The 2024 Georgia legislative session ended shortly before 1 a.m., Friday, March 29. Governor Kemp has 40 days to sign bills, veto bills, or let them become law without signature.
One of our big victories in the 2024 Legislative Session was the passage of HB 1192, which puts a two year “pause” on a state tax break for data centers. This bill became a priority for the Sierra Club after Georgia Power officials told state regulators that it needed to obtain a massive amount of new electricity to power the influx of data centers coming to Georgia.
In response to Georgia Power’s request, the Georgia Public Service Commission gave the utility permission to build new gas-fired turbines at Plant Yates in Coweta County.
Shortly after it was revealed that data centers were responsible for about 80% of the increased demand, the leaders of the House and Senate said they wanted to address the state tax credit for data centers.
HB 1192 met with furious opposition from the Data Center Coalition including QTS, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), and the Georgia Chamber of Commerce. Still, HB 1192 passed the State Senate with 29 votes, the minimum required.
In addition to a two-year moratorium on the tax break, HB 1192 also created a Special Commission on Data Center Energy Planning. The Sierra Club Georgia Chapter will be monitoring this investigatory commission so we are prepared to address its recommendations in next year’s Legislative session.
As of April 25, 2024, Gov. Kemp has yet to sign HB 1192, and he only has until May 7 to do so. Click this link to send a message to Gov. Kemp urging him to sign this important bill.
UPDATE (May 7, 2024): Gov. Kemp vetoed HB 1192. Read the Sierra Club Georgia Chapter's statement on Kemp's veto at this link.
Okefenokee bill stalls out again
HB 71, The Okefenokee Protection Act, failed to get a committee vote despite more than half the Georgia House of Representatives signing on as co-sponsors. The bill would have banned mining on Trail Ridge, the natural earthen dam that holds back water in the Okefenokee.
The bill wouldn’t have stopped Twin Pines’ proposed mine on Trail Ridge (it would have been grandfathered in), but it would have stopped future proposals including a potential expansion of Twin Pines’ project.
Separately, a bill that would have put a temporary moratorium on dragline mining (the type of mining Twin Pines proposes) on Trail Ridge also failed to pass. The bill would have also made it easier for those applying for mining permits to avoid legal challenges.
Although we oppose all types of mining on Trail Ridge, the Sierra Club Georgia Chapter and our allies felt the bill, HB 1338, was a PR ploy for lawmakers so they could be seen doing SOMETHING to protect the Okefenokee Swamp. We also couldn’t support the portions of the bill that prevented legal challenges to permit issuances, so we opposed the legislation and continued to push for HB 71’s passage.
Electric vehicles
Last year, the state legislature passed legislation to levy a new tax on public electric vehicle charging. The idea behind the new tax was to try to capture revenue from EV owners who no longer pay the state’s gasoline tax, which funds road projects. Lawmakers used the same argument when they imposed a $200+ annual fee on EV owners that must be paid to renew their registration. This new tax on public charging would be paid in addition to the annual fee.
The Sierra Club Georgia Chapter and our allies worked to repeal this new tax outright, and while we were unsuccessful in that fight, we were able to convince lawmakers to delay imposing the tax for one year, a proposal that was included in a Department of Transportation “housekeeping” bill, HB 516. We’re hopeful that we can make additional positive changes to the policy before EV owners have to start paying the tax.
Specifically, we plan to encourage cities, counties, and others with free Level 2 chargers to push for fixes to the policy. Many of these free chargers do not have the required equipment to accept payment and remit the tax to the state, which means these governments and businesses would either have to pay for expensive upgrades or remove the chargers altogether.
Much work remains to make sure our state’s EV policies are encouraging EV adoption.
One encouraging sign is seeing legislative leaders, like Senate Majority Leader Steve Gooch, saying that a “pay per mile” system is the future of paying for road construction. In a “pay per mile” system, drivers would pay a tax to the state based on the number of miles they’ve put on Georgia roads. This PPM fee would replace the state’s gas tax and the EV fees.
This system sounds reasonable, but there are many details that would need to be ironed out before it’s implemented. For example, would the amount drivers pay per mile depend on the weight of their vehicle because heavier trucks do more damage than lighter cars? Does the amount paid per mile depend on where the miles were driven because, for example, it’s more expensive to repair an interstate than a seldom traveled rural two lane road?
These questions aside, a pay-per-mile system would be vastly preferable to the current system that forces most EV owners to pay more than their gas-powered vehicle owning counterparts.
Energy policy
On the energy policy front, it was another challenging Legislative Session. Many bills that would have aided our transition away from fossil fuels failed to see any movement whatsoever.
HB 1152 would have allowed for community-scale solar projects that those living nearby could use to source electricity, but it got held up in the House Energy, Utilities & Telecommunications Committee and never got a vote.
SB 457 would have reinstated an independent attorney, known as a Consumer Utility Counsel (CUC), to represent the public’s interests in cases before the Georgia Public Service Commission. Georgia used to have a CUC, but the office was shut down in 2008 due to spending cuts during the Great Recession. SB 457 passed the Georgia Senate unanimously, but never got a vote in the House.
Rollbacks and Odds & Ends
Once again, opposing rollbacks took up the majority of our efforts, and we had a good bit of success in stopping or fixing many of them. Five attacks on solar power were defeated or fixed.
HB 73 would have required solar rooftop installers to go to the PSC (not exactly a friendly place for the solar industry) for permission to operate, but the bill died in the Senate.
HB 300 originally would have imposed a new fee on solar panel installations to pay for the costs of recycling or disposing of them, thereby increasing the upfront costs of solar panels. But the bill was changed enough before passage, including removing the up front fee, that it shouldn’t hinder utility scale solar projects.
Another attack on utility scale solar was a proposal that began in HB 449 to repeal a favorable tax provision for solar farms. HB 449 did not pass the House. The language of the bill was eventually amended onto another bill, HR 96, but that bill also failed to pass.
A late arriving attack on solar was Sam Watson's SB 578, which would have required the EPD to revoke water permits for any farm that installs over 10 acres of solar. SB 578 never received a vote.
One of the opponents of solar on farms is House Agriculture Committee Chair Robert Dickey. Dickey introduced a study committee on solar facility siting, HR 1505, but it failed to pass the House.
Lt. Governor Burt Jones' “red tape rollback,” SB 429, died in the House. SB 429 included a provision that every rule and regulation of every state agency be reviewed every seven years, which would have ground our state government to a halt.
A bill that would have made it easier to claim ownership of coastal marshlands owned by the state, HB 370, was defeated.
Finally, HB 1223, a small step forward on soil amendments, passed. The state’s “soil amendment” program is supposed to regulate soil additives on farms, but it has been used by industrial companies to dump waste on farms across Georgia. We’ve been trying to reform the program for years now: we want to improve monitoring of soil amendment sites, require the state to be more transparent about where these sites are and what is being dumped on them, and more. HB 1223 prevents new "soil amendments" if the applicant is subject to a consent order or under investigation by the Georgia EPD. So bad actors who have already been cited cannot receive new permits to dump new industrial waste.
Many thanks to our hard working contract lobbyists Neill Herring and Keith Hatcher. Thanks to Ricky Leroux for support on alerts and communications and the legislative page of the website. Thanks to all of you who contacted their state legislators.
Mark Woodall
Legislative Chair
Sierra Club Georgia Chapter