Georgia
Georgia Power pressing ahead with coal ash storage plan, slow rollout of clean energy
by Stanley Dunlap, Georgia Recorder [This article first appeared in the Georgia Recorder, republished with permission]
Could 30, 2022
The Georgia Public Service Fee is about to vote July 22 on Georgia Energy’s long run vitality plans for coal plant closings, photo voltaic vitality manufacturing, electrical automobile infrastructure and extra.
The state’s largest electrical energy supplier may have a possibility to request a remaining listening to subsequent month following a number of days of hearings that wrapped up on the finish of Could. The corporate defended its three-year 2022 Built-in Useful resource Plan as varied environmental, client advocacy and different vitality associated organizations delivered disparaging testimony earlier than state regulators.
Georgia Energy executives and workers had been questioned throughout hearings earlier within the spring, establishing a important 12 months for the way forward for vitality manufacturing. After a vote on the plan in July, a charge case will decide how a lot the corporate’s clients will pay for electrical energy over the subsequent three years. Ratepayers with Georgia Energy aren’t more likely to study whether or not they’ll pay extra for the grossly overdue and over funds nuclear growth at Plant Vogtle till 2023.
After final week’s testimony, Bryan Jacob, director of photo voltaic for the Southern Alliance for Clear Vitality, stated that many organizations are hoping that Georgia Energy will make some adjustments earlier than the ultimate plan is permitted.
“The intervening events put actual compelling proof into the document that that the plan that the corporate has put ahead would find yourself locking us into extra fossil gas sources than crucial for for many years to come back,”
For years, a supply of competition for some environmental organizations has concerned Georgia Energy’s $9 billion plan for closing 11 coal fired-plants and sealing of poisonous coal ash waste in groundwater. Cleanup prices for coal ash have been tacked onto buyer’s month-to-month payments for years.
Final week, environmental advisor Mark Quarles of BBJ Group testified that the utility supplier’s plan to depart the coal ash in place as an alternative of transferring it to lined storage would violate federal atmosphere rules.
The utility supplier’s plan to deal with coal ash by leaving the ash in unlined pits at some websites is a course of opposed by a number of environmentalists preferring sending it to a lined landfill in order that the contaminated ash is faraway from contact with groundwater.
Georgia Energy argues the coal ash has not compromised consuming water requirements and intends to cap the coal ash in place the place a lot of it now’s collected in ponds close to the corporate’s legacy electrical energy crops. These plans have lately been thrown into query after federal environmental regulators pressed the state Environmental Safety Division to overview them.
Charline Whyte, senior marketing campaign consultant for the Sierra Membership’s Past Coal Marketing campaign in Georgia, known as out the utility firm for its timeline and strategies on retiring coal fired amenities, which helped earn the corporate a failing grade on the most recent Sierra Membership Report Card.
“Georgia Energy bought an F for air pollution as a result of it plans to burn coal past 2028, retailer poisonous coal ash in unlined pits, and depend on fracked fuel,” Whyte stated in a Could 17 assertion. “All of this stuff straight threaten the well being of the environment and our communities.”
A Georgia Energy legal professional responded that whereas revisions to federal rules are within the works, the corporate’s plan was already permitted in 2019 underneath customary thought of by the Georgia Environmental Safety Division .
The corporate’s timeline for closing their coal crops requires all however one to be shut down by 2028, and the whole phasing out of coal use by 2035.
Jill Kysor, an legal professional with the Southern Environmental Legislation Middle, which represented Georgia Interfaith Energy and Mild and Partnership for Southern Fairness, stated the middle helps Georgia Energy’s newest plans to take 12 coal-fired models, accounting for greater than 3,500 megawatts, by 2028.
The 2022 Built-in Useful resource Plan is a 20-year vitality roadmap that features a pledge to provide clear vitality sources designed to enhance air and water high quality.
The 2022 plan was developed after Georgia Energy officers performed an evaluation that included projections of future gas prices, environmental technique, and a laundry listing of different assessments as the corporate promotes extra vitality environment friendly applications.
“The corporate additionally evaluates the cost-effectiveness of its producing sources given altering environmental rules and rising applied sciences and the way to finest add resilience to the electrical system,” Georgia Energy stated in an announcement.
However specialists at this week’s listening to additionally spent appreciable time selling adjustments they are saying would improve the feasibility of pure fuel, biomass, wind, and photo voltaic vitality suppliers to bid on sharing in Georgia Energy’s vitality grid to interchange the coal-fueled crops that shut down,
Southern Environmental Legislation Middle analysts had been amongst those that testified that some vitality producers had extra problem proving their viability primarily based on the necessities set forth within the request for bid proposals.
Jacob, with the Southern Alliance, stated that in 2019 there was a collective effort from the corporate, events, and the fee to discover a cost-effective long-term answer that might fulfill ratepayers.
Jacob stated he’s involved that the bidding requirements set over the previous few years may very well be dangerous in the event that they proceed to set the course.
“On the finish of this course of you’re not going to have the ability to guarantee ratepayers that they’re getting the perfect deal since you’re not gonna know for certain that the 75 megawatt tasks which might be on the market within the interconnection queue wouldn’t have been cheaper,” Jacob stated.
A key ingredient to look out for within the charge case is that if Georgia Energy proposes to extend the fastened cost for coal ash administration for purchasers, after the fee permitted incremental hikes as a part of the 2019 plan.
Jacob stated fastened charge will increase disproportionately have an effect on the poorest households, since extra prosperous households spend extra on vitality.
“It has a destructive influence on the economics of anyone who desires to place photo voltaic on their home or anyone that desires to spend money on vitality effectivity applications,” Jacob stated.
Solar energy will get renewed vitality
Georgia Energy is receiving some kudos for proposing a pilot program to help low-income communities with photo voltaic vitality. However photo voltaic vitality advocates say they’d wish to see a assure that underneath this system low-income communities will get monetary savings or on the very least not pay the identical quantity on their electrical energy payments.
The hearings featured varied organizations advocating for the PSC to develop the online metering program for photo voltaic powered rooftops after reaching its restrict of 5,000 clients.
The web metering program requires Georgia Energy to buy unused solar energy at the identical value it expenses for electrical energy.
Even when the cap is elevated by a small quantity, it might stress folks into making a rash resolution on whether or not or not solar energy works finest for them at their houses, church buildings, or companies, Kysor stated.
“On the finish of the day, month-to-month internet metering makes rooftop photo voltaic far more reasonably priced, so it actually cracks open accessibility for on a regular basis Georgians– center earnings people, decrease earnings people, as a result of then they will finance their methods,” she stated .
Georgia Recorder is a part of States Newsroom, a community of reports bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Georgia Recorder maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor John McCosh for questions: information@georgiarecorder.com. Comply with Georgia Recorder on Fb and Twitter.
Georgia
Georgia man sentenced to death seeks clemency on grounds of intellectual disability
A Georgia man should not be executed because he is intellectually disabled and feels remorse for killing his former girlfriend three decades ago, his lawyers wrote in seeking clemency for him.
Willie James Pye, 59, is scheduled to be put to death Wednesday using the sedative pentobarbital in what would be the state’s first execution in more than four years. Pye was convicted of murder and other crimes in the November 1993 killing of Alicia Lynn Yarbrough.
A clemency hearing is set for Tuesday. In Georgia, those hearings are conducted in secret, with the result announced afterward.
CALIFORNIA DEFENDANT ON TRIAL FOR MURDER ALLEGEDLY STABS HIS ATTORNEY WITH PEN, CHARGES TOWARD PROSECUTOR
“Had defense counsel not abdicated his role, the jurors would have learned that Mr. Pye is intellectually disabled and has an IQ of 68,” Pye’s public defenders wrote in their clemency application.
“They also would have learned the challenges he faced from birth — profound poverty, neglect, constant violence and chaos in his family home — foreclosed the possibility of healthy development,” they wrote. “This is precisely the kind of evidence that supports a life sentence verdict.”
Pye’s lawyers also cited severe problems in the Spalding County justice system in the 1990s and said that Pye has been a positive influence on those around him while he’s been in prison.
Pye had been in an on-and-off romantic relationship with Yarbrough. At the time she was killed, Yarbrough was living with another man. Pye, Chester Adams and a 15-year-old boy had planned to rob that man and bought a handgun before heading to a party in Griffin, prosecutors have said.
The trio left the party around midnight and went to the house where Yarbrough lived, finding her alone with her baby. They forced their way into the house, stole a ring and necklace from Yarbrough and took her with them when they left, leaving the baby alone, prosecutors have said.
They drove to a motel, where they took turns raping Yarbrough and then left the motel with her in the teenager’s car, prosecutors have said. They turned onto a dirt road and Pye ordered Yarbrough out of the car, made her lie face down and shot her three times, according to court filings.
Yarbrough’s body was found a few hours after she was killed. Pye, Adams and the teenager were quickly arrested. Pye and Adams denied knowing anything about Yarbrough’s death, but the teenager confessed and implicated the other two.
The teenager reached a plea agreement with prosecutors and was the main witness at Pye’s trial. A jury in June 1996 found Pye guilty of murder, kidnapping, armed robbery, rape and burglary, and sentenced him to death.
Pye’s lawyers have argued in court filings that other statements the teen made are inconsistent with what he said at Pye’s trial. Those statements, as well as statements Pye made during trial, indicate that Yarbrough left the home willingly and went to the motel to trade sex for drugs, the lawyers said in court filings.
Pye’s lawyers also wrote in court filings that Pye was raised in extreme poverty in a home without indoor plumbing or access to sufficient food, shoes or clothing. His childhood was characterized by neglect and abuse by family members who abused alcohol, his lawyers wrote.
His lawyers also argued that Pye suffered from brain damage, potentially caused by fetal alcohol syndrome, that harmed his ability to plan and control his impulses. They also argue that he is intellectually disabled and is therefore ineligible for execution, citing the findings of several experts who evaluated him.
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Pye’s lawyers have long argued that he should be resentenced because his trial lawyer didn’t adequately prepare for the sentencing phase of his trial. A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with Pye’s lawyers in April 2021. But the full federal appeals court overturned that ruling in October 2022.
Adams, now 55, pleaded guilty in April 1997 to charges of malice murder, kidnapping with bodily injury, armed robbery, rape and aggravated sodomy. He got five consecutive life prison sentences and remains behind bars.
Georgia’s last execution was in January 2020.
Georgia
Biden sees worrying signs in Georgia
President Biden is facing worrying signs in Georgia — the state he flipped blue for the first time in decades back in 2020 — including low primary turnout and a lack of big down-ballot races to energize his base.
Biden beat former President Trump by fewer than 12,000 votes in the Peach State last cycle, and polls suggest the former president now has the edge as the pair head toward a 2024 rematch.
Democrats acknowledge that Biden has work to do to mobilize voters, with the state poised to once again play a pivotal role in November.
“The bad news [for Democrats in Georgia is] an enthusiasm gap between Democratic voters and Republican voters,” said Atlanta-based Democratic strategist Fred Hicks. “The question for Democrats is not for whom you’re going to vote in November; it’s whether or not you’re going to vote.”
Biden trounced his long-shot challengers in Georgia’s Democratic primary last week, scoring more than 95 percent of the vote — but total turnout for the contest was just below 290,000 voters, according to the latest counts from Decision Desk HQ.
On the Republican side, Trump scored roughly 85 percent of the vote, and the race saw nearly double the opposing party’s turnout, with nearly 590,000 Georgians casting ballots in the GOP contest.
Though strategists note the primary electorate isn’t exactly indicative of how Georgians will vote in the general, turnout will be key in the state that Trump won in 2016 — and where, four years later, Biden narrowly won by one-quarter of 1 percent.
“It is a complete toss-up right now,” said Democratic strategist Abigail Collazo, who has done work in Georgia. “There’s nothing that can be taken for granted in a year like this one, particularly with the Black and minority voters that the Biden campaign will need to win.”
Last cycle saw record turnout in the Peach State, when Biden challenged then-incumbent Trump with the benefit of other major races down ballot that helped energize voters.
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Georgia Democrats turned out in big numbers to oust Trump, but also to elect Democrat Jon Ossoff as the state’s first Jewish senator and Rev. Raphael Warnock (D) as the state’s first Black senator.
That year, Georgia notably combined its presidential preference primary and general primary into a June election, while this year, it’s back to separate dates.
“The question is: Can and how can Biden-Harris get the Democratic turnout to match 2020 without the historic nature of other races on the ballot?” Hicks said.
Biden’s reelection bid will have to energize the state’s significant Black population, which makes up roughly a third of the battleground state, while facing polls that show the incumbent struggling nationally with the demographic.
Amid a progressive push in several states to cast protest votes over the administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war, roughly 6,000 Georgians left their ballots blank in the Democratic primary, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Biden will also have to handle persistent concerns about immigration after the recent death of Georgia student Laken Riley thrust the state into the center of an already raging partisan debate on the issue. A Venezuelan citizen was arrested and charged with murder in connection to Riley’s death, prompting many on the right to link the tragedy to Biden’s handling of the border.
“Laken Riley, an innocent young woman who was killed by an illegal. That’s right,” Biden said during his State of the Union address earlier this month, after Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) heckled him to mention the Georgia student. “But how many thousands of people being killed by legals? To her parents I say, my heart goes out to you, having lost children myself.”
A survey from Emerson College Polling and The Hill recently found Trump up 8 points over Biden on the issue of immigration in Georgia. And in a general election rematch, polling averages from Decision Desk HQ/The Hill showed Trump leading Biden by 5 points.
Biden would need to get “really aggressive on the border” to come closer to a win in the state, said Georgia-based Republican strategist Jay Williams.
But there are “rays of hope” for both White House hopefuls, said Ben Taylor, a professor of political science at Kennesaw State University in Georgia.
“Today, if I were operating either of these campaigns, I would probably rather be in the Trump campaign’s position, I think. But it’s very tenuous,” Taylor said.
Trump faces his own hurdles in the state, where he’s been criminally indicted over alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 results in the state. A judge last week notably dropped some charges related to Trump’s infamous call asking Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) to “find” enough votes to overturn Biden’s win, but Trump still faces 10 counts in the case.
“This is going to be a high-stakes election where a few votes really matter. And problematically, if Trump does the same old thing and he loses, I mean, I don’t know what’s gonna happen,” said Audrey Haynes, a professor of political science at the University of Georgia.
“Will it be the nail in the coffin? … Or will it be: ‘It’s rigged’ again, and then ‘we’re going to throw the whole country into chaos’ again?” Haynes said.
And though Trump easily extended his string of early wins in the GOP primary, his former opponent Nikki Haley brought in around 13 percent support. That’s notable because some of the roughly 77,000 ballots in her column likely came in after Haley dropped out of the running on March 6, making those votes a possible protest against Trump.
In a state that Biden won last cycle by just 12,000 votes, the tens of thousands of Haley voters present an opportunity for Biden’s reelection bid to persuade disillusioned Republicans to join the Democratic camp.
But even if those voters aren’t drawn across the aisle, they could still pose a problem for Trump by sitting out, said Taylor.
“The closer the Biden folks can keep Georgia, the more competitive Georgia is in the long term, I think the better it is for the Biden campaign, not just for the Electoral College votes, but particularly, from a strategic perspective, of making the Trump campaign spend money that they, by the end, may not have,” Taylor said.
Mark Rountree, a Republican pollster based in Georgia, said that the Haley votes would be “very problematic” for Trump if the general election were held today, but countered that another six months of advertising and messaging could likely pull many of those back into the former president’s column.
With respective wins in Georgia, Washington and Mississippi last week, Biden and Trump have both locked up the delegates they need to win their party nominations, teeing up a rematch in November that observers say could come down to the wire. The pair held dueling campaign events in the Peach State last week.
“This is a competitive place, and Republicans cannot win without Georgia,” said Keron Blair, the chief organizing and field officer of the progressive New Georgia Project Action Fund.
“And Democrats would be remiss if they abandoned the investment in Georgia and abandoned the work of forcing a meaningful competition for the electoral votes that are up for grabs in Georgia,” Blair said.
Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Georgia
Georgia grapples with nation's second worst nursing shortage
ATLANTA – A nationwide nursing shortage is hitting Georgia especially hard. Right now, there just aren’t enough nurses to go around. The state is expected to have the second-worst shortage in the nation over the next decade. Experts say low pay and high stress are causing more nurses to leave Georgia, even abandon the field altogether.
Andrea Castellano, a student at Emory University’s nursing school, has heard the stories of long hours and tough conditions for nurses, especially during the pandemic. “Just nurses realizing there wasn’t a safe environment for them to continue their profession,” Castellano said. “Although there isn’t maybe the best support, there is always going to be a need for nurses in hospitals.”
Georgia will need more students like Castellano who want to become nurses to make up for a big shortfall. “I realize that this is where I want to dedicate my time,” Castellano said.
According to the federal Health Resources Service Administration, Georgia has more than 20% fewer registered nurses than it needs.
That is “pretty acute,” said Chelsea Hagopian, an Assistant Clinical Professor at Emory School of Nursing and Executive Director of the Georgia Nursing Workforce Center. “We’re certainly feeling it.”
Many nurses complain of low pay. “When looking at the difference between employed versus licensed RN’s when compared to other states, we do see a difference,” Hagopian said.
Others point to burnout from the pandemic, some calling it quits. “We saw accelerated retirement,” Hagopian said. “We saw nurses in their early career leaving the profession altogether.”
The nursing shortage could grow far worse if that trend doesn’t improve. “We need to consider the context of faculty shortage. Nursing schools need faculty to be able to educate the next generation of nurses,” Hagopian said.
Hagopian says the health care system needs to look at launching nurse-residency programs, improve work conditions and make nurses feel more valued overall.
The challenges don’t discourage Castellano. “Regardless of the shortage I still really want to consider this pathway,” she said.
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