So I guess the message from Senate Republicans here on Groundhog Day is we are going to live the 2020 election day in and day out, over and over and over again until we finally learn the lesson that if we really want to represent our constituents as well as they deserve, if we really want to be the people we look in the mirror and tell ourselves we are that we have to cut this B.S.

Out.

Strong words over legislation to turn over Georgia's voter registration list to the Trump administration.

Good evening, and welcome to Lawmakers on Georgia Legislative Day ten.

I'm Donna Lowery in Atlanta.

Across the state, Georgians are voicing their opinions on what it would mean to have data centers in their communities.

The objections to them is something Republicans and Democrats seem to agree on.

Also, when you're creating your budget, do you approach it so that everything adds up to zero?

Should legislators do that with the state dollars?

It's what one lawmaker refers to as a kitchen table approach to the state budget.

And tonight, we will also talk about defects, foster care contracts, crisis beds and a civil rights settlement for mental health cases.

But let's now turn to our Capitol correspondent, Sarah Kallis, for the day's news.

Hi, Donna.

Today at the Capitol, we heard more debate over federal access to Georgia voter rolls as bills began to pass in both chambers in the Senate, a controversial resolution made its way to the floor.

SR 563 urged the Republican Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, to turn over the state's voter rolls to the U.S.

Department of Justice.

Debate over the resolution was contentious, as expected, even though the resolution's author says that all of the information requested was already out there and easily accessible.

I've heard several people talking about how their information is private.

If you have a Social Security number that was not given to you by the federal government, you've got some bad news for you.

You don't have a legitimate Social Security number.

You can't buy them.

You get them through a process.

Usually that process is birth.

Here in this country.

If you think your driver's license information is not out in the real world.

Then I've got some.

Got some cold news for you.

It's out there and I can tell you it's inside of state computers, inside of GCSE.

It's inside of federal computers.

It's out of NCIC.

Your driver's license information is out there.

Other Republicans said that the request would help with transparency about the accuracy of the state's voter lists.

This is an issue of integrity of voter data, list maintenance is in question, and I think Georgia has nothing to hide.

But the minority leader, Senator Harold Jones the second, said that while it sounds like a reasonable request in the context of recent events, the request has an agenda attached.

So now we're about to pass something which basically based on a lie, because we know that it's based on a lie, because they're going to hand this information over by their own testimony over to other organizations, other agencies.

It's not about voter maintenance.

We already know that's true.

Now, based on what just happened in Fulton County, this resolution takes even greater context because now it is the context of actually trying to shield what really is the true goal of this administration, which we understand is to undercut the 26 midterms and potentially even once again, try to take those.

Senator Josh McLaurin, who presented the minority report, said it was even simpler than that.

Let's start with the truth.

And let me be very blunt and blunt in a way that I don't think any speaker heretofore has been.

The reason that Senate Resolution 563 is on the floor is because the president of this chamber, who is standing about six feet behind me, is running in a primary against Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, to be held on May 19 to determine the Republican nominee for governor of the state of Georgia.

And that's the only reason that this Senate resolution is on the floor.

A federal court in Macon struck down a DOJ lawsuit seeking the information this month because it was not filed in the proper venue.

The federal government has since filed the lawsuit in the Atlanta court.

The resolution was passed 31-22 along party lines.

The Senate also passed House Bill 117 43-8 which would require seafood vendors and restaurants to post where the shrimp they are selling came from.

I will tell you that our industry in the state of Georgia on the coast is better this year and last year than it was the year before.

Do you think it has anything to do with the truth in advertising that is coming out about the shrimp in the state of Georgia?

I think it does.

Meanwhile, the House took up a bill that would allow optometrists to apply to student loan forgiveness programs if they practice in underserved areas.

The program is already available to physicians, dentists and physician's assistants.

House Bill 659 addresses critical workforce and access and access to care needs related to optometry in our state.

The bill expands eligibility for loan repayment and financial assistance programs to include optometrists, placing them alongside other health care professionals.

House Bill 659 passed 160 8-2.

Members also gave approval to HB 960, which adds a judge to the Gwinnett County Superior Court Circuit and HB 557, which adds a judge to the Northeastern Judicial Circuit.

Lawmakers also gave a shout out to the team behind an often thankless but essential job at the Capitol.

People do make the paper and machines make the paper, and engineers create those machines that make that paper that goes on our desk.

And today is the second day of Black History Month.

Today, my moment in black history.

I rise to honor Lucy Craft.

Laney, one of Georgia's most influential, influential educators and a true architect of opportunity.

Born in Macon in 18 50, for nearly a decade before the end of slavery, Lucy Craft Laney learned to read at a time when educating black children was illegal.

Her parents understood that education was the pathway to freedom, and Lucy carried that belief for the rest of her life.

Tomorrow, lawmakers will be back at the Capitol for day 11, and we can expect discussion in the Senate about property taxes.

That's my Capitol report, Donna.

Thank you.

Sarah.

Some Republican lawmakers are weighing a different approach to how the state spends taxpayer dollars.

The proposal would require state agencies to justify every dollar they spend in every budget cycle.

We're going to discuss the pros and cons with our guests.

Republican Senator John Albers of Roswell.

He is chairman of the Senate Public Safety Committee and vice chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.

Also here is Democratic Representative Mary Margaret Oliver of Decatur.

Her House committees include appropriations, Governmental Affairs, judiciary and judiciary.

Juvenile.

Welcome to Lawmakers.

This session.

We love having you on all the time.

Thank you.

So we're going to start with this zero based budgeting.

For viewers who are hearing this for the first time, what does zero based budgeting mean and what does it mean just in practice too?

Certainly.

Well, zero based budgeting is what we all do at home each year.

You know, we sit around that kitchen table as typically as a family and you budget.

You don't just take what it had last year and add a little bit or subtract a little, depending on what's happening in the world.

You look at what your priorities are and you make sure you're building them accordingly.

And things change in our lives, just like they do in our businesses.

Businesses have been doing this for a very long time, and it makes sure that we're doing a very proactive approach of doing the right thing with taxpayer dollars, because here in Georgia, we don't have any money.

We have the money from our taxpayers, and we want to be really good financial stewards of those dollars.

And you said Georgia used to do this.

We did.

We had a bill that expired.

It was a run for ten years, and it ended just a few years ago.

It worked well, and we want to make sure we put that same examination back on those dollars.

And working as one of the most fiscally responsible states, we want to make sure we stay there.

Okay.

Representative Mary Margaret Oliver, you you were here through that before and after.

Okay.

Why do we need zero based budgeting?

We did have it.

Most states do have it in one form or another.

As a pragmatic matter, I think we do look at the budget from the get go.

Every year I've been on the Appropriations Committee for a long time.

I went and looked at Opb's website as to how they were reporting on their zero based budgeting when the bill was in effect for its ten years.

There were 100 page reports after 100 page reports.

Did anybody ever read those reports?

And can you prove to me that that mechanism was effective?

Has it really changed much in other states?

Would it change much here?

I'm pretty sure I would have voted for it at the time, but let's look at this.

This bill that has a good label to it.

But I just don't know if it's changed that much.

If I were in charge of changing the budget process, I would approach things differently.

Okay.

Chairman Albers, you say this approach cuts waste.

Can you give us a concrete example of how that happens?

Absolutely.

It's not really just about a report.

It's about as we build the budgets every year as we work together, you don't want to just take what we did last year and say, hey, the budget's up a few percent or down a few percent because things are changing.

So we want to look at that as a staffing ratio, right.

As an example, for an area where serving constituents are we implementing tools like artificial intelligence or other technology?

Are we doing things smarter and better to make sure we're utilizing those dollars?

Right.

And contracts change and times change, and we always want to make sure we're laser focused on that.

We have a great state.

Fiscal responsibility has always been our mantra, and that's why we have a balanced budget every year.

We do so well, but we need to continue to focus on it.

And that's our job as legislators.

Okay, Representative Oliver, I know you want to talk about some other things, so I want to get those in.

You want to talk about the crisis with DFCs, foster care contracts.

There's a shortfall there, too.

There's an $86 million deficit in defense spending for abused and traumatized children who've been taken away from their families, which is a big deal when the state of Georgia takes a child away from a family.

The law that's constitutional right there, accepting from the family and the law, says you have to provide services to that family to reunite the family, treat the family, or find a permanent placement.

Canceling contracts that provide over 28,000 services for these 10,000 children, most of which are court ordered, is a real problem.

I think it's a crisis, and the nonprofit community that has provided most of these placements and services can't afford to have their budgets slashed without or with ten days notice.

And stay in business.

I think it's an emergency that I've asked the governor to use emergency funds to restore the contracts.

What are you what are you hearing?

Not hearing much.

I know the state's going to do something.

I know we're going to do something.

But these contracts are my top priority.

We also need an audit.

If we've been through, this will be the fourth or supplemental budget.

And our fiscal year 27 budget.

This will be the four budget cycles where we've run multi-million dollar, now $86 million deficits in defense spending.

That's not right.

We've got to fix this problem and serve these children as the law requires us to.

Okay.

We're going to keep up with that.

I want to get back to your zero based budgeting.

You say that it will lead to smarter government, not just smarter, smaller government.

Explain that a little bit.

Absolutely.

We've got a growing population in Georgia, which is wonderful.

People have moved here from all over the country.

Although I always remind them, don't vote in the problems you just escaped from, but why they're here.

What we want to do is make sure that as we need more services, we need roads.

We need bridges, we need things like prisons, and we need public safety.

And we need all these other things that we're doing it right, because it's not just throwing a body or $1 at it.

It's doing things smart and better than we did in the past.

Think about 20, 30 years ago, how we used to work versus the way we do work now.

And technology is evolving so fast that we want to harness all those things and make sure we're building our budgets, just like Representative Oliver just said.

That's a great place to start with zero based budgeting.

If something continually is having a budget deficit, that means we're not doing a really good job to planning to begin with.

So you can see it from that point of view.

I can see it from that point of view.

I would approach the deficit at defects differently than zero based budgeting.

But I do think we have cut the numbers of state employees.

For instance, in DOT by 100%.

It used to be 8,000 employees.

Now there are 4,000.

That's a rough numbers.

We have cut employees.

We've eliminated our private telephone system in the state that saved 1,100 employees.

The point I'm making is that we have been trying, as a fiscally conservative state, we have been trying to update our technologies.

We're struggling in the way that every business does.

I certainly struggle with technology in my small business and every state does.

It's not a panacea.

Zero based budget.

There are other things I do first.

For instance, we're a fiscally conservative state, but does that mean we should be 50th in arts funding?

The arts are a bigger industry in Georgia than peanuts.

It's a bigger industry than many, many other things that we fund elaborately.

Why is Georgia 50th?

That's not being fiscally conservative.

That's 50th in arts funding.

That's not fiscally conservative.

And that's the kind of issue I want to talk about, okay?

I want to get to something else.

You want to discuss before we run out of time.

Crisis beds.

You we're we don't have enough of them in the state.

We don't.

Georgia has been part of a mental health reform that is recognized in the nation as something of a very positive step forward.

We struggle with how we deal with people in psychiatric crisis modes.

That's when they can be violent, when they can be violent to themselves.

And enough crisis beds we project are a great number more than what we have now.

We don't have permanent placements in psychiatric hospitals.

We have crisis beds that will serve people for 3-10 days, perhaps to become stabilized.

And we are funding those more.

But we have and we have come out from under a federal Justice Department civil rights settlement, which is a huge accomplishment.

But many of our communities Cairo, Georgia or or Decatur, Georgia or Atlanta are dealing with a homeless, mentally ill population.

It's visible.

It is concerning to all our cities and counties and many of those individuals come in and out of crisis, mental issues.

They come in and out of jails.

And we are not managing that issue of crisis psychiatric care in an efficient way.

In a fiscally conservative way.

We need to serve those people in a way that we prevent crisis when we can, and prevent the kind of treatment that they deserve.

And that is something on appropriations.

You will be discussing.

I would imagine.

Yes, ma'am.

All right.

And before we let you go on this, is there a risk that essential programs, especially in areas like education, public safety, could be affected by chopping the on the chopping block?

If we go to this zero based budgeting.

Not at all.

In fact, we did it for ten years very successfully.

And if you look at where we are in Georgia right now of having record surpluses, great fiscal conservatism and got us to where we are, we want to continue down that path, because if it ain't broke.

We shouldn't fix it.

In this case, we're going to do it right.

So you're talking about that in appropriations on your end and you're talking about your d.b.h.

Issues on your end.

So we thank you so much for what you both do.

Thanks for coming on the show to talk about it.

Thank you.

Well, coming up, data centers, they involve big buildings, big demands on power.

They're also getting big pushback from Georgians across the state.

Two lawmakers are here to give us their take on how their communities are reacting to what it takes to power the technology we use.

Stay with us.

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It's not a mountains thing or a coastal thing.

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Morning edition on Georgia Public Broadcasting.

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It's a Georgia thing.

Welcome back to Lawmakers.

I'm Donna Lowry.

For some, there's a love hate relationship when it comes to technology.

There's love for what it provides.

With everything at our fingertips on a keyboard.

But with the growth of A.I., there's a backlash in communities when it comes to having data centers.

The size of football fields or bigger in their backyards.

Georgia's one of the top data center markets in the nation.

And joining me are two lawmakers looking to regulate data centers in Georgia.

Republican Senator Chuck Hufstetler of Rome is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.

He's also an ex officio member of appropriations.

Among his other committees.

And also with us is Democratic Representative Debbie Buckner of Junction City.

She's on House appropriations, and she's secretary of the House Rural Development Committee.

Among all of her committees, too.

Welcome to Lawmakers again.

This session.

Great to be.

Here again, Donna.

Love to have you here.

So you both have bills on data centers, and they're both bipartisan.

Your bills, they're a little different.

Different.

Before we get into the bills, I'd like to know what led you to even take on this topic.

And, you know, I'll start with you, Representative Buckner.

Well, last session, there were about four proposals.

And one of my counties.

And it's a rural county, and there were a lot of questions.

How much water will they use?

How much electricity will they use?

Where will that come from?

Who's going to be responsible for making sure that all the things that this data center needs can be provided and not hurt the existing customers, the people that live in the county now.

So there were going to be four in just your county.

There were four different entities looking at spots in one county.

Wow.

What led you to get into this?

Well, I went back in 2017 and saw a data center in Nevada, and my bill was actually last year.

It's a continuation of last year's Senate Bill 34 that said, we want them to simply pay all their power costs, their electricity costs.

We've had six rate increases in a couple of years, and I gave it to the PSC, and they then came up with a rule that said, we're going to make them pay all their costs.

And Georgia Power agreed to it.

And I said, well, then y'all like my bill.

It says exactly that.

And they said, well, no, we don't like your bill.

So it makes me wonder too often those things are hidden behind trade secrets so that you don't really know who's paying for them.

But it's it's important that we codify into law that they pay all their costs.

Our consumers have had way too many rate increases.

I think we saw from the PSC elections in November, the consumers around the country were very unhappy.

Republicans and Democrats both.

And so we need to get protection for the consumers.

We've we've got 60 year costs still, for instance, on plant Vogel, the gas turbines are wanting to build for the data centers or they're going to bill us for over 45 years.

Who pays for that?

If they're gone in a few years?

Even the PSC staff said, yeah, the protection looks like it's there for a few years, but we don't know after that.

So we need to protect our consumers.

Our rates are in the top, either fifth or highest rates in the country, according to two different studies.

We shouldn't be that way.

The consumer shouldn't be getting all the cost.

Yeah.

So your bill, it would do.

Exactly.

Do what.

It would say that all the cost transmission, distribution, substation, any cost for the data centers could not be put on the consumer's bills.

They have to pay all that cost as it is right now, too many of them only pay the operating cost.

And all the construction, like Vogel, cost a 25% increase on residential bills because they've got all the construction costs to pay for that for the next 60 years.

Let the companies that are needing this additional electricity pay for it.

And to that point in 2023, residential customers in Georgia bought less electricity from Georgia Power than they did in 2011.

The demand is not coming from the residential customers.

Why are they paying all the cost?

Wow, that's that's interesting.

We're going to get back to your bill a little bit more.

Representative Buckner, your bill.

HB 528 deals with more transparency when it comes to data centers.

Tell us about it.

Well, we were really concerned in my part of the state about telling us upfront what you're going to need if you're going to come be a neighbor of ours.

We want to be a good neighbor of yours, and we want to know how many, how many gallons of water a day, how many megawatts.

We wanted to know that upfront.

And and we kind of made it be a carrot or a stick kind of situation where you tell us that before you start applying for your permits and, and moving forward with your project, and then that will mean that you will be eligible for whatever tax incentives there might be if you don't tell us that upfront, then you're not eligible for those incentives.

So it gave some leverage to the local counties.

We just felt like that was fair.

It was fair to for them to provide the information.

If I invited you to dinner at my house, I'd want to know how many people were coming.

I'd want to know if you had any allergies so I wouldn't cook the wrong thing.

Well, that's the same kind of situation here for our counties.

They need to know that they've got enough water to take care of the families that are counting on it right now.

Plus the data center, if it's coming, they need to know about the power as well.

Yeah, let's let's talk about that water for a second.

Some people don't understand why they need so much.

It's a cooling.

Right, right.

They use millions of gallons of water.

And in the beginning, when I first learned about data centers, the data centers were very consumptive.

They used it and let it go, used it and let it go.

So it was consuming the water.

Now, since we've been putting in all these bills, we have more people saying, well, we can do a closed loop system where we're recycling that water and the water is used to cool down all of the equipment that's inside.

It gets very hot.

And of course, in the summer really hot.

So they have to make sure that they keep it cool.

So do we have any guarantees that will happen at this point?

We could we could very easily say that they're all required to have a closed loop system that they're required to use gray water.

We could say that they were required to to do all kinds of things, but we have not been doing that.

And that's what's been a little bit concerning for local governing authorities.

A lot of legislators, because we've got about eight bills now, I think, on different things to do with data centers.

So people are beginning to say, you know, maybe we need to slow down a minute and look at this and see what we need to do.

Yeah, I think the interesting thing, when they were first coming in, people would just see these huge spaces, the buildings, they didn't really know what they were.

They looked like warehouses.

So there's that part of.

It.

And I need to add, I'm not opposed to data centers.

They need to be built.

We simply want them to pay their taxes, pay their electricity costs.

The closed loop system.

I've got a county in my district that's already requiring those.

I would liken it to say, your car radiator.

Use the same water over and over again.

So they they pay a tremendous amount of property taxes.

They don't bring much revenue to the state.

But we've also got an exemption that the Finance Committee has looked at today.

One of them, a bill by Democrat won by Republican, eliminate those that sales tax exemption they get is between the state and local.

Money is about $3 billion a year.

You know, we collect 15 billion in state income taxes.

3 billion is a lot of money.

And one of the things says, if you and I go to Walmart and buy a laptop, we pay sales tax.

But if you buy 15 million worth, you don't pay sales tax.

We need to level the playing field for everybody.

And they were given those tax breaks because it was looked at as an economic development arm, something to bring people in.

You don't think they need that anymore?

No.

In a University of Georgia study that I had done, I'd ordered it last April, came out and said at least 70% of them would come without any of that $3 billion given to them, that it's totally unnecessary.

We're throwing our money away, right?

Well, how do you feel?

Well, I read that same study, and thank you for ordering it because it was very enlightening.

We've given away probably over close to $500 million in tax credits.

It's it's the way we've always been used to doing business.

You feel like you have to give something to a company to come to the community, to provide jobs.

And it provides some construction jobs.

There's a lot of controversy about how many jobs are there after the construction is complete.

But there is a lot of unknown about what do we really need to do?

We really need to offer any kind of tax incentives.

They are getting a lot of things here in Georgia because we have abundant water.

We have a good network of of power generation, and we have workers that can work.

So all of those things make us a good place to come without us having to give all these tax credits.

And they're just taking advantage of them because they're there.

Now, Senator Chuck Hufstetler said he he isn't against them.

What about you?

Are you not against him?

Oh, no.

They're necessary.

We're going to have to have them.

If you anything we do that with a cell phone or a computer or whatever.

We're going to have to have data centers.

But we need to be sure that they are in the right location where the resources that the data center needs can be provided without a hardship to the community.

I know we're hearing so many bills, a few of them are likely to pass.

Right.

You're feeling good about it this year.

I think there's going to be some bills that do pass out.

I hope they pass out of both the House and the Senate.

Yeah, but.

That's the key.

They may get the crossover day, but they may not go any further.

Yeah, yeah.

You feel good about yours too?

Well, we're hoping that something will move over in the house.

There are a lot of bills over there that are just sitting around waiting, I think, to see either what the Senate's going to do or how they might be able to combine them.

I think you may see some bills combined.

There may be one that looks at the tax credits, that puts transparency on there, which I fully agree with that.

So we'll see.

We'll see.

We'll keep up with it.

Thank you both for coming on the show.

That does it for Lawmakers today, tomorrow on day 11 we'll talk about election issues, including the FBI raid on Fulton County's warehouse.

And there's so much going on with the gold market.

We're talking about new legislation surrounding that.

Have a good evening.