Georgia News & Alert Center
Mobilizing Organic Consumers in Georgia
Please Support Our Georgia Sponsors
Intelligent Nutrients:
The Organic Harmonic Science of Health
and Beauty
Become a State Page Sponsor
Recent Georgia Forum Posts
Georgia News
- 10/03/08 - The Bailout: How the Media Sold Their Souls to Wall Street
- 09/26/08 - Green Party Presidential Candidate Cynthia McKinney: A Real Peoples' Bailout
- 09/18/08 - Hike Inn - To A Green Lodge In Georgia
- 09/12/08 - Drugs Found in More Drinking Water
- 09/12/08 - Two Lawsuits Dropped, Wal-Mart Officially Dead
- 08/27/08 - Monsanto's Roundup & GE Cotton Spawn Pigweed Epidemic in America's Cotton Fields
- 08/26/08 - S.C. Water Fight May Ripple in Georgia
- 08/23/08 - Grist Magazine Interviews Green Party Presidential Candidate Cynthia McKinney
- 08/22/08 - Grassroots Direct Action: San Francisco Voters Nov. 4 Will Tell Their Congress Reps to Defund the War
- 08/21/08 - World Water Crisis Underlies World Food Crisis
- 08/19/08 - Court Rulings Could Settle Water War
- 08/19/08 - Customers Say Company's Vitamins Made them Sick
- 08/16/08 - Georgia Plea for Water Goes to Supreme Court
- 08/13/08 - Farmers Mend Their Watering Ways
- 07/24/08 - Has Your Town Declared Peace Yet?
- 07/19/08 - GOP Cyber-Security Expert Suggests Diebold Tampered With 2002 Election
- 07/09/08 - Scientists Still Baffled at Bee Losses
- 06/30/08 - States Taking Initiative on Environmental & Climate Crisis while Feds Do Little or Nothing
- 06/24/08 - Cindy Sheehan & Cynthia McKinney Link Forces for 2008 Election Campaign
- 06/11/08 - Move Over MoveOn: Grassroots Netroots Alliance (GNA) Launches New Progressive Campaign to 'Press the Politicians'
- 06/11/08 - Southern 'Stroke Belt' Killing Tourists, Too
- 06/06/08 - Drought Turning Futures to Dust
- 05/16/08 - Sprawling Atlanta Seeks New Routes to the Future
- 05/15/08 - Center for American Progress: What Are You Paying for the War?
- 05/08/08 - Wal-Mart Pulls Plug on Ga. 141 Store Plan
- 05/05/08 - Georgia Wetlands Offer Cure for Drought
- 05/05/08 - Date Set for Wal-Mart Related Suit Against Duluth
Submit News Stories
Update on Campaign to Prevent the Building of a New Coal-Fired Plant
On June 30th Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thelma Wyatt Cummings Moore handed down a decision that overturns the administrative court's ruling that would have allowed Dynergy to start construction on a new coal-fire power plant
The ruling is a victory for concerned citizens who have long opposed Dynergy's Longleaf plant, which would have detrimental effects on the environment around in, and on the health of the people living near it. The plant would: produce nine million tons of carbon dioxide pollution each year; emit 4,700 tons of sulfur dioxide annually, emit nitrogen oxide, violate the EPA's standards for safe air, and take more than 20 million gallons per day from the Chattahoochee River.
Judge Moore's decision means that Dynergy must get a permit from the state Environmental Protection Division's (EPD) that takes into account the concerns around pollution (EPD had previously issued Dynergy a permit that ignored environmental concerns).
More Information: Clean Energy for Georgia
Updated on 7/3/08
Georgia's 2008 Legislative Roundup
From Progressive States Network)
Continuing its tradition from last year of inter-party venom and rancor, the Georgia legislature deadlocked on many key issues, even as the House Speaker denounced the Lt. Gov and the Governor dismissed the House Speaker as engaging in "tirades." Most major issues were left unaddressed, although corporate interests managed to do quite well for themselves in the session.
On one hand, the broad deadlock saved state residents from House Speaker Richardson's stated goal to eliminate all property taxes, which would have plunged local government into crisis, and the legislature rejected a proposal for private school vouchers.
Instead, the legislature enacted a few modest achievements:
-
Approved a $21 billion state budget, with a 2.5% pay raise for teachers and state employees
-
Created a new state agency dedicated to building and expanding reservoirs to help Georgia through future droughts.
-
Approved SB 169, which authorizes the Georgia Student Finance Authority to provide direct loans to students at an annual interest rate of 1%.
-
Enacted a bill to freeze three major credit vendors to protect against identity theft.
On the other hand, the legislature largely failed to deal with two looming crises, the deteriorating trauma care across the state and traffic gridlock paralyzing commutes.
-
The legislature failed to pass HB 1158, which would have created a 15-hospital trauma care network funded by a $10 vehicle registration tax to help fund the hospitals. Sen. David Adelman (D-Decatur) said, "It was a victim of petty politics," although a one-time $58 million appropriation will defray some trauma care expenses.
-
The legislature also failed to pass SR 845, which would have allowed counties to join together and implement a 1-cent transportation sales tax.
Even as legislators gridlocked on these key issues, they did make time to pass a slew of corporate tax giveaways, so many in fact that the Chamber of Commerce declared the session "our most successful and productive, far exceeding our hopes and expectations."
The Georgia Budget Policy Institute identified over $200 million in special interest tax breaks rammed through the legislature, from exemptions of machinery from sales tax to cuts in energy taxes by business to timber industry tax breaks to film industry credits.
The worst industry giveaways of the session were in the area of health care.
-
First, HB 977 will give $146 million to insurance companies over the next 5 years by subsidizing high-deductible "Health Savings Accounts," squandering money that analysts estimate could have added an additional 31,000 low-wage workers and about 100,000 more children, to state Medicaid and PeachCare insurance by 2013.
-
The state also will now allow surgeons to siphon off high-income patients to specialty surgery centers, even as they will be able to reject the uninsured, Medicaid patients and others in need of care, who will continue to burden underfunded state hospitals.
The legislature also weakened the independence of the statewide public defender system through HB 1245, by making its director a political appointee of the Governor.
Finally, in a nasty attack on undocumented immigrants, the legislature approved SB 350 and HB 978, which would jail and impound the vehicles of anyone caught driving without a valid license.
Take Action. Support Green Jobs!

The Green Jobs Act of 2007 authorized $125 million per year to create an Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Worker Training Program as an amendment to the Workforce Investment Act (WIA). The Green Jobs Act (GJA) is an initial pilot program to identify needed skills, develop training programs, and train workers for jobs in a range of industries - including energy efficient building, construction and retrofits, renewable electric power, energy efficient vehicles, biofuels, and manufacturing that produces sustainable products and uses sustainable processes and materials. It targets a broad range of populations for eligibility, but has a special focus on creating "green pathways out of poverty."
Congress has not yet appropriated money for the Green Jobs Act. Please contact your Senator today and urge them to fund the Green Jobs Act of 2007!
Read more at Green for All's web site.
More Activities
- Click here to print this page
(and distribute it to co-ops) - Get involved with the OCA
- Donate
- Sign up for OCA's bi-weekly email update

Meet other OCA members and discuss local issues in the OCA Georgia Forum