Amidst a U.S. national crisis in which the highest court in the land is restricting the regulation of carbon emissions at the federal level, the public interest advocacy staff of Georgia’s own regulatory body, The Public Service Commission, has declined Georgia Power’s offer to close two units in Plant Bowen. According to Neil Sardana, Georgia organizer for Sierra Club’s national Beyond Coal campaign, Bowen is the second-largest coal-producing plant in the state.

While Sardana organizes on behalf of the campaign nationally, he coordinates closely with the Sierra Club’s Georgia chapter, which has, along with other clean energy and consumer advocates, been working to “intervene” in the IRP process uring advocates, so-called “interveners,” Georgia Power, and the Public Service Commission each plays a role in determining the sources from which Georgia Power plants will derive their power for the next twenty years.

Despite the two-decade timeline of each IRP, the plan is reviewed and reset every three years, as Sardana explains, through a process resembling a jury trial- in which Georgia Power is akin to the defendant. The Public Service Commission acts as a judge and jury, and “interveners,” or third-party interest groups, individually apply to gain access to Georgia Power’s data and to confront the company about their priorities.

Although other energy-provider networks exist in Georgia- MEAG, a group of cities that oversee their utilities at the municipal level, and Oglethorpe Power Corp., a not-for-profit company made up of electric member cooperatives, or EMCs, answerable to a board- it is only Georgia Power, due to its status as a for-profit monopoly, which is required by law to be regulated by the PSC.

Five elected officials currently comprise the Public Service Commission- whose Chair and Vice Chair, Tricia Pridemore and Tim Echols, the AJC uncovered, coordinated with legislators to influence the redistricting process for political and personal gain. Additionally, future commissioners’ races face a lawsuit brought by Black community leaders, who allege that the at-large method of PSC elections dilutes the Black vote.*

The IRP process includes three hearings before a final judgment by the PSC.

In the first hearing at the end of January, Georgia Power proposes its twenty-year plan. They present their evidence and data, which are then made publicly available. In the same hearing, interveners are allowed to cross-examine Georgia Power.

For the second hearing, interveners provide testimony on Georgia Power’s proposal and are allowed to call their witnesses, who Georgia Power may then cross-examine. 

Before this year’s second hearing, the PSC published a short press release on their website, announcing a town hall they were hosting as an “opportunity for Georgians to address Commissioners or to receive answers to questions about their utility services,” but made no mention of the IRP or IRP process. Curiously the date listed within the text of the announcement is March 3rd. Still, the date of the post itself is listed as the 17th, a discrepancy that could indicate backdating, in which case the public would have had even less notice.

By this time, clean energy advocates had already heard that the PSC would likely disallow public comment during the IRP hearings. When an activist happened upon the press release while scrolling through the PSC website, they galvanized as many interested parties as possible to attend and offer their comment.

Clean energy activists echoed the lament of others during the redistricting hearings, during which town halls were likewise employed by state legislators instead of public comment. In both instances, activists understood the siphoning of public comment into town halls, outside of official hearings, as an effort to dilute it.

During the PSC town hall meeting, which lasted over four hours, with most people speaking for only three minutes, people from all walks of life- a floodplain analyst, a librarian, a physician, and many others- showed up prepared to talk about science, and what it is asking of humanity in this critical moment.

Throughout the town hall, several of the commissioners were at times defensive, confrontational, and wildly partisan.

At one point, Lauren “Bubba” McDonald told Sardana, who commented as a member of the public and not on behalf of his organization, that he had a poster in his office stating that the Green New Deal was going to bankrupt America.

Tricia Pridemore, Chair of the commission, who was also recently elected to a board position with the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, of whom she is expected to become President, told a math teacher expressing her concern over her daughter having to endure heat advisory days, which are expected to rise to 3 months total, “The largest polluters of China and India don’t seem to be listening to the same scientists you are,” a misleading statement, which she followed with, “Considering your fears over your daughter’s future, maybe a little activism in China and India wouldn’t be such a bad idea.”

On June 21st, during the second hearing for this year’s IRP process, in which interveners present their evidence to the commission, Organizing Director of The Georgia Conservation Voters Education Fund, Wan Smith, along with her colleagues, was denied entrance and, citing the exclusion of public comment and the Georgia code which provided for it, engaged in an act of civil disobedience, zip-tying her hands to the front entrance of the ongoing hearing.

During a passionate and extemporaneous monologue, which lasted about twenty minutes, before she was escorted from the building by six police officers, Smith said, “Georgians, every day, have to decide whether or not they will get prescription medication, whether or not they’ll get their groceries, or they’ll keep their lights on, too many people have to pay to contribute to coal ash cleanup, they have to contribute to their demise, while the Public Service Commission decides to stand by Georgia Power, unabashedly, and put profit over people every time, and so not here, not today.

[. . .I collected signatures for months and went into communities- we knocked doors. We are here because the people belong here. We are here because our voices cannot be silenced.

. . .I stand here by people who cannot stand here in a position for themselves today and for no other reason than that.” 

Smith criticized Chairman Pridemore and Vice Chair Echols for meddling in the redistricting process, and specifically Echols for his denigrating comments towards the Black community and abortion rights. 

On July 14th, the third and final IRP hearing will take place. Georgia Power will be able to present its counter-arguments to the interveners, and the Public Service Commission will issue the binding IRP plan on the 21st.

*Update: Since the publication of this article, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Black voters, upholding the original ruling of a Northern Georgia District Judge, who found that at-large elections were diluting the Black vote and thereby violating the Voting Rights Act before a Republican-appointed appellate court attempted to overturn it.