by Ty Tagami | Dec 12, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — Georgia’s freight rail line from the Port of Savannah to Murray County had a record haul last month, as seven CSX trains per week carried nearly 4,000 containers, up 35% from November 2024.
The Appalachian Regional Port opened in 2018 near Chatsworth, about an hour and a half north of Atlanta.
The Georgia Ports Authority reported Thursday that the rail traffic to and from the inland port reduces congestion and emissions in metro Atlanta by cutting back on truck mileage.
The agency also pointed to a University of Georgia study that said the port supported an increase of about 5,600 jobs in the northwest part of the state between fiscal years 2023 and 2024, for a 14% increase.
Economists at the Selig Center for Economic Growth at UGA said in a new report about the state of the economy that the Appalachian Regional Port helps the Port of Savannah tap new markets while fueling the local economies of Dalton and Rome.
Rail freight carriage is expected to grow next year as the Port Authority prepares to open its new Blue Ridge Connector in the spring.
The $127 million rail facility 50 miles from Atlanta will be served by Norfolk Southern “doublestack” trains that the Authority said would will further reduce Atlanta traffic while connecting northeast Georgia to the Port of Savannah.
by Ty Tagami | Dec 10, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — Georgia’s dominant electric power monopoly has a reached a tentative deal with state regulators that would allow a major expansion of energy production, mostly from natural gas.
The Public Service Commission’s public interest advocacy staff had previously advised approving only a third of Georgia Power’s request for a 10 gigawatt expansion. They had argued in November that ratepayers would face “unreasonable risk” if the company built its new power plants and no one came to use the energy.
But on Wednesday the agency revealed that the staff had negotiated a “stipulated agreement” that would authorize nearly everything Georgia Power requested, with some new guarantees for ratepayers.
The company wants more capacity so it can sell more energy as it forecasts massive growth in demand from data centers. Those server warehouses that power the internet have been sprouting across the state and devouring energy to enable the computations behind artificial intelligence.
The agreement will not be final unless the five elected commissioners, all Republicans, approve it next week.
At month’s end, two of them will be off the commission, having lost decisively in the November election to two Democrats who campaigned against a series of recent electricity price hikes.
One of the incoming commissioners, Peter Hubbard, attended a protest outside the commission offices before Wednesday’s hearing, where he said he had just learned about the new agreement revealed earlier in the morning.
He said the estimated cost of $17 billion was just the start and that it could rise to $50 billion or even $60 billion during the 45-year lifespan of the power expansion plan.
He warned that “speculative customers” might not show up if they find better deals in other states, and he said a “data center bubble” could pop, leaving ratepayers on the hook for unnecessary power plant construction.
The state can provide affordable, clean and reliable energy, said Hubbard, who takes office Jan. 1, “but we must not lock ourselves into a massively expensive mistake, with the decision made by two commissioners who are just days away from leaving office.”
The protest moved indoors for the hearing, but police escorted several back out after they caused a disruption.
“This whole meeting is a sham,” one man yelled as he exited. “They’ve already made a deal.”
Nearly 50 members of the public then got to speak. A handful, including a developer and a representative of the Clayton County Chamber of Commerce, backed the expansion, saying economic growth and jobs rely on power.
But a representative from DeKalb County read a resolution by the county commission that called on the Public Service Commission to delay its vote to ensure more time to evaluate the impact on local governments, customers, public health and the environment.
Ava Trachtenberg, an environmental science student at Emory University, spoke of the impact on the climate of burning more fossil fuel for energy. She said she was concerned that extreme heat, flooding and drought would cause crop failures and political instability.
“I don’t know about you,” she said, “but I want my future to be livable.”
Some were concerned about cost, such as Joshua Tolbert, an energy engineer, who said Georgia Power should only be authorized to build power plants for customers with executed contracts.
Satya Vatti, a nurse, said the tentative agreement would let Georgia Power profit from the expanded supply while ratepayers assumed the risk if demand didn’t materialize.
“While working people agonize over the necessities they’ll be able to afford and which they’ll have to cut each month, Georgia Power investors and executives are raking in cash,” said Vatti, who described herself as a socialist.
Records from a November hearing indicate that the commission’s public advocacy staff had misgivings about ratepayers absorbing the cost of unrealistic demand forecasts.
“Staff’s primary recommendation is that the Commission should approve the acquisition of 3,125″ megawatts, the document said.
The staff’s turnaround Wednesday to support 10 gigawatts in new capacity was due in part to a pledge by Georgia Power to calculate rates based on the forecast rather than actual revenue from “large load” customers like data centers. The pledge means a “downward pressure” for the typical residential customer’s rates, amounting to $8.50 a month, said Jeffrey R. Grubb, a director at Georgia Power who testified Wednesday.
“We want to assure the commission and our customers that certification of the requested resources will not change residential customers’ rates,” he said. “As we have stated before and reiterate here, existing customers will not pay for the cost associated with serving new large load customers.”
But that guaranty is only good from 2029 through 2031.
Tricia Pridemore, one of the five commissioners scheduled to vote Dec. 19 on Georgia Power’s expansion request, said large load ratepayers drive economic development and pump tax revenue into local government. She said she’d heard of one community that was “retiring” property taxes because of the income and of others using the proceeds to build schools or waterworks.
That is a “tremendous benefit,” she said. “So when these folks up here want to talk about affordability, that’s just one more way where that revenue is being put to use at a local level.”
by Ty Tagami | Dec 9, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — The Georgia Supreme Court heard oral argument Tuesday in a dispute over the extent of the Georgia General Assembly’s authority to compel testimony, but the case may become irrelevant next week now that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has agreed to testify.
Willis, who has been fighting efforts by a Senate committee that wants her to appear under subpoena, has agreed to talk with them on Dec. 17, her lawyer, former Gov. Roy Barnes, said at the hearing.
The dispute stems from Willis’ decision to pursue criminal charges against Donald Trump and his allies after they disputed the outcome of the 2020 election.
Republicans in the legislature issued two subpoenas, once last year and again this year.
A lower court ordered Willis to comply, but she appealed to the state Supreme Court, prompting Tuesday’s hearing.
Republicans say they want to explore what led Willis to prosecute Trump before he became president for a second time.
Democrats have derided the Senate’s work as a political stunt, an assertion that Barnes, a Democrat, repeated outside the courthouse.
He noted that several members of the Senate Special Committee on Investigations are running for statewide office.
“They’re putting out fundraising [that] says ‘we’re going to go after Fani Willis, and you need to send me $100.’ I mean, that’s ridiculous. It is in bad faith,” he said.
Five of the committee’s members are running for higher office. The Chairman, Sen. Bill Cowsert, R-Athens, wants to be Georgia attorney general.
Four others, also Republicans, are running for lieutenant governor, although one of them, Sen. John F. Kennedy, R-Macon, announced hours before the court hearing that he was resigning immediately to focus on his campaign.
Sen. Greg Dolezal, R-Cumming, serves on the committee and is also among those running for lieutenant governor. He attended the hearing and said afterward that the Supreme Court would not have had to listen to the lawyers argue about subpoena power if it were not for Willis’ “stonewalling” the committee.
“I think the question for her is how much of this is political,” Dolezal said. He said Willis benefitted politically from the media coverage.
“The case was unfounded from the very beginning,” he said. “It was rooted in its core in a scheme of prosecution for personal profit and we need to ensure that lady justice indeed keeps her blindfold on.”
Willis indicted Trump and 18 co-defendants.
Four took plea deals, but the rest were cleared last month when a special prosector dismissed the case after Willis was sidelined due to an ethical issue.
The courts removed her from the case because she had employed a romantic partner to help prosecute it.
Barnes downplayed that.
“If they disqualify every member of the General Assembly that has a romantic relationship with a secretary or a lobbyist,” he said, “you’re not going to be able to have a quorum next session.”
Lawmakers return to the Capitol to conduct another round of state business on Jan. 12, though some will be back next week to hear Willis testify.
by Ty Tagami | Dec 8, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — A metro Atlanta lawmaker accused of theft of government funds in connection with COVID-19 relief pleaded not guilty in federal court Monday.
Rep. Sharon Henderson, D-Covington, walked into the courtroom in downtown Atlanta wearing ankle cuffs, after she was arrested at her home in the morning.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Justin S. Anand made her surrender her passport but allowed her to go free on a $10,000 unsecured bond.
Henderson, who represents an area around Covington in southeast metro Atlanta, faces a dozen criminal counts.
Anand said she was accused of two counts of theft of government funds and 10 counts of making false statements.
The Department of Justice said Henderson had sought federal pandemic unemployment benefits, filing eight weekly certifications that she was an employee of Henry County Schools even though she had not worked there since 2018 when she served briefly as a substitute teacher.
“It is shocking that a public official would allegedly lie to profit from an emergency program designed to help suffering community members,” Theodore S. Hertzberg, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, said in a statement.
Henderson’s constituents may have no representation in the legislative session that starts Jan. 12 because she could be suspended by then.
The Georgia constitution requires the governor to appoint a review commission to consider whether an indictment “relates to and adversely affects” a lawmaker’s ability to serve the public.
That commission, which must comprise Attorney General Chris Carr and a member of the House and Senate selected by Gov. Brian Kemp, must issue a ruling within 14 days. But Kemp has no deadline, and he must wait 14 days after receiving a copy of the indictment before he appoints the panel.
Kemp’s office said Monday afternoon that it had not yet received a copy of the indictment. A spokesperson for House Speaker Jon Burns said his office was aware of the financial fraud allegations but had no comment.
There is precedent for indicted lawmakers to continue serving. Sen. Shawn Still, R-Johns Creek, remained in office after a Fulton County grand jury indicted him along with Donald Trump and other allies in connection with their actions after the 2020 election.
The case was dismissed last month at the request of a special prosecutor after Fulton District Attorney Fani Willis was removed over ethical concerns. Still said he had no criminal intent and was acting on the advice of a lawyer in the belief that he was doing his duty to participate in the election process.
by Ty Tagami | Dec 8, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — Two Cobb County women lost their lives because of a few thousand dollars, and soon the man convicted of killing them and taking their money is scheduled to meet his own end.
Eighteen years ago, Stacey Ian Humphreys was convicted of murder and other crimes in the 2003 deaths of Cyndi Williams and Lori Brown.
His lawyers finally exhausted his appeals in October when the U.S. Supreme Court, in a move that inspired controversy, decided against him again after twice declining to hear his earlier appeals. That was after the Georgia Supreme Court had twice issued decisions that did not go his way.
On Dec. 17 at 7 p.m., Humphreys is to become the 55th Georgia inmate to die by lethal injection. He was born in 1973, the year Georgia reinstated capital punishment after a brief pause over litigation.
He was sentenced to death for the murders of two real estate agents during the lunch hour on Nov. 3, 2003. Williams was working in a construction company’s model home at a new Cobb County subdivision when Humphreys walked in.
Brown then entered during or after the attack on Williams.
The women’s bodies were found near their desks. They had both been stripped and shot in the head, according to Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr’s office.
Williams had been strangled with her own underwear and shot in her back and then her head. Brown had been choked or struck in the throat before she was shot.
Carr’s office detailed the evidence against Humphreys.
A felon on parole, he had skipped work that day and then missed a meeting with his parole officer four days later. Police caught him in Wisconsin five days after the double killing. Blood in his Dodge Durango and on a Ruger 9mm pistol recovered from the console contained DNA from the women.
Humphreys had gained access to their bank accounts before killing them, according to the attorney general’s office. By the time police caught up with him, $3,000 had been withdrawn from their accounts. Humphreys had deposited $1,000 in his own account and had about $800 in cash.
In September 2007, a jury convicted him of murder, assault, armed robbery and kidnapping. He pleaded guilty to possession of a firearm by a felon and was sentenced to death.
Then followed 18 years of legal maneuvers that finally ran their course on Oct. 21, when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to consider Humphreys’ petition for a writ of habeas corpus, which had been denied by the U.S. district and appellate courts in Georgia.
The decision provoked a dissent by the three liberal justices, who said “extreme juror misconduct” had deprived Humphreys of his Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury.
One juror had misled the court during jury selection, claiming she had been unharmed during an attempted rape but later confiding that she had, indeed, been assaulted, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in their dissent.
The other eleven jurors wanted to sentence Humphreys to life without parole, but this lone juror was relentless and her “misconduct appears to have singlehandedly changed the verdict from life without parole to death,” Sotomayor wrote.
Ineffective counsel failed to raise the issue, and by the time new lawyers did, the Georgia Supreme Court and the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that it was too late based on Georgia law.
Sotomayor wrote that by refusing to hear Humphreys’ case, the high court was “allowing a death sentence tainted by a single juror’s extraordinary misconduct to stand.”
Still, on Dec. 1, Cobb County District Attorney Sonya F. Allen informed Chief Superior Court Judge Ann B. Harris that all legal avenues to avoid execution had been traveled and that it was time to sign Humphreys’ death warrant.
Harris concurred, ordering his execution sometime during the week before Christmas.
Two days later, Tyrone Oliver, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Corrections, announced the timing of Humphreys’ execution to occur at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison in Jackson.
