The backlash against data centers in Georgia is more intense than anything I’ve ever seen. It dwarfs anger Georgians have against Georgia Power and their Republican PSC enablers for expanding fossil fuels and accelerating climate change.
It dwarfs anger at the Republican commissions’ corruption and backroom secret deal-making.
It dwarfs anger of Plant Vogtle, the most expensive power plant on Earth, jacking our rates up 25% – the largest rate increase in state history, completed at a shocking cost of $36.8 BILLION despite widespread opposition for its cancellation early in the project when it was clear that Georgia Power had misled EVERYONE about the true cost and schedule for what it takes to build nuclear.
They are making so much money from Plant Vogtle, and expanding gas for data centers, and enjoying their kingmaker deals at the PSC, it is “transformative”. I have no idea what that means. It means a lot, I guess. New yachts for everybody?
And now we have data centers, the next belle of the ball for Georgia Power. While expanding fossil fuels is difficult to see, and secret backroom deals are difficult to see, and an astonishingly expensive nuclear power is difficult to see, what is NOT difficult to see is the failure of Georgia’s Republican leaders to control data centers. THAT is crystal clear.
And big anger to go with it. I’ve never seen anything like it.
Not only the Republican leaders failure to pass legislation that was desperately needed, but next level anger: Georgia Power is using Georgia’s 19th century Eminent Domain law to take land from rural Georgians for the installation of over 1,000 miles of high voltage transmission lines for data centers.
So lots and lots of that (above) is coming to a town near you: 1,063 miles of it. We are in the very early stages of what’s about to happen. The eminent domain law above has not been updated since 1933, before we had television, since before we had penicillin. And Georgia Power is quite enjoying it thank you very much.
Who is not enjoying this law? Georgians. Specifically rural Georgians who must get out of the way of Georgia Power’s gonzo for profits behavior in pursuit of data centers that has launched Georgia into international and national awareness as a laughingstock of corruption.
I don’t say that lightly – I’m getting emails from Italy, Portugal, Spain and Japan asking for interviews and connections to rural Georgians experiencing the effects of what Georgia Power is doing to them. They want to cover this car crash.
So we get this shocking situation of people losing land and homes to Georgia Power with this ugly headline below. And while I hate this for the people experiencing it, I love this for Georgia Power: let the ugly show.
Click image to watch this video: if a 7-minute video is too long I urge you to go to timestamp 4:30 to see the Georgia Power spokesperson tell Georgians losing their land that she feels for them, but ultimately, this is for their own good. Wow.
Watch at timestamp 5:15 when this young lady, Ansley Brown, calls Georgia Power a bully. Right on, ma’am. You said it beautifully.
And watch to the end when the reporter tells the anchor desk in New York that Georgia Power doesn’t release the names of the data center clients “for their safety and security”. WOW WOW – they respond.
Want to laugh between tears after watching Ansley’s response to the reporter’s question about what she wants from Georgia Power? Watch this 15 second TikTok video that I’ve been saving for just this moment. Don’t forget to turn the volume on – the video always starts with no volume (annoying).
The people of Georgia are furious at all the data centers coming here, at Georgia Power taking land, and at legislators whose failure to pass legislation (because Georgia Power didn’t want them to). They have a right to be. Their political representatives let them down, big time. It is shocking to me that Ansley Brown and her mother, and everyone featured in that CBS story, are constituents of Senator Matt Brass.
But this problem is solvable. If Georgians want lower power bills and if Georgians want the fossil fuel expansion to stop and if Georgians want legislation to control data centers, they need to vote out the incumbents responsible. Because nothing will change as long as the party that caused the problem remains in charge.
Some Republicans did try to pass legislation to address these problems, but most didn’t. The few who tried couldn’t overcome the many.
Let’s name names: Senator Matt Brass killed Senate Bill 34 to require utilities to properly allocate data center costs. There he is looking dapper and smiling with Senator Greg Dolezal, both on the Senate Regulated Industries committee where they chose to do nothing about data centers in 2025 and 2026.
It is stunning to me that Brass’s failure to support SB 34 for two years is now ruining his constituents’ lives in the CBS story above, and everyone in Coweta County – eroding their property values, and causing them to lose their property.
Georgians need to vote them out.
I met with Senator Dolezal with his constituents in 2024 and explained to him in detail the problems at the PSC. I met with Senator Matt Brass in 2025 – same thing. I asked them both to support legislation to fix these problems. I asked you, readers of this newsletter, to contact them and you did – by the dozens, if not hundreds. “No can do,” they said.
Who else do we need to “get”? Rep. Don Parsons chairs the House Energy & Utilities Committee and blocked solar balcony legislation this year – the sixth solar bill he’s blocked, at least, and he also chose to do nothing about data centers.
Georgians need to vote Parsons out.
Vote out Parsons, Brass, and Dolezal. Vote in their Democratic opponents Danielle Bell, JerMarkus Jacobs, and Josh McLauren.
But the most important race? The two seats on the Georgia Public Service Commission. Don’t like out of control data centers? Voters need to reelect Peter Hubbard who is already on the commission but is outvoted by the GOP majority when he tries to get things done; and elect Shelia Edwards to the seat Pridemore is vacating, thank the heavens.
Because anger is healthy, if productively channeled. That’s what I always try to do: help people know what to do with their dismay, anger, and frustration. Some problems aren’t solvable but this is. VOTE.
This headline and this image was published in November 2025. And now it’s too late.
What you can do:
As you can see, we have a problem with how our utility is regulated, a big one. If you know anything about me you know that Bill McKibben is a hero of mine. He wrote The End of Nature i
n 1989 which is considered the first book on global warming written for a general audience. Since then he has written many books, he founded 350.org, a grassroots organization dedicated to addressing the climate crisis and he founded Third Act for people over 60 to bring their skills for climate action.
We are lucky to have Bill as a speaker this Wednesday July 22 on behalf of our PSC candidates. Please join a virtual fundraiser from 6-6:45 PM where Bill, Jane Fonda, who followed her late father Ted Turner’s footsteps in environmental activism, plus our consumer PSC candidates, and others will be there. Click image for more information.
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