Swamp to an aquifer below, used to measure water isotopes. Evaristo is a University of Georgia assistant professor of hydrology and water resources. (Courtesy of Jaivime Evaristo)
ATLANTA — New scientific research has added more evidence about the risks of mining near the Okefenokee Swamp, with potential implications for future permitting applications.
Philanthropists neutralized the latest attempt to withdraw minerals near the ancient wetland by purchasing property on Trail Ridge.
Twin Pines Minerals was engaged in a years-long petition to mine titanium dioxide when the Conservation Fund announced the purchase agreement in June.
The company had argued that its plans to draw an average of 1.4 million gallons of water a day from an aquifer deep underground would not harm the swamp.
Environmentalists and scientists asserted that water withdrawal of that magnitude would lower the swamp’s water level. That in turn, they argued, would wreak havoc on a rich ecosystem that is among the best preserved blackwater wetlands in the world and home to endangered and threatened species
Now, researchers have found more evidence that the Okefenokee is linked to the aquifer and that drawing water from the aquifer would effectively draw water from the swamp.
In an article published last week in Environmental Research: Water, University of Georgia scientists report that water in the Okefenokee has the same “fingerprint” as water in nearby parts of the much larger aquifer deep underground, which means the Okefenokee is likely draining into the aquifer.
Water samples can have different atomic mass, or isotopes, depending upon the number of neutrons present. Water that has undergone significant evaporation can be a heavier isotope, and scientists used this characteristic to document similarities between what is in the Okefenokee and what they extracted from the Upper Floridian Aquifer beneath it. Water in the aquifer that was farther from the swamp was lighter.
They also found another connection: they examined decades of records and found that the swamp and aquifer water levels tracked each other. When the swamp level rose after a rainstorm, the aquifer would rise a month later.
For years, a thick intervening layer of clay known as the Hawthorne Formation was assumed by some to create an impermeable barrier between the two bodies of water.
The UGA researchers’ finding of similar isotopes in both the swamp and nearby parts of the aquifer “overturns long-held assumptions in the region’s hydrogeologic conceptual model and has implications for water budgets, ecological dynamics, and groundwater management,” they wrote.
Todd Rasmussen, emeritus professor of hydrology at UGA, was one of the three authors.
He said the evidence is strong enough to suggest at least a temporary policy against mining in Charleton, Clinch and Ware counties, where most of the swamp is located.
“There should be a moratorium on groundwater pumping in those counties until further evaluations have been conducted,” Rasmussen said.
He said the state Environmental Protection Division, which was considering the Twin Pines’ permit application, saw the Hawthorne Formation as a solid barrier despite what he considered to be inadequate data about its effectiveness as a water seal.
The agency had no comment. Spokeswoman Sara Lips said Monday that Division staff had a copy of the study but had not had sufficient time to review it.
Although Rasmussen and other scientists had already hypothesized a connection between the swamp and the aquifer, this new finding provides more solid evidence.
Jordan Clark, a University of California at Santa Barbara hydrology professor, used isotopes to trace water in the Upper Floridian Aquifer in the 1990s. He was not involved in the new study, but it cites his work.
He rated the research approach in the new study as “pretty strong” and “very valid.”
Clark said, however, that further testing to confirm that the water in the aquifer isn’t ancient would provide more solid confirmation of a connection, since some theorize that the aquifer was filled by glaciers over 10,000 years ago.
He said evidence of human influence, such as traces of atomic testing from the 1950s and 1960s that would have been present in groundwater, would be more convincing. But he also said he doubts the aquifer is still holding water from 10,000 years ago and that water recharge from the surface in the past half century is probably the easiest explanation for the aquifer’s water source.
Josh Marks, president of Georgians for the Okefenokee, heralded the findings as a “game changer” that proves a mine would harm the swamp. He said the Environmental Protection Division’s position on the issue is “yet another reminder” that the agency “is simply incapable of regulating mining at the Okefenokee” and that lawmakers should step in and ban mining there.
Megan Huynh, a senior attorney over the Southern Environmental Law Center’s wetlands and coastal protection program, said the new research will be useful if another landowner seeks permission to mine near the swamp.
“The science was out there already to say that mining next to the Okefenokee couldn’t be done safely and was a bad idea,” she said. “This is more evidence to support that.”
ATLANTA — National economic headwinds driven in part by politics will continue suppressing Georgia’s economy while raising the risk of recession, says a new economic forecast from a business think tank at the University of Georgia.
The 43rd annual prediction by the Selig Center for Economic Growth rates the risk of a recession in Georgia at pretty much a coin toss.
“In short, Georgia’s economy will struggle, and it would not take much to tip into recession,” says the report, out this week.
It places the odds of a recession in Georgia at 49%.
The forces on the state economy are largely the result of policies in Washington, as President Donald Trump’s tariff war blunts national economic growth, which the report placed at 1.3% rather than the potential 2%. Job growth will likely remain subpar, its authors predicted.
“We’re expecting another year of slow economic growth. The rate of growth will be very similar in 2026 to what we experienced in 2025, but there is a higher risk of recession,” Jeffrey M. Humphreys, the main author, said in an interview.
Given the uncertainty in the economic and political environment, fewer projects are in the pipeline, said Humphreys, the director of the Selig Center. “The biggest headwind is of course the trade war. And then the second biggest headwind is more restrictive immigration policies.”
Georgia depends more on international trade than the average state, so the tariff troubles have been taking a greater toll here.
Atlanta, with a highly diverse economy, depends less on global trade than other large metro areas, so is less exposed.
But smaller communities with economies based more on production and international trade are feeling that ill wind.
The economies of coastal Brunswick and Savannah, for instance, rely heavily on shipping through their major ports. And North Georgia industrial communities — Dalton with flooring and Gainesville with food and machinery production — are also affected, as they move product through those ports to international consumers.
The job market has been stable, if lackluster.
The unemployment rate remained at 3.4% in September, the same as in August, according to the Georgia Department of Labor. That was a percentage point below the national average, though it meant more than 180,000 without jobs.
The job market has been cooling through the year though.
Previously, employees could hop between jobs to boost their wages.
Now, employers have the upper hand, Humphreys said. And that should last into next year.
“The labor market has barely been adding any jobs at all,” he said. “We’re only expecting about a half a percent job growth next year, so basically the labor market has stalled out.”
Even so, consumers have been propping up the economy.
November tax revenues were up 0.9% last month compared to November a year ago, according to the Georgia Department of Revenue.
Income tax collections fell but were counterbalanced by rising sales tax revenue, with motor fuel tax receipts up a whopping 53%, or $70 million.
Despite the uncertain economic outlook, people who have jobs feel secure in them, the Selig Center report said.
Household finances are generally in good shape with manageable debt, due in part to a housing shortage that has buttressed home values. Houses are pretty much worth the mortgage note, so home loans are not at risk of sinking underwater like in 2008.
And many were lucky enough to lock in historically low mortgage rates a few years ago, though rising property tax and insurance rates have been nibbling away at buying power.
For those with less fortunate timing who did not find an affordable home, the report did not offer good news.
Housing costs are expected to remain out of reach next year due to a variety of factors behind an abiding shortage. The tight labor market means fewer homeowners are moving and selling. Tariffs have driven up costs for construction materials. And the Trump administration’s policies on immigration have pinched the construction industry’s labor supply.
“Since we do not expect these negative factors to change very much in 2026,” the Selig Center said, “the homebuilding and real estate industries will remain in recession.”
