The state of Georgia is asking a federal appeals court to put elections for public service commissioners back on the November ballot. The appeal came Monday after a federal judge last week found statewide election of Georgia's five commissioners illegally dilutes Black votes.
A federal judge has ruled that Georgia's statewide election of its five public service commissioners illegally dilutes Black voting power. The judge on Friday ordered the state to not prepare ballots for two races that had been scheduled in November.
The Georgia Public Service Commission is set to decide Thursday on Georgia Power’s new 20-year plan to provide electricity to homes and businesses across the state. It will double the utility’s solar capacity, but some say its plans to fight climate change aren’t aggressive enough.
On Monday, lawyers delivered opening statements and the first witnesses took the stand in an Atlanta U.S. District courtroom as the Rose vs. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger lawsuit got its first hearing. Four Black residents of Fulton and DeKalb counties residents allege that the voting strength of Black people is eroded by a statewide election process used to elect the Public Service Commission.
A U.S. District Court judge is set to decide over the next week whether candidates qualifying for a Georgia Public Service Commission race must wait until after a summer trial for a lawsuit claiming the process of electing utility regulators has largely kept Black people from winning a seat.
If you feel like you keep reading the same story about the expansion of Plant Vogtle, the only new nuclear power under construction in the U.S., you’re not exactly wrong.
Georgia Power plans to excavate and remove the ash from 19 ponds and close the other 10 ponds in place. Lawyers for the Sierra Club have argued the PSC failed to take into account Georgia Power’s culpability in creating the coal ash problem to begin with, and thus should not be allowed to pass all of those costs onto customers.
It’s getting more urgent than ever to switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy to minimize the devastation of climate change, according to a landmark report last week. And solar panels are cheaper than ever. But for Georgia Power customers, it’s not quite that simple. Most still need to get some of their electricity from the utility, and a program that made that mix of power sources affordable has just filled up.
State regulators will consider signing off Tuesday on a plan marking a significant shift in how cost overruns are handled for Georgia Power’s Plant Vogtle expansion, which is already billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule.
Georgia energy regulators will decide this fall how much of the costs of building the first of two additional nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle Georgia Power can recover from customers.
Veteran Georgia Public Service Commissioner Lauren “Bubba” McDonald withstood a challenge from Democrat Daniel Blackman Tuesday, winning reelection to a six-year term.
Georgia Power’s overdue and over-budget Plant Vogtle nuclear plant expansion served as a handy punching bag for the challenger in a Tuesday debate as he took on a veteran of utility regulation ahead of the state’s Jan. 5 runoff election.
Georgia’s twin U.S. Senate contests are consuming most of the country’s political attention now that the presidential contest is finally decided in favor of President-elect Joe Biden.
