Georgia’s utility rates — electric, natural gas, and telecommunications — have increased significantly in recent years, placing growing pressure on families, small businesses, and rural communities. Every major utility decision ultimately appears on monthly bills, and when investments are based on optimistic assumptions, weak cost controls, or misallocated responsibility, ratepayers absorb the risk.

Georgia should welcome economic growth and critical infrastructure investment. But growth must be matched with disciplined engineering review and clear cost causation. This principle applies across electric power, natural gas systems, and telecommunications infrastructure — from power plants and pipelines to transmission lines, substations, and broadband networks.

Today, the most visible example is electric system expansion driven by large new loads such as data centers. Data centers bring economic opportunity, but they also create highly concentrated demand that can drive new generation, transmission, and distribution investments. While data centers should pay their incremental costs, that alone does not protect ratepayers if broader system costs tied to speculative or unproven load forecasts are shifted onto existing customers.

Recently, the Public Service Commission certified approximately 10 gigawatts of new generation, much of it in anticipation of forecasted data center growth. If that load does not materialize at the expected scale or pace, the cost of excess capacity will fall on ratepayers — regardless of any temporary rate freeze. Financial risk does not disappear; it is deferred.

The same risk exists with infrastructure upgrades. Transmission expansions, pipeline reinforcements, and network improvements that primarily serve large new customers can be justified as “system benefits” unless rigorously reviewed. Without strong technical oversight, ratepayers end up funding infrastructure built to serve a small number of high-demand users.

As a professional engineer who has worked inside industrial facilities — including manufacturing plants, chemical operations, pulp and paper mills, steel facilities, and multiple forms of power generation — I understand how utility costs are created, allocated, and recovered in practice.

As commissioner, I will:

• Scrutinize electric, natural gas, and telecommunications proposals using engineering standards

• Evaluate load forecasts and infrastructure plans for realism and risk

• Ensure costs are allocated to those who cause them — not shifted onto ratepayers

• Challenge speculative investments and unsupported assumptions

• Demand transparent cost estimates and competitive procurement

• Protect residential, rural, and small-business customers from disproportionate impacts

The General Assembly is considering legislation aimed at preventing data center-driven costs from being passed on to ratepayers. That is an important step — but laws alone are not enough. Without a technically competent Public Service Commission capable of enforcing cost causation and challenging flawed assumptions, statutory protections are meaningless.

I am pro-growth, pro-business, and pro-data center. But I am equally committed to protecting Georgia’s ratepayers across all utility services. Strong infrastructure requires strong engineering — and strong, independent oversight