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Georgia Senate OKs bill to ban state workers from gender affirming care under state health plan • Georgia Recorder

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georgiarecorder.com – Ross Williams – 2025-02-11 17:04:00

Georgia Senate OKs bill to ban state workers from gender affirming care under state health plan

by Ross Williams, Georgia Recorder
February 11, 2025

Sen. Blake Tillery. Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder

State employees who use the state-sponsored health plan may soon be blocked from receiving gender-affirming care like hormone therapy.

The state Senate passed a bill Tuesday that aims to do just that. Before it can become law, it will need to pass the House by April 4 and be signed by Gov. Brian Kemp. If that happens, state employees who get gender-affirming care through the plan will have until the start of 2026 to find different coverage.

“When the state goes through its open enrollment period, we’re making clear to all state employees that we’re not gonna use state taxpayer dollars to pay for this gender-affirming care and transgender surgeries any longer,” said Senate Bill 39’s sponsor, Vidalia Republican Sen. Blake Tillery.

The bill would apply both to state employees on the plan as well as their minor children.

Sen. Blake Tillery and Lt. Gov. Burt Jones listen to Sen. Nan Orrock. Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder

The state previously barred gender affirming care for minors, but Tillery said the bill is necessary because a loophole could allow parents to obtain banned treatments for their minor children by using the state plan.

“While the General Assembly has spoken and spoken clearly and said loudly we do not think that these surgeries should occur in our state, there’s a back door that’s happened here,” he said. “The back door that’s happened is, through settlements, court decisions and otherwise, we are paying for those surgeries, and we are allowing those surgeries on minors, and we’re not just allowing those surgeries on Georgia minors, we’re paying for those surgeries on Georgia minors. Transgender surgeries on Georgia minors, paid for with Georgia taxpayer dollars, but since we banned them in Georgia, guess where we pay for them at? Out of state.”

Tillery said he does not know how many times a minor Georgian may have gotten gender-affirming care out of state. Experts say surgeries are rarely even discussed as an option for minors, and standard care for a minor would be more likely to include therapy, social transitioning and hormone replacement.

Tillery was referring to Rich v. Georgia, a 2023 case where a group of state workers who were denied gender-affirming care sued the state. The state agreed to a $365,000 court settlement with three employees.

Senate Democrats argued that seeking to skirt the terms of that settlement would open the state up to new lawsuits.

“Our own attorney general made the call to settle Rich v. Georgia, because under his expert opinion, he knew that this would be a fight that the state could not win,” said Sen. Nikki Merritt, a Grayson Democrat.

Democratic Sen. Kim Jackson proposed an amendment to Tillery’s transgender bill that she said would clarify that mental health treatments would not be barred for transgender people on the state health plan, but senators voted it down after Tillery said his bill would not ban such treatments. Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder

Senate Minority Leader Harold Jones said the bill could likely also violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, citing two Georgia cases. In Bostock v. Clayton County, the U.S. Supreme court held that an employer who fires a worker simply for being gay or transgender is in violation of the law. In Lange v. Houston County, a district court ruled that a health insurance provider can be held liable under Title VII for denying coverage for gender-affirming care to a transgender employee because he or she is transgender. Houston County has appealed that decision to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals and the case is still ongoing.

“To me, the law is clearly illegal, quite frankly,” Jones said. “There’s no hope for the law to withstand any kind of constitutional challenge or Title VII challenge, especially when the law is clear – in our circuit. The 11th Circuit has addressed this issue. That Houston County case was a 2024 case, so it just actually did happen.”

LGBTQ advocates also worry that unlike previous bills that targeted transgender minors through medical or sports participation bans, this bill would also affect adults’ medical decisions.

 

Republican Sen. Matt Brass proposed an amendment to Tillery’s transgender ban that would have forbade state contracts with any party that included transgender issues as part of the contract. Brass withdrew his amendment so as to not dilute the underlying bill. Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder

“The proponents of SB39 have been dishonest and misleading by characterizing the bill as a measure that would primarily ban state coverage of gender affirming care for minors, while finally today, the sponsor of the bill admitted that he simply doesn’t want Georgia to provide best practice medical care for transgender adults,” said Human Rights Campaign Georgia State Director Bentley Hudgins.

“SB39 is a cruel health care ban that is unconstitutional, discriminatory and poses a real threat to medical freedom for all Georgians,” they added. “The government has no business stripping away medically necessary care from anyone, including transgender youth or adults. Once we concede that the government has this power, all of our care is at risk.”

How to treat transgender Georgians under the law remains a hot button issue this year, and, fresh off a convincing victory for President Donald Trump, GOP lawmakers may perceive that pressing the issue could help them with their base.

The Senate has already passed a ban on transgender girls playing on girls’ sports teams, and the House is set to put forward its own version. Lawmakers could also consider bills to ban puberty-blocking medications for transgender minors.

Sen. Colton Moore. Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder

Trenton Republican Sen. Colton Moore, whose far-right positions and unconventional tactics have put him at odds with fellow Republicans, called the health care bill the “most effective and the most beneficial piece of legislation we have passed thus far in this body.”

“My friends on the Democratic side, they always like to talk about reproductive rights,”Moore said. “But we’re denying people reproduction for eternity if we trans their gender. That’s the basic foundation of a society is the family block. I believe taxpayer dollars ought to be used to promote a society, to grow a sovereignty, not to destroy it by using that money for transgender surgeries.”

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Georgia Recorder is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network 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: info@georgiarecorder.com.

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Trump says he was ‘being a little bit sarcastic’ when he promised to end Ukraine war in 24 hours

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www.wsav.com – Sarah Fortinsky – 2025-03-17 05:06:00

SUMMARY: President Trump acknowledged he was “a little bit sarcastic” about his past claim to end the Ukraine-Russia war in 24 hours. While campaigning for the 2024 presidential election, Trump insisted he could negotiate peace quickly, stating, “there’s a very easy negotiation.” In a recent interview, he mentioned being optimistic about a cease-fire framework agreed upon by Ukrainians and expressed hope for a similar agreement with Russia. When asked if he was in direct communication with Putin, Trump implied they were working together, but he emphasized the complex nature of the conflict, noting the urgent need to stop the war.

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Georgia Power to argue new long-term plan to PSC after Legislature stalls consumer-friendly bills

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georgiarecorder.com – Stanley Dunlap – 2025-03-17 00:00:00

Georgia Power to argue new long-term plan to PSC after Legislature stalls consumer-friendly bills

by Stanley Dunlap, Georgia Recorder
March 17, 2025

The Georgia Public Service Commission is scheduled to begin hearing testimony later this month from Georgia Power officials about how the state’s largest utility plans to spend billions of dollars to meet its skyrocketing energy demand, primarily due to the projected growth of large data centers supporting artificial intelligence. 

State regulators have set aside multiple days for hearings on Georgia Power’s long-term 2025 Integrated Resource Plan. Company officials estimate that 80% of its projected increased energy demand over the next decade is tied to expected new data centers growth in the state. 

Georgia Power is projecting electrical load growth will increase by 8,200 megawatts by 2030, representing an increase of 2,200 megawatts compared to its forecast in the 2023 Integrated Resource Plan update. One megawatt can power about 600 homes.

The latest demonstration of the growing interest from prospective data center companies emerged last week with an application filed with the Georgia Department of Community Affairs for a massive data center in Troup County.

The Project West proposal is for a 513-acre data center campus comprising six industrial buildings totaling 1.5 million square feet. The centers house computer servers and typically require a large supply of electricity to run.

“Georgia’s economy is continuing to grow, which increases the need for electricity in businesses and factories,” a panel of Georgia Power executives said in March 10 testimony filed with the PSC. “The state’s population is also growing, leading to more electricity use in homes. The rise in large commercial and industrial customers, such as data centers and manufacturing plants, is contributing to the new demand. Also, the adoption of electric vehicles, both for personal and business use, is steadily driving up electricity consumption.”

Georgia Power regularly updates every three years its Integrated Resource Plan, which is the company’s 20-year comprehensive plan for meeting the needs of current and future customers. The hearings on the latest plan will being March 25. 

Georgia lawmakers, clean energy and consumer advocacy groups are concerned about state regulators signing off on Georgia Power’s repeated utility bill increases as the investor-owned utility has passed along to ratepayers new electricity base rates, overrun costs associated with building two new Vogtle nuclear power plant units, coal ash cleanup and other expenses.

All told, the average Georgia Power household is paying about $43 more per month on utility bills since the start of 2020. Georgia Power is the largest supplier of electricity in the state, with about 2.7 million customers.

A pair of major cases will be settled by the five elected members of the state regulatory commission this year, which will affect Georgia Power ratepayers’ pocketbooks as well as determine the mix of fossil fuels and renewable energy sources the company will use to generate electricity for the next few years.

During PSC proceedings, environmental organizations, consumer protection nonprofits, manufacturers, and other groups offer expert testimony and perform cross examinations of witnesses.

Earlier this month, Georgia legislation intended to protect residential consumers from rising utility costs associated with data centers failed to advance out of the House and Senate chambers ahead of the critical March 6 Crossover Day deadline. 

State senator pushes bill to protect Georgia Power customers from rate hikes fueled by data centers

The full Senate did not hold a chamber floor vote on two bills sponsored by Sen. Chuck Hufstetler, a Rome Republican who says rising utility and property tax bills are the two most common complaints he hears from Georgians. 

Hufstetler said Saturday that a data center amendment likely doomed the passage of his Senate Bill 94, which would re-establish a utility consumer advocacy office that provides legal and financial resources for residential consumers and small businesses in electric rate cases and other utility matters. 

Hufstetler said he was unable to get a full Senate vote on his consumer utility counsel bill despite having 45 out of 56 senators’ support for his amendment to prevent utility companies from passing data center costs along to residential and small business customers, who have been handed six rate increases since the beginning of 2022. 

He said he plans to continue to advocate in future sessions for his bill to re-establish the consumer utility counsel that was abolished in statewide budget cuts mandated by Gov. Sonny Perdue during the 2008 recession. 

In the absence of the counsel, consumers depend on the PSC staff to represent ratepayer interests.

Hufstetler criticized Georgia Power for overbuilding in a way that allows the company’s shareholders to maximize profits and called for the commission to hold the company accountable for rising costs. 

“I did say I’ll pull the amendment if that’ll get the utility counsel but then it ran out of time so it didn’t happen,” Hufstetler said. “I’m certainly disappointed that with the majority of the senators wanting this bill that wasn’t allowed to be on the Senate floor and get passed. 

“On the other hand, we had numerous statements from both the PSC and Georgia Power that they would not pass on any of these costs to the residential and small business customers,” Hufstetler said. “At the same time, they didn’t like my bill, which said exactly that, but I think we can certainly hold them accountable for their numerous statements that they would not pass down this cost.” 

Representatives with Georgia Power and the Data Center Coalition said they opposed Senate Bill 34 because it would give the state Legislature control over a ratemaking process that is typically handled by the elected five-member PSC. 

They argued that new rules that apply to data center adopted by the PSC are sufficient to prevent residential and commercial customers from getting stuck with costs incurred to serve data centers.  

The new rules include a provision allowing Georgia Power to require data center companies to put up front-end collateral for energy costs over the lifetime of the contract. If the company abandons the project prior to the contract expiring, then Georgia Power would keep the remaining money owed.

Another utility-related bill that failed to advance by the Legislature’s Crossover Day deadline was Woodstock Republican Rep. Jordan Ridley’s House Bill 446, which would have granted discovery rights to all parties at PSC hearings, giving stakeholders new authority to request information during electric rate cases and other utility proceedings. 

Allison Kvien, Vote Solar’s Southeast regulatory director, criticized Georgia lawmakers who failed to increase transparency at a time when many people are struggling to pay higher energy bills.

“HB 446 would have allowed all stakeholders to better advocate for policies that encourage economic development and access to affordable, clean energy in commission proceedings” Kvien said. “Georgia Power shouldn’t be the only one with a seat at the table – Georgia households and businesses deserve to give informed input into decisions about their energy future.” 

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Georgia Recorder is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network 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: info@georgiarecorder.com.

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From 90° to snow flurries: Augusta’s wild St. Patrick’s Day weather history

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www.wjbf.com – Miller Hyatt – 2025-03-16 15:36:00

SUMMARY: St. Patrick’s Day weather in the CSRA has varied greatly over the years. The average high in Augusta is 69.3°F, but recent years have been consistently warmer. The hottest St. Patrick’s Day reached 90°F in 1945, while the coldest was 42°F in 1892 and 2005. Rain is typically light, with an average of just 0.09 inches, although 32% of years see measurable precipitation. The wettest day on record was 1.96 inches in 1920. Rarely, there’s been snow, like in 1936. Despite fluctuations, the chances of needing a winter coat are low, so enjoy the festivities!

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