Georgia

Georgia Power could face new law to disclose its cost of power generation on customer bills – Georgia Recorder

Published

10 months ago

February 28, 2024

Georgia Power could face new law to disclose its cost of power generation on customer bills – Georgia Recorder

A bill aimed at increasing transparency into Georgia Power customer’s bills has cleared the House Energy, Utilities and Telecommunications Committee ahead of a critical deadline this week.

The House committee unanimously approved on Tuesday Chairman Don Parsons’ House Bill 1406 that would require Georgia Power to provide on customer bills information about the average overall cost of fuel used by the electric supplier to generate kilowatt hours of electricity charged to the customer for the billing period.

It’s the second time in recent days the state’s largest electricity supplier with strong lobbyist representation at the state Capitol has been the subject of proposals to rein in some of its business practices. Late last week, a state Senate committee supported a bill proposing the creation of a consumer advocate to represent ratepayer interests with Georgia Power files for a rate hike.

Parsons said he drafted the bill so customers can better understand how much the state’s largest utility company charges based on energy costs. The information includes the average cost for Georgia Power to produce a kilowatt hour of electricity from coal, natural gas, solar and nuclear energy over the previous year.

The fate of the bill now rests with the House Rules Committee ahead of Thursday’s Crossover deadline for legislation to advance out of one chamber during the 2024 session.

Parsons said that during his 30 years of serving on utilities legislation committees, he could only recall Georgia Power supporting legislation that it asked a lawmaker to sponsor. The bill comes on the heels of state regulators approving several Georgia Power bill increases due to increased electricity base rates, overrun costs associated with building the Vogtle nuclear power plant units, coal ash cleanup and other expenses.

“I think having this kind of transparency could really alleviate a lot of those concerns, particularly when fuel costs go up also happens to be around the same time that another rate hike happens,” said Parsons, a Marietta Republican.

Jeff Grubb, director of resource and policy planning at Georgia Power said one of the reasons the company opposes the bill is that a good deal of the information can be found on the customer bills and the company’s website.

For example, Georgia Power updates its fuel costs for energies like coal, nuclear and natural gas every year under the company’s facts and figures section online, he said.

Grubb cautioned that many customers could become confused by including information that’s not directly tied to the rates customers are paying on that particular bill.

“If customers are looking to make changes to their bill, or to add a resource or behind the meter solar, we have teams that will work with those customers and provide them all the information that they need to make those types of decisions,” Grubb said.

Grubb said that when a customer’s power bills fluctuate, it’s typically due to the usage of electricity and the fuel costs Georgia Power receives is determined in rate cases that goes before the Public Service Commision. The company can come back later to recoup some of the extra fuel costs if they exceeded projections based on the energy commodities market, Grubb said.

He also said that providing how much Georgia Power has paid for fuel within the past couple of months puts the company at risk of providing trade secrets in a volatile energy market.

“We have less concern or no concern with something from last year a few months ago, but something that we just got finished with and our annual expenses in a month causes us concerns from a business confidentiality point because it could harm customers,” Grubb said.

Parsons said that Grubb must think Georgia Power has a lot of “dumb” customers who will be confused by providing more information on what it costs to do business.

“If I’m getting a new roof put on the house and the contractor tells me this summer this is going to cost this much, I say well, okay, how much does it cost you for each bundle of roofing material that you use? I would expect him to tell me how much,” Parsons said.

“I don’t know why Georgia Power would not want to provide this basic information to a customer. You keep talking about proprietary secrets and things like that,” Parsons said. “You’re defending the company, but you’re not looking out for the customer.”

Bob Sherrier, staff attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center, says Georgia Power’s policy with the Public Service Commission lets the company charge customers 100% of its fuel costs.

“For example, in last year’s (fuel cost recovery) proceeding, the average residential bill was increased by about $16 a month to pay for mostly gas spikes the prior year,” he said. “I think that this is a good bill and that this kind of information is important for the people who actually have to pay for it to know.”

Rep. Beth Camp, a Concord Republican, said she would appreciate a breakdown of coal, natural gas, nuclear, and solar power on her Georgia Power bill.

Woodstock Republican Rep. Jordan Ridley recommended that Georgia Power get out of the electricity business if it is so concerned about protecting trade secrets.

“Anytime we have government-run monopolies, we need to have as much transparency as possible,” he said.

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Georgia

Georgia's Outgoing President Urges EU to Use More Leverage to Back Protesters

Published

2 hours ago

December 18, 2024

Press Room

Georgia's Outgoing President Urges EU to Use More Leverage to Back Protesters

BRUSSELS (AP) — Georgia’s outgoing president on Wednesday appealed to the European Union to press her country’s pro-Russia government to hold a new election amid a police crackdown on peaceful opposition protesters. Tens of thousands of people have filled the streets regularly in recent weeks since …

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Georgia man sentenced to five years for assaulting officers in Capitol Riot

Published

9 hours ago

December 17, 2024

Press Room

Georgia man sentenced to five years for assaulting officers in Capitol Riot

article

WASHINGTON – A Georgia man was sentenced Tuesday to five years in prison for assaulting law enforcement officers and other offenses committed during the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol.

Michael Bradley, 50, of Forsyth, was convicted of multiple felony and misdemeanor charges for his role in disrupting a joint session of Congress that was convened to certify the 2020 presidential election results.

U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton sentenced Bradley to 60 months in prison, three years of supervised release, and a $2,000 fine. Bradley was found guilty of civil disorder; assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers; entering and remaining in a restricted building with a deadly weapon; disorderly and disruptive conduct with a deadly weapon; and engaging in physical violence with a deadly weapon.

Events on Jan. 6, 2021

Court documents and trial evidence revealed that Bradley joined rioters at the Capitol’s Lower West Terrace Tunnel, a hotspot for violent clashes with law enforcement. Between 4 p.m. and 4:30 p.m., Bradley was seen carrying a baton in a holster on his hip as he approached the tunnel.

At approximately 4:27 p.m., Bradley raised the baton and moved toward officers in an apparent attempt to strike. Officers used a chemical spray to repel him, prompting his temporary retreat. Moments later, Bradley returned to the tunnel and swung his baton at officers at least twice before leaving the area.

CCTV and third-party video captured Bradley’s actions, which prosecutors described as part of a larger violent effort by rioters to overwhelm police and disrupt congressional proceedings.

Michael Bradley’s arrest and prosecution

Bradley was arrested by FBI agents on Sept. 7, 2023, in Forsyth. He had been identified as suspect No. 154 in the FBI’s “Be on the Lookout” (BOLO) campaign, which sought public assistance in identifying individuals involved in the Capitol attack.

Since the Capitol breach, more than 1,572 individuals across nearly all 50 states have been charged with crimes related to the attack, including over 590 accused of assaulting or impeding law enforcement, according to the Justice Department. The investigation remains ongoing.

The FBI continues to seek information on unidentified suspects. Tips can be submitted at 1-800-CALL-FBI (800-225-5324) or tips.fbi.gov.

The Source: All information and images in this article was provided by the U.S. Department of Justice. This story is being reported out of Atlanta.

Capitol RiotNewsCrime and Public SafetyWashington, D.C.Georgia

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Georgia

What we learned in Grand Canyon basketball losses to Georgia, Louisiana Tech

Published

17 hours ago

December 17, 2024

Press Room

What we learned in Grand Canyon basketball losses to Georgia, Louisiana Tech

Grand Canyon lost a chance to make a big statement during its trip through the South.

The Lopes (6-4) had won four straight with their full team, after getting center Duke Brennan back from an injury.

But in a 73-68 loss to Georgia (9-1) on Saturday, followed by a 74-66 loss to Louisiana Tech on Monday, their biggest star, WAC Preseason Player of the Year Tyon Grant-Foster, had his two worst games since joining the Lopes last year and leading them to an historic 30-win season.

He shot a combined 2 for 25 in the losses, missing all 13 3-pointers he took. This is baffling for last year’s WAC Player of the Year, who averaged 20 points in his first college season in two years, leading the Lopes to their first NCAA Tournament win last season.

To make matters worse Monday night at Louisiana Tech (10-2), guard Ray Harrison was only 1 of 10 shooting, making just 1 of 7 3-pointers, two days after he led GCU with 16 points, making 2 of 4 3s, against Georgia.

Here are takeaways from this two-game swing as the Lopes look to recover Thursday night at home against 0-12 Chicago State. That will be followed by a 2 p.m. home game Sunday against Saint Louis:

Shooting woes

It wasn’t just Grant-Foster who struggled. The Lopes made only 7 of 27 3-pointers against Georgia and 2 of 27 from behind the arc against Louisiana Tech.

This was supposed to be a roster built to make 3-pointers. JaKobe Coles came from TCU, where he was a 42% shooter from 3. Coles was 1 of 5 from 3-point range against Georgia and 1 of 3 against Louisiana Tech. He led the Lopes with 19 points on 7 of 13 field-goal shooting against Louisiana Tech.

Both Coles and Grant-Foster missed open 3s in the final minute of the Georgia game. If either of them knock down a 3, it could have been a different outcome.

In the 75-68 home loss to UC Davis, the Lopes made just 4 of 25 3-pointers. Even against NAIA Life Pacific, a team the Lopes beat 100-52 before hitting the road, they made only 8 of 28 3-pointers.

On the season, Harrison has made 11 of 40 3-pointers (27.5%) and Grant-Foster 6 of 39 (15%). Last season, Grant-Foster, who made his living at the free-throw line, drawing fouls on quick moves to the basket, made 33% of his 3s (50 of 151), the second-best shooting percentage from the arc on the team, behind Gabe McGlothan (39.8%).

Against Louisiana Tech, the Lopes were within two points with 2:13 left, but got outscored 6-0 in the end.

“Sometimes the ball just doesn’t go in for him,” coach Bryce Drew said in the postgame GCU radio interview about Grant-Foster, who missed the first two games this season. “It’s not going in right now. There’s other parts of his game that he can do. I thought at Georgia he did a great job getting six steals.

“He’s a much better player than he’s playing. My job as a coach is we’ve got to get it out of him. We’ve been trying different things in the last month, and we’re going to keep trying more things to get him back on track.”

Scheduling

Because the WAC and Conference USA were locked into a contract to have non-conference games against each other, GCU had to go to Louisiana Tech in this home-and-home series. Last year, GCU pulled out a 73-70 win over Louisiana Tech at home. This game happened to fall two days after facing Georgia against a pro-Bulldogs crowd at State Farm Arena in Atlanta.

“The scheduling has been very difficult,” Drew said. “We would never ever played this game where we played it. It’s the Conference USA challenge with the WAC, so we had this game. We had a chance to play Georgia, a top-40 team, in Atlanta. We didn’t want to turn that game down.”

But Drew added he didn’t want to use the Georgia game as an excuse.

“I’ve got to do a better job in the future with scheduling,” he said. “It’s super hard to get games. Doing a back-to-back basically after a super physical Georgia game, and, for 40 minutes, I think you saw the legs come out a little bit on some of our 3-point shooting.”

Brennan not backing down

The overall play of 6-foot-10 Brennan has been a bright spot since his return from a shoulder injury that caused him to miss the first four games.

Brennan had 13 points on 5 of 6 shootings and pulled down seven rebounds against Louisiana Tech. He got big man Daniel Batcho to pick up two fouls and head to the bench after Louisiana Tech jumped out to a 13-2 lead.

GCU pulled ahead of Louisiana Tech late in the first half, but that couldn’t be sustained, as Batcho returned and finished with 19 points and seven rebounds without picking up another foul. Sean Newman Jr., had his season-average nine assists to go with 25 points.

Brennan had 10 points and eight rebounds against a big Georgia team that blocked nine GCU shots. Earlier this season, Brennan played well in the 78-71 Stanford win with 14 points and eight rebounds, going against Maxime Raynaud (29 points, 11 rebounds).

Georgia center Somto Cyril had 12 points, eight rebounds and five blocks against GCU.

“We’ve played three really good centers so far, and you look at those, and they’re as good as any center in the country,” Drew said. “Hopefully, we’re done playing that size and length for a while.

“Obviously, Saint Louis (Sunday’s home opponent) has a good center (Robbie Avila) but he’s a different kind of center. This stuff is going to make us better. It’s going to make our bigs better, our guards better, finishing, and also show what we need to work on in practice to get better.”

Richard Obert has been covering high school sports since the 1980s for The Arizona Republic. He also covers Grand Canyon University athletics and the Arizona Rattlers. To suggest human-interest story ideas and other news, reach Obert at richard.obert@arizonarepublic.com or 602-316-8827. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter:@azc_obert

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