Need Your Help TODAY To Defeat Bad GA Bills
Tom B.
General Assembly TOMORROW, Wednesday, March 17. Greenlaw chief
Justine Thompson is asking for as many of us as possible to call as
many of the committee members as possible to explain why these are bad
bills and urge them to vote NO. The Talking Points to use follow the
list of targets. Please select the topics and sentences you want to
highlight and go at it.
- Tom Barksdale
Cobb Alliance for Smart Energy
770-715-1218
(This message is redacted from a message from Justine Thompson,
Executive Director GreenLaw (404) 659-3122...@green-law.org)
From Greenlaw Director Justine Thompson:
NEED PEOPLE TO TARGET, CALL OR EMAIL REGARDING BAD BILLS IN GA.
GENERAL ASSEMBLY.
This is very important - there are 4 bills (1 in the Senate, 3 in the
House) which would change environmental permitting removing one of our
most important tools for being a watchdog over EPD. COMMITTEES IN THE
SENATE AND THE HOUSE VOTE WEDNESDAY. WE NEED TO KILL THIS NOW.
The bills are SB486, HB 1370, HB1365, HB1368. In a nutshell, these
bills would:
1. Require administrative law judges to defer to DNR agency decisions
creating a rubber stamp process for review of permits. This includes
coastal, coal plants, water withdrawals, reservoirs, you name it.
2. Remove any requirement that a permit be reviewed by a licensed
professional engineer. This is specifically written to encompass
reservoirs, water withdrawals, air permits, but again, covers all
permits.
3. Change the process by which ALJs are chosen for cases by
designating only a couple of ALJs to review environmental cases
Vote expected tomorrow (Wednesday).
TARGETS
Committee Members:
House Environmental Quality Members
Tom McCall, Chairman 404.656.5115
Roger Lane, Vice Chairman 404.656.5087
Terry Barnard 404.656.5138
Stephanie Benfield 404.656.7859
Debbie Buckner 404.656.6372
Mark Burkhalter 404.656.7146
Terry England 404.463.2247
Carol Fullerton 404.656.0127
Harry Geisinger404.656.0254
Bob Hanner 404.656.7859
Mike Keown 404.656.0177
Doug McKillip 404.656.0220
Richard Smith 404.656.3904
Lee Thompson 404.656.6372
Lynn Smith, EX OFFICIO
Greg Morris, EX OFFICIO
Randy Nix, EX OFFICIO
Members of the Senate Natural Resources Committee (with how they voted
on a similar bill last year in parentheses)
Ross Tolleson (Yea) (404) 656-0081
John Bulloch (Yea) (404) 656-0040
Ralph Hudgens (Yea) (404) 656-4700
Jeff Chapman (Nay) (404) 656-0045
Bill Cowsert (Nay) (404) 463-1366
Lee Hawkins (Yea) (404) 656-6578
Steve Henson (Nay) (404) 656-0085
Jack Hill (Yea) (404) 656-5038
George Hooks (Yea) (404) 656-0065
Bill Jackson (Yea) (404) 656-5114
J.B. Powell (not voting) (404) 463-1314
Dan Weber (not voting) (404) 463-2260
Freddy Powell Simms (Yea) (404) 463-5259
_______________________________________________________________
MESSAGE
The message is the same for members of House and Senate. The only
difference is to us the respective Bill Numbers:
For House members: Please Vote NO on House Bills 1365, 1368 & 1370
House Bills 1365, 1368 & 1370:
For Senate Members: Please Vote NO on Senate Bills 486 & 492
Senate Bills 486 & 492:
• unfairly favor government bureaucrats over average citizens. The
purpose of the
administrative process is to provide a fair, impartial analysis of
agency decisions, one that
does not wrongly favor either the government or the affected citizens.
These bills unfairly
tilt the playing field in favor of the government bureaucracy and
against the citizen who will
be most impacted by the government's decision.
• are special interest bills designed to benefit one company with one
project, but it would
result in the overhaul of the entire administrative review process.
This type of special
interest legislation is repulsive to open, fair, and democratic
government. If passed, these
bills would be an embarrassment.
• eliminates the requirement that licensed professional engineers must
review permits,
which would include even the largest and most potentially dangerous
facilities including
nuclear plants, major dams, and even giant stadiums.
• The Georgia Legislature requires engineering licenses in order “to
safeguard life,
health property and to promote public welfare.” Now they want to
eliminate this
requirement for some of the most dangerous facilities in Georgia.
• remove the ability of independent administrative judges to act as
neutral finders of fact
and law. In so doing, it undermines the integrity of judicial review
by dramatically changing
the administrative appeals process for all environmental appeals in
Georgia.
• eliminate important checks and balances on agency power. Under
longstanding Georgia
law, just reaffirmed by the courts last year, administrative law
judges are vested with
independence which allows them to judge cases fairly on their merits.
Under these bills, a
trained and impartial Administrative Law Judge must put aside his or
her judgment and defer
to any DNR employee’s opinion, which is antithetical to the notion of
judicial independence.
• remove the checks and balances of agency power for only one agency.
These bills create
a special exemption allowing one government agency to receive less
scrutiny than other
agencies, a result which is simply not rational.
• waste scarce tax resources by forcing judges to expend resources and
go through the
motions of judicial review while in fact, these bills would create a
"rubber stamp" process.
Taxpayers do not want scarce resources dedicated to fruitless
endeavors.
• hurt businesses. The vast majority of the appeals of environmental
permits and other
agency actions in Georgia are brought by permit holders, i.e. business
and industry. These
bills, introduced to change the outcome of one case, would impact any
entity in Georgia
seeking an environmental permit. These bills would make it much more
difficult to question
the wisdom of an environmental regulation or permitting decision, even
if that decision is
detrimental to a business. This is not what Georgia needs in the
current economic
climate.