Coastal Georgia lawmakers tout environmental agenda

As Coastal Georgia lawmakers converged in Atlanta for the start of the new, 40-day legislative session on Monday, its agenda was still in limbo.

Few bills have been formally introduced, and the single, most powerful person driving the legislature’s calendar — Gov. Brian Kemp — hasn’t detailed his proposals, except for declaring that tort reform and prison funding his top legislative priorities. 

Aside from disclosing plans to deliver $502 million in grants and loans to the counties of Effingham and Bryan and the city of Savannah to draw water from the Savannah River, Kemp hasn’t issued a draft budget, either. That will come soon. 

The Current’s readers have, however, offered their to-do list for the General Assembly. So have members of Coastal Georgia’s legislative delegation, made up of 14 Republicans and four Democrats.  

Between late November and early January, The Current attended five gatherings of lawmakers, business leaders, entrepreneurs, county and city officials, and ordinary citizens to discuss their hopes and expectations for the upcoming session.

Three of the gatherings were that staple of political life in Georgia — the “grits & issues” breakfast — over which ideas are swapped while dining on a steam-table meal of scrambled eggs, and sausage or bacon (usually both) alongside the state delicacy. Here’s some of what we heard.

‘Down the road’

In The Current’s survey, Coastal Georgians said their lawmakers’ highest priority should be protecting the environment and the region’s natural resources — whether it’s water management, protection of the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge or climate change resilience.

Sen. Mike Hodges (R-Brunswick) and Rep. Steven Sainz (R-Brunswick) echoed the importance of environmental protection, urging more state funding to prevent beach erosion and renourish hurricane- and storm-damaged beaches.

Protecting beaches isn’t just an aesthetic issue, Hodges told the “eggs & issues” breakfast at Jekyll Island sponsored by the Brunswick-Golden Isles Chamber of Commerce last month. It’s a matter of safety.

“With the advent of stronger, bigger and more frequent storms. If there’s more sand on the beach, it keeps the storm surge from going further inland,” he said.

Some 75 miles to the north in Chatham County, at a listening session in late November, preserving Coastal Georgia’s natural resources amid escalating demand was on the mind of Chatham Commission Chairman Chester Ellis, too.

He called on Rep. Ron Stephens (R-Savannah) and Sen. Ben Watson (R-Savannah) to press for the creation of a regional water authority.

Regional government isn’t absent in Coastal Georgia, Ellis noted, citing the 10-county Coastal Regional Commission of Georgia. But a dedicated water authority encompassing 20 southeastern and southern counties should be created to better address the expanding demand for water and water and sewage treatment brought on by the region’s explosive growth, he said.

Stephens acknowledged that Georgia “in a very short period of time” will become the fifth most populous state in the U.S. — it now ranks eighth —but said the establishment of regional water authority was “above his pay grade,” meaning that the initiative for creating such a body must come from the governor’s office.

Whether it’s a regional water authority, protecting the fragile coastline amid mercurial climate changes, or infrastructure to accommodate unprecedented growth, state-funded planning efforts are essential, Rep. Buddy DeLoach (R-Townsend) said.  

“I think we are at the point on the Georgia coast now that we need to be very, very careful about the kind of growth that we see,” DeLoach said at the Jekyll Island gathering. “We need to be thinking about what we want to look like 10-15 years down the road. What kind of community do you want to live in? That means that the state is going to have to spend some more money on planning.”

A right to compensation

While Coastal Georgia lawmakers and The Current’s readers see eye-to-eye on environment and infrastructure issues facing the state, they part ways on three issues already certain to be on the legislature’s agenda: legalizing sports gambling, tort reform and funding to fix the state’s decrepit, dangerous and understaffed prison system.

Readers said lawmakers should drop those three issues to the bottom of their legislative wish lists, starting with sports gambling. Kemp, Georgia’s governor, has already put tort reform and prison funding to the top of his.

In particular, GOP lawmakers will be compelled to follow the lead of the state’s top Republican on tort reform, though the governor hasn’t disclosed details of the changes he’s seeking.

DeLoach (R-Townsend) said he “had no idea” what Kemp will propose. But in a sign of just how contentious the issue is poised to be and its potential to split the party, DeLoach said he has bottom line:

“I’m not ever going to support any legislation that keeps an injured party from being compensated. We simply must not get that. If you’re an injured party, you have a right to that compensation.”

As for prison funding, he voiced a widely held view about the nature of problems in the state’s corrections facilities that is certain to be disputed by Democrats and some Republicans.

“In Georgia, the prisoners now run the prisons, and we all know that gangs operate from inside the prison. It’s going to take money,” DeLoach said.

Reducing harm

Any discussion of legislative wish lists for the upcoming session — whether from lawmakers or constituents — requires some caveats.

GOP control of the governor’s office and both chambers of the legislature means opportunity for Republicans and constraints for Democrats.

Speaking at the John Delaware Community Center in Savannah last week, state Sen. Derek Mallow (D-Savannah), and state Reps. Edna Jackson (D-Savannah) and Ann Allen Westbrook (D-Savannah) stressed the urgency of Medicaid expansion and the need for more affordable housing as Savannah gentrifies.

At the same time, Westbrook acknowledged that as members of the minority party in the legislature, the power of Democrats to advance their priorities is limited.

“We pass our bills when we can. We reduce the harm and the bad bills when we can,” she told local residents.

‘Gotta pay for it’

No discussion of legislative priorities can omit mention of tax cuts, which to override most, if not all, such priorities in Georgia.  

Any discussion of how to spend the state’s $16 billion surplus should start with tax rebates, Hodges, the state senator from Brunswick, told an audience of several hundred people at the Jekyll Island gathering.

And when Jackie Jackson, administrator of Chatham County’s resilience program, urged Watson and Stephens, the two Savannah-area lawmakers, to consider a sales-tax holiday in advance of any tropical storm to assist residents in obtaining emergency supplies, Stephens was blunt.

“Any of these sales-tax exemptions that come before the Ways & Means Committee would immediately run into a buzz saw,” he said. “I want to help. I think it’s a great idea, but we just all need to know going in that we’re trying to reduce income tax across the board to compete with Tennessee, Florida and other states.”

That, of course, leads to the kind of fierce struggles for revenue that mark budget deliberations in Atlanta.

Ellis, the Chatham County Commission chairman, pushed Watson and Stephens to sponsor legislation giving the county a share of the proceeds from Savannah’s hotel-motel tax.

Sainz said that if the state is going to buy up coastal land to preserve its pristine state for visiting tourists, the counties of Glynn, Camden and McIntosh should be compensated for the removal of such tracts from the tax rolls.  

Hodges, his fellow Brunswick-area lawmaker, agreed.

“Conservation is a wonderful thing, but you gotta’ pay for it.”

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Type of Story: Analysis Based on factual reporting, incorporates the expertise of the journalist and may offer interpretations and conclusions.