LETTER TO THE EDITOR: There are consequences to business expansion

To the Editor:

Georgia’s economic development has been avidly acclaimed, including its 10-year-run as America’s most business-friendly state. These ambiguous accolades also elevated Gov. Brian Kemp’s recent talk at the international business conference at Davos, Switzerland, where he portrayed Plant Vogtle as an exemplar of clean energy that other leaders should replicate.

The consequences of being business-friendly deserve closer examination.

— Every year, some 240,000 Georgia households are disconnected from electric service because they cannot afford paying their bill. Trying to pay those bills on deficient incomes can cause other cascading financial injustices, including loss of employment, medical care, education, and housing.

— One reason for service disconnections in Georgia is that billions in Plant Vogtle cost overruns have been imposed on Georgia Power’s residential customers. Even though investor profits remained deviously well-protected, being 240% over budget and seven years behind schedule hardly makes the Vogtle project worth emulating.

— Georgians living within the impact area of new industries are often obligated to pay higher taxes to cover rising costs of infrastructure required to support surging population, commercial development, housing, and traffic. Concurrently, water and air quality often declines, imposing costly, uncompensated burdens on public health and the environment.

Instead of subsidizing profitable corporate agendas by greenlighting expensive climate-baking fossil-fuel infrastructure, the state should accelerate the transition to lower-cost clean energy by promoting rooftop solar installations and requiring Big Business to pay its own costs.

Unfortunately, Georgia’s business-friendly scheme is abusing taxpayers, households, and citizens with an array of politically hidden, environmentally damaging injustices.

David Kyler

St. Simons Island