Latest news with #SB34
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Wildfire preparation bill wins preliminary approval in Texas House
AUSTIN (Nexstar) – The Texas House gave preliminary approval to legislation that aims to better prepare the state for wildfires. The bill is one of several measures filed after the 2024 Panhandle wildfires, which burned more than one million acres. Senate Bill 34 would create a database of firefighting equipment that is available for use in responding to wildfires. The goal is to have a better idea of what resources are available during emergencies. The Texas A&M Forest Service would create and maintain the database. The legislation also calls for appointing an Interoperability Council to develop a strategic plan to improve 'emergency communication equipment interoperability betwen local, state, and federal agencies.' The proposal comes after a Texas House of Representatives report on the handling of the 2024 Panhandle wildfires. The report said 'although volunteer firefighters fought valiantly to contain the wildfires, response efforts were inhibited by a lack of properly positioned, readily available, and timely dispatched air support on top of ineffective communication and coordination among agencies, local governments, and responders due in part communications equipment that lacked interoperability.' The fiscal note for SB 34 does not include funding for equipment. But at a hearing in March, State Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, noted that the Senate Finance Committee dedicated $192 million to bolster the state's firefighting equipment. The bill passed on second reading Tuesday afternoon. House lawmakers will likely schedule a third reading vote for Wednesday. If approved, SB 34 would then head to the governor for consideration. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
House committee approves conflict resolution program for middle schools
Sen. Rodger Smitherman, D-Birmingham, laughing in a House Education Policy Committee meeting on April 30, 2025, in the Alabama State House in Montgomery, Alabama. The committee unanimously approved Smitherman's bill that requires students to take a conflict resolution course in middle school. (Anna Barrett/Alabama Reflector) An Alabama House committee Wednesday unanimously approved legislation that would require students to take a conflict resolution course in middle school. SB 34, sponsored by Sen. Rodger Smitherman, D-Birmingham, requires the State Department of Education to develop the program. 'We're trying to get these kids to where they understand how you deal with conflicts and situations and not resort to … fighting, knives, guns, et cetera,' Smitherman said. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX The House Education Policy Committee adopted an amendment that would require the program to be taught in middle school, instead of high school. Smitherman said the State Superintendent Eric Mackey suggested the change. 'Dr. Mackey came over and talked to me. He said we need to start this in middle school,' Smitherman said. A message seeking comment from Mackey was sent Wednesday afternoon. Rep. Terri Collins, R-Decatur, supported the legislation and highlighted the importance of conflict resolution. 'I think problem solving is important, and I agree with Dr. Mackey on the timing in middle school,' she said. The course must include lessons on: 'responsible decision-making; the causes and effects of school violence and harassment, cultural diversity, and nonviolent methods for resolving conflict, including peer mediation; the consequences of violent behavior; the causes of violent reactions to conflict; nonviolent conflict resolution techniques; the relationship between drugs, alcohol, and violence; the implementation of voluntary peer mediation programs and the integration of conflict resolution models in classrooms.' Rep. Alan Baker, R-Brewton, also supported the legislation but was worried about the additional stress a new class would put on teachers. 'We do pile too much on the teachers, continuing things that we try to do in the total development of the child, not just academics,' Baker said. Smitherman said it is up to the state Board of Education to decide how often, when and how the course will be taught. The bill moves to the full House for consideration. There are four days left in the 2025 legislative session. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
19-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Alabama Senate committee approves conflict resolution course for middle schoolers
Sen. Rodger Smitherman, D-Birmingham, hold a sheaf of papers while speaking in the Alabama Senate on Feb. 13, 2025 at the Alabama Statehouse in Montgomery, Alabama. Smitherman sponsors SB 34 that would create a conflict resolution course for middle schoolers. (Brian Lyman/Alabama Reflector) An Alabama Senate committee Wednesday approved a bill creating a conflict resolution course for middle schoolers. SB 34, sponsored by Sen. Rodger Smitherman, D-Birmingham, originally applied to high school students, but an amendment requested by the State Department of Education moved the course to middle school. The department would create and administer the course, according to the bill. A request for comment was sent to the department Wednesday morning. 'They don't have any kind of way understanding how to deal with conflicts and resolution, but the end result is you have a gun to do something,' Smitherman told the Senate Education Policy committee. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Sen. Kirk Hatcher, D-Montgomery, said he is supportive of the move to middle school. 'What we have found statistically in middle school is where we're having the majority of the problems emerging, particularly around seventh grade,' Hatcher said. Smitherman said that students will react to a comment on social media with violence. Hatcher said he sees the bill as a proactive measure. 'The conflict resolution piece is, in my view, proactive,' Hatcher said. 'Because what it means is that if you have this happening in middle school, there's less of a chance for us to have these kinds of serious impacts that can happen when our babies get to high school.' Committee Chair Donnie Chesteen, R-Geneva, said his bill banning cell phones in school and creating a social media safety course would be in committee next week, accompanied by cell phone and social media experts. 'With what our students are exposed to in our schools today, next week, in this committee, we're going to have a couple of experts on social media and cell phones come in and speak to our committee about some policies that other states have adopted,' Chesteen said. 'We plan on adopting that in this state.' The bill goes to the full Senate. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
10-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
State senator pushes bill to protect Georgia Power customers from rate hikes fueled by data centers
The QTS data center complex is under development in Fayetteville. QTS, the data-center developer that Blackstone bankrolls, complex is expected to consume as much electricity as about a million US households leaving utility Georgia Power rushing to build the infrastructure to meet demand. Elijah Nouvelage/Bloomberg via Getty Images Georgia Power, a national data center association, and clean energy groups are divided over the need for legislation that would prevent state-regulated utilities from raising electricity rates to cover the costs of energy-guzzling data centers. Sen. Chuck Hufstetler, a Rome Republican, said he filed Senate Bill 34 in order to protect residential and commercial ratepayers from getting hit with higher utility bills because of large-scale utility company investments to meet the energy demands of artificial intelligence. The Senate Committee on Regulated Industries and Utilities held a hearing last week on a measure that prohibits the Georgia Public Service Commission from changing any utility rates because of costs incurred providing electric services to commercial data centers. Georgia Power executives have said that 80% of its projected increased energy demands over the next decade is tied to prospective data centers opening 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. Representatives with Georgia Power and the Data Center Coalition said they oppose the way SB 34 gives the state Legislature control over a ratemaking process that is typically handled by the five-member PSC. Supporters of the measure give credit to the PSC for passing a new rule in January creating new protections for Georgia Power ratepayers against the influx of energy-hungry data centers, but push for more safeguards from the state. Hufstetler said his bill provides more ironclad protections than the PSC rule. 'The two things I hear most from everybody right now are property taxes and electricity bills,' he said. 'I know the PSC would like to keep the Legislature out of this, but I think this is just too huge of an issue for us not to make sure we're taking care of the citizens.' Following Thursday's 90-minute Senate hearing, Sen. Bill Cowsert, an Athens Republican who chairs the committee, said further debate about about the proposal is needed before a decision is made on if it will advance in the Legislature. 'We're really going into a new frontier,' he said. 'You've had two mega data centers so far, you've got 10 more already on the books and it's the wild, wild west going on as they're exploding in growth.' The new data center rule authorizes Georgia Power to enact contractual agreements with companies that will use 100 megawatts of power. It allows the utility company to 'appropriately assign' to data centers the costs of providing them electric service. The rule also gives Georgia Power the ability 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. The PSC is also requiring that it reviews new agreements with large load customers within 30 days of being signed. The commission is set to vote in July on the investor-owned utility's 2025 long-term roadmap of providing a mix of energy and infrastructure to serve 2.7 million customers and Georgia's growing industrial base. Georgia Power is expected to file a new rate case with the PSC in 2025 asking to recover costs to serve its customers over the next three years. Environmental and consumer advocacy groups have raised alarms about Georgia Power's long-term plan that would significantly expand its reliance on fossil fuels like coal, gas, and oil. They also express concerns about how potentially higher fuel costs and other expenses will further burden the typical Georgia Power household and small business owner. Since 2023, the average Georgia Power residential customers is paying $43 more per month following a series of increase to base electric rates, to recover excess fuel expenses, and complete two of the newest nuclear power generators at Plant Vogtle. Bob Sherrier, staff attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center, said Thursday one large data center can consume over 1,000 megawatts and the potential demand from the industry could potentially double the state's current energy demand. He said the new PSC rule gives regulators more control over how Georgia Power recoups money spent on data centers. However, questions remain if it does enough to protect other customers. Sherrier said it's going to be extremely expensive to bring the large data centers onto the power grid, with major investments in transmission and distribution lines and power plants, as well as increased energy fuel expenses. 'Did residents cause Georgia Power to file an emergency IRP a year ago that asked to add spend billions of dollars to build new power plants?' Sherrier said. 'They didn't. Is it because of small businesses that they require miles and miles of new, expensive transmission lines? No, I think that this bill sets an appropriate standard for making sure that they don't have to pay for those costs.' Aaron Mitchell, vice president of pricing and planning for Georgia Power, said that the proposal is unnecessary since the PSC rule requires data centers to bear the full cost of their energy consumption. Several dozen companies have expressed interest in building data centers inside the Peach State. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, data centers consume 10 to 50 times as much electricity as the average commercial building. A forthcoming report commissioned by the Data Center Coalition, a national membership association for industry, found that direct employment in the data center industry increased 7% from 2022-2023, going from 28,120 jobs to in 2022 to to 30,070 the following year, according to Khara Boender, senior manager of state policy for the coalition. 'We would like to stress that the data center industry is committed to paying for its full cost of service for electricity,' Boender said. 'We do not want residential ratepayers subsidizing data center energy use.' Boender said the Data Center Coalition opposes the bill. 'Since the PSC has taken action to ensure large load customers bear the cost of their energy use, we encourage the committee to resist advancing legislation that would duplicate those efforts being addressed in the regulatory environment where the rate setting has traditionally taken place,' she said. A report in December from real-estate firm CBRE found that Atlanta is among the fastest growing metropolitan areas in the nation for the construction of data centers. The amount of data center power capacity jumped by 74% during the first half of 2024 compared to the first half of 2023. Major companies like Meta, Microsoft, Google and X have either opened data centers or announced plans to open facilities in Atlanta. The state is attracting interest from tech companies with its state tax breaks, with companies primarily building in regions with high-speed fiber optic cable infrastructure that is able to transfer large volumes of data. Georgia Power says data center growth will cause electricity demands to triple in next decade Sen. Greg Dolezal, a Cumming Republican, asked Mitchell why the utility company's growth projections from a couple of years ago were significantly lower than its current forecast. Dolezal also asked if there was any truth to a rumor the PSC is merely rubber stamping requests from Georgia Power that have led to rising bills for its customers. 'The thing that stands out to me is looking 10 years out, your estimate three years ago for 2035 will be is now 55% higher. That's a massive change for three years. Help me understand what's driving that change.' Mitchell cited the state's economic development boom that has attracted several auto manufacturing companies and auto suppliers to open new industrial sites and the surging artificial intelligence industry supported by data centers. Mitchell said that the PSC has consistently reduced the company's initial requests in rates cases and resource planning. Sen. Frank Ginn, Danielsville Republican, said his biggest concern about rapidly building up infrastructure for data centers is the potential downfall should the demand be replaced by new AI technology that consumes drastically less energy. Georgia Power also has the ability to adjust its plans for building out its electric system should the market dynamics shift in a different direction, Mitchell said. Mitchell said the new PSC rule locking in larger industrial customers into minimum 15-year contracts means that companies that fail to stay in operation for the entire length of a contract will 'owe the remainder of the term of costs for that contract, so that other customers are not stuck with or have to bear the brunt of those costs.' 'We'll be establishing minimum bills while electricity usage may fluctuate,' Mitchell said. 'We wanted to ensure that the revenue coming in from these large customers was sufficient to cover our cost' Mitchell said Georgia Power would be in a unique position as a utility company if it needed to get approval from the General Assembly to adjust its rates based on large data centers usage. 'We believe that the tools provided by the laws you've already enacted, and under the rules of the Public Service Commission, provide us all tools necessary to ensure that we can continue to keep Georgia growing but protect all customers at the same time,' he said. Several members of the Senate committee, including Republican Senate Majority Leader Steve Gooch, expressed their support of new data centers opening in Georgia since they can add a substantial infusion of dollars to the local property tax digest. Hufstetler said he's in favor of the economic development benefits that come from new data centers. His district is home to a Switch data Center in Cartersville and in Rome, Microsoft has agreed to upfront 100% of their property taxes for a new data center. 'I think we're all – Georgia Power, the Public Service Commission, the data centers, myself – I think we all are kind of looking at the same goals,' Hufstetler said. 'It's just making sure that we've got everything tightened up to where we do protect the consumers of Georgia.' Environment Georgia state director Jennette Gayer raised concerns about the environmental impact of new power plants and transmission lines required to support data centers rather than Georgia Power relying more on building up renewable energy sources like solar power. Gayer, a senior advisor for consumer watchdog Georgia Public Interest Research Group, said that the bill better ensures that data centers companies pay their fair share of energy costs. 'We absolutely do not think that the cost of supplying energy to data centers should be imposed on the environment or on consumers,' she said. Julian Bene, a former board member of Atlanta's economic development agency Invest Atlanta, said the rapidly changing AI landscape includes a Chinese entrepreneurial group that developed a substitute for the technology proliferating across the U.S. It can operate at a fraction of the power that's in use widespread domestically, he said. Bene said that if Georgia Power has an actual 'take or pay' agreement then it'll allow the company to recoup their investment without coming at the expense of residential and small business customers. 'If you're saying it's all fixed, what's your objection to Sen. Hufstetler's bill?' Bene said. 'Let's do belt and braces and have both. You're saying it's all fixed, what's your objection?' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
