ATLANTA – Legislation aimed at preparing Georgia for the growing number of electric vehicles gained final passage in the General Assembly Monday.
The state House of Representatives voted 175-1 in favor of the bill, which included significant changes from the version of the legislation the Senate passed three weeks ago. The Senate then agreed to the House changes a few hours later Monday in a 51-4 vote.
Senate Bill 146 changes the way motorists charging their EVs will pay for the electricity they buy from the current system, which is based on the length of time a customer uses an EV charger. Instead, they will pay by the kilowatt hour, a federal requirement Georgia must meet to be eligible for $135 million in federal funds earmarked by Congress to build a network of charging stations across the state.
The biggest change the House made to the legislation reduces the tax rate motorists will pay when they charge their EVs. The final version of the legislation imposes a tax of 2.84 cents per kilowatt hour, down from 3.47 cents, as lawmakers responded to complaints that Georgia was poised to charge the highest excise tax on EVs in the nation.
EV owners currently pay a flat annual registration fee of $216 on their electric vehicles, which will not change under Senate Bill 146. That has prompted complaints that charging a flat annual fee on top of an excise tax at charging stations would disincentivize the purchase of EVs, the wrong message to send when Gov. Brian Kemp has pledged to make Georgia a national leader in electric mobility.
The excise tax at charging stations is necessary to capture tax revenue from out-of-state motorists traveling through Georgia, Rep. Kasey Carpenter, R-Dalton, said Monday.
Some legislators also questioned the excise tax because many Georgia businesses that offer free charging don’t have the technology to monitor the amount of electricity a motorist is using and, thus, will have to stop providing charging stations.
“We want to make sure in-state employees who work at these companies aren’t affected by that,” said Sen. Jason Esteves, D-Atlanta.
But House Transportation Committee Chairman Rick Jasperse said those companies could still offer free charging if they choose to install the software to accommodate the tax and paid it themselves.
Jasperse, R-Jasper, has been adamant as the Senate bill and a similar House version have moved through the General Assembly this year that both the annual fee and excise tax are necessary to make sure the Georgia Department of Transportation still brings in enough revenue to keep pace with highway construction needs as motorists begin moving away from gasoline-powered vehicles.
“What we’re trying to do is make sure people driving a gasoline-powered car are paying the same rate as someone driving an electric vehicle, and vice versa,” added Senate Majority Leader Steve Gooch, R-Dahlonega, the bill’s chief sponsor.
Jasperse said reducing the tax rate at EV charging stations will put Georgia in the “middle of the pack” among states rather than making the Peach State the highest taxed in the country.
The legislation now heads to Kemp’s desk for signing.
ATLANTA – Legislation providing private-school vouchers to Georgia students attending low-performing public schools is struggling to get through the General Assembly in the final days of this year’s session.
After a lengthy debate late Thursday, the state House of Representatives tabled a bill that would create $6,500 vouchers for Georgia students.
House Speaker Pro Tempore Jan Jones, R-Milton, moved to table Senate Bill 233, likely because it did not have the votes to pass. The House voted 95-70 in favor of the motion, with many Democrats voting against putting off a vote on the measure.
That leaves just two legislative days – Monday and Wednesday – to get the bill passed.
“This is a chance to say to those children, those families, ‘We are here to give you an opportunity, a choice to be able to go to an alternative, to be able to do something at home or through hybrid, to be able to allow you to extend the educational opportunity,’” said Rep. Todd Jones, R-South Forsyth, who sponsored the bill in the House.
“We can help the public school system and provide choice. We [have] got to be able to provide a system that allows the family to have an opportunity.”
The Georgia Student Finance Commission would oversee the program, and parents would be required to live in Georgia for one year before availing their children of the scholarships.
Parents could spend the money at private or virtual schools, or for home-schooling and other expenses such as tutoring. Up to $500 could go for transportation.
Students using the scholarship would need to take at least one assessment test each year to help ensure accountability.
House Democrats criticized the measure, arguing it would harm public schools.
“We should not be diverting resources to support private interests that undermine Georgia’s public schools,” said Rep. Miriam Paris, D-Macon.
Paris said private-school tuition is usually around $10,000 to $12,000 annually, far more than the $6,500 voucher the bill would provide.
“This is a gift to our most well-off Georgians,” she said. “School vouchers do not address the root causes of poor educational outcomes. … We need to fully and equally invest in our public schools.”
The state Senate earlier this month approved the “Georgia Promise Scholarship” bill 33-23 along party lines. If the House passes the voucher measure next week, the Senate would have to vote again to approve it because it has been amended by a House committee.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
Students from the Georgia Youth Justice Coalition oppose the new law limiting care for transgender minors.
ATLANTA – A new Georgia law limiting medical care for transgender children is likely to face serious legal challenges, experts say.
Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed a bill into law Thursday that prevents Georgians under 18 from obtaining gender-affirming hormone replacement therapy or surgery.
The Georgia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has vowed to sue the state over the new law. The challenge is likely to succeed, law professors told Capitol Beat.
Federal courts have blocked, at least preliminarily, similar laws banning gender-affirming care in Arkansas and Alabama, said Katie Eyer, a professor of law at Rutgers University. Neither of those cases has reached a full conclusion yet, but preliminary injunctions indicate the courts are likely to find the laws invalid, Eyer said.
“Federal courts have been pretty protective of transgender rights recently,” added Scott Skinner-Thompson, a professor at the University of Colorado Law School. “[The laws] are targeting trans kids and their parents and therefore discriminating against them on the basis of sex.
“[It] interferes with the parents and children’s right to make medical decisions about their lives, which the courts have also recognized as a fundamental right under the due process clause of the Constitution.”
The Georgia law, which takes effect July 1, is likely to face similar arguments.
“We can and will file a lawsuit before then,” said Cory Isaacson, legal director for the ACLU of Georgia. “[The law] violates fundamental constitutional rights under both the state and federal constitutions, including the right to be protected from discrimination and the right to parental autonomy.”
Georgia joins a growing list of states that have banned such care. Since the start of this year, similar laws have been enacted in South Dakota, Mississippi, Utah and Tennessee.
Florida has taken a slightly different approach. The state’s Boards of Medicine and Osteopathic Medicine adopted a rule banning gender-affirming care that took effect this month.
In the Peach State, Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr will be tasked with defending the new Georgia law when it goes to court.
“The Attorney General will do his job, which includes defending laws enacted by the General Assembly and signed by the governor,” Carr spokeswoman Kara Richardson said.
“States … have broad authority to regulate in areas fraught with medical uncertainties,” one such brief argued.
But medical experts disagree. Major medical societies such as the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) oppose the bans because they conflict with established protocols. The Georgia chapter of the AAP and many other medical professionals called on state legislators not to adopt the law.
In contrast, some supporters of such bans in Georgia wish the law had gone even further.
“We are disappointed that this bill remains one of the weakest in the country, and we are mindful of those who worked to undermine full protections for children,” said Cole Muzio, president of Frontline Policy Action, a Christian advocacy group.
The Alabama and Arkansas laws both banned puberty blockers, while the Georgia law does not.
Puberty blockers are typically used to stop puberty from starting in children with gender dysphoria, a recognized medical condition that results in mental distress because of a mismatch between the sex a person was born with and the person’s own sense of their gender.
Puberty blockers often need to be followed by hormone therapy to help transgender youth go through the puberty process, said Ren Massey, an Atlanta-area psychologist who specializes in treating gender dysphoria.
Massey and others are concerned that the ban on hormone therapy will prevent transgender youth from going through the normal stages of teenage development – psychologically, socially and physically.
“Medical professionals try to approximate a normal pubertal development,” often starting with low doses of hormones, he said.
The gender transition process is a lengthy one that includes numerous psychological and medical assessments, Massey said.
He’s concerned that now doctors and psychologists won’t have all the tools they need to help children and teenagers with gender dysphoria – and that these Georgians will suffer.
Massey expects to see an increase in self-harm, attempted suicides and completed suicides among transgender youths in Georgia.
“I’ve had a couple of families already move out of Georgia because of fear of these kinds of laws,” he said. “I am hopeful that lawsuits will lead to an injunction. … [Transgender youths] are in desperate need of support and help to cope with this additional stress.”
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – Georgia’s unemployment rate is holding steady despite persistent inflation.
Joblessness in the Peach State stood at 3.1% last month for the seventh month in a row and was half a percentage point lower than the national unemployment rate of 3.6%. Georgia had the highest labor force participation rate in the Southeast at 61%.
“It is clear that Georgia means business,” state Commissioner of Labor Bruce Thompson said of the latest numbers. “Due to sustained investments in the state’s economy and talented workforce, Georgia remains a top destination to live, work, and raise a family.”
The number of jobs in Georgia rose by 3,200 in February to nearly 4.8 million, an all-time high. Job sectors reporting all-time highs included private education and health services at 648,900 jobs, and leisure and hospitality at 510,900.
Leisure and hospitality was among the hardest hit job sectors during the pandemic, losing 222,300 jobs. But last month, it became the last private sector group to regain all jobs lost during the economic shutdown following the outbreak of COVID-19.
Georgia’s labor force also increased in February for the fifth straight month to nearly 5.1 million. However, the number of unemployed Georgians rose last month to 162,981.
First-time unemployment claims declined last month from January by 45% to 23,055. However, initial jobless claims were up 4% from February of last year.
More than 120,000 job openings in Georgia were listed online at Employ Georgia in February. Industries with the most openings included accommodation and food services with 18,000, retail trade with 8,600, and manufacturing with 7,800.
ATLANTA – The state Senate passed compromise legislation Thursday that would raise legal weight limits on trucks in Georgia carrying certain types of cargo in certain areas of the state.
The bill, which originated in the Georgia House of Representatives, cleared the Senate 44-5 after the Senate Transportation Committee had reduced the scope of the measure.
The version of the legislation that passed the House early this month would let commercial trucks exceed the current legal weight limit of 80,000 pounds by 10%, for a total of 88,000 pounds, on roads other than interstate highways, which are subject to federal restrictions.
The bill as originally proposed was scaled back before it even got to the Senate. As introduced, it would have applied to all commercial trucks no matter what they were hauling. The House changed it to allow the additional weight only for trucks carrying logs, agricultural products and livestock, granite, concrete or solid waste.
The Senate then reduced the bill’s scope further by removing granite, concrete, and solid waste from the types of cargo eligible for hauling at 88,000 pounds.
Other Senate changes restrict the weight exemption to trucks hauling loads within 75 miles of the cargo’s point of origin and prohibit trucks above the 80,000-pound weight limit in metro Atlanta.
Georgia farmers and loggers have told lawmakers they need heavier trucks to reduce the number of loads they have to haul.
The agriculture and timber industries have used an executive order Gov. Brian Kemp signed in the early days of the pandemic three years ago allowing heavier trucks to help them stay in business. However, the executive order expired last week.
“I consider this bill to be a lifeline to the people I represent who provide food and fiber to the citizens of Georgia,” Senate Agriculture and Consumer Affairs Committee Chairman Russ Goodman, R-Cogdell, told his Senate colleagues Thursday.
While farmers and loggers have pushed for the bill, representatives of local governments, traffic safety advocates, and the Georgia Department of Transportation have argued a permanent exemption allowing heavier trucks would damage roads and bridges and cause more severe crashes.
“Putting grotesquely overweight trucks on the road is dangerous for all of us,” said Sen. Frank Ginn, R-Danielsville, who held management positions in several local governments before being elected to the Senate in 2010. “Not only does it destroy roads. It kills people.”
Because of the changes the Senate made to the bill, it now must return to the House. It may take a joint legislative conference committee to work out the two chambers’ differences on the legislation before the General Assembly adjourns for the year next week.
ATLANTA – Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed into law a controversial bill Thursday banning most gender-affirming care for transgender Georgians under 18.
Kemp wasted little time in signing the bill, which received final passage from the General Assembly just two days earlier.
Senate Bill 140 will ban Georgia transgender youths from receiving hormone replacement therapy and gender-affirming surgery.
Hospitals could lose their permits and doctors their licenses. The legislation also opens up doctors to civil and criminal liability for providing such services.
The new law does allow transgender youths to take puberty blockers. It also provides exceptions for youths with certain medical conditions who need hormone replacement therapy and gender-affirming surgeries.
Kemp and other Republican supporters framed the law as a measure to protect children from irreversible physical changes.
“As Georgians, parents, and elected leaders, it is our highest responsibility to safeguard the bright, promising futures of our kids – and SB 140 takes an important step in fulfilling that mission,” Kemp said Thursday in a statement on Twitter.
“I appreciate the many hours of respectful debate and deliberation by members of the General Assembly that resulted in the final passage of this bill.”
The legislation drew fierce criticism from legislative Democrats, parents of transgender youth, and major medical societies who argued it would harm vulnerable transgender youths’ mental health. They also maintained it violates parents’ rights to make decisions about their children’s care and prevents doctors from following medically accepted standards of care.
“This really is about us bullying children in order to score political points,” said Sen. Kim Jackson, D-Stone Mountain, while speaking against the bill on the Senate floor earlier this week. “It does not protect children…”
The law is slated to take effect on July 1, 2023. Advocates for transgender youth have vowed to fight it.
“Courts around the country have already stopped similar laws from going into effect on constitutional grounds, and we expect Georgia courts would do the same,” the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia said in a statement released this week. The group plans to sue the state.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
