\nDear Bird Supper attendees,\n<\/p>\n
\nTwo things could greatly help south Georgia:\nbetter Internet access and solar power.\nYou could help stop two telecommunications bills<\/em>\nand help pass two energy bills<\/em> for jobs and education\nin south Georgia.\n<\/p>\n \nThe local Industrial Authority, Chamber of Commerce, Valdosta City Council,\nand Lowndes County Commission have recently realized that\nfast Internet access<\/a> is essential to attract businesses,\nfor their employees to work at home, for applicants to apply for jobs,\nfor students to submit assignments, and for general quality of life.\n \n-jsq\n<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dear Bird Supper attendees, Two things could greatly help south Georgia: better Internet access and solar power. You could help stop two telecommunications bills and help pass two energy bills for jobs and education in south Georgia. Internet Access: help stop two telecommunications bills The local Industrial Authority, Chamber of Commerce, Valdosta City Council, and […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[97,14,15,8,18,2,20,88,104,21,22,23,24,53,54,178,332,36],"tags":[8736,333,8704,8705,8701,8708,8699,8702,8710,12,7,8734,8737,8711,8712,8713,8714,8725,6,8726,8749,8765,8716],"class_list":["post-68","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-economy","category-education","category-georgia","category-georgia-power","category-government","category-law","category-lowndes-county-commission","category-nuclear","category-planning","category-politics","category-renewable-energy","category-solar","category-sustainability","category-valdosta-city-council","category-vlcia","category-vlcoc","category-wind","tag-activism","tag-bird-supper","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-georgia","tag-georgia-power","tag-government","tag-lake","tag-law","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-lowndes-county-commission","tag-nuclear","tag-planning","tag-politics","tag-renewable-energy","tag-solar","tag-sustainability","tag-valdosta","tag-valdosta-city-council","tag-vlcia","tag-vlcoc","tag-wind"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-16","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Internet Access: help stop two telecommunications bills<\/h2>\n
\n
\nThis bill would prohibit local governments from providing Internet access\nif any local census block has 1.5Mbps access.\nLocalities may or may not want to do it themselves, but they shouldn't\nbe prohibited from using this option now that it is obvious to everyone\nthat the commercial incumbents are not doing the job.\nLegislators please vote this bill down.\n
\nThis really bad bill would let cell telephone companies build towers\nwherever they want to at any height, taking away local government\npower to regulate that.\nIt could even let private companies exercise eminent domain.\nLegislators please vote this bill down.\n<\/li><\/li><\/ul>\nEnergy: help pass two energy bills<\/h2>\nSolar power can be a \ndistributed source of jobs in south Georgia.<\/a>\nAntique laws and a subsidized nuclear boondoggle are hobbling solar power.\n
\n
\nSenator Buddy Carter has introduced a Senate bill for the current session\nof the legislature, SB 51, "The Georgia Cogeneration and Distributed\nGeneration Act of 2001". It attempts to fix Georgia's special solar\nfinancing problem, the antique 1973 Territorial Electric Service Act,\nwhich says you can only sell power you generate to your one and only\npre-determined electric utility, at whatever rate that utility sets.\n
\nStop Georgia Power from charging customers for cost overruns for Plant Vogtle,\nalready 15 months behind schedule and a billion dollars overbudget for power\nthat nobody has received, yet Georgia Power has already billed customers about\n$1.7 billion.\nBipartisan cosponsors are Jeff Chapman (R\u2014Brunswick) District 167 and\nKarla Drenner (D\u2014Avondale Estates) District 85.\nThis boondoggle on the Savannah River is what Georgia Power and Southern Company\nare doing instead of deploying solar inland and wind off the coast.\n<\/li><\/li><\/ul>\n