Outside climate groups boost Georgia green group’s effort in PSC election

The political arm of Georgia Conservation Voters has spent more than $1.3 million on statewide races for Georgia Power’s regulator over the past two weeks with hopes of getting two Democratic candidates over the finish line on Election Day, campaign finance documents filed with the state ethics commission show.

A win for both would put Democrats in control of the Georgia Public Service Commission for the first time since the 1990s. Supporters argue this would lower monthly power bills and get cleaner sources of electricity on the power grid.

Incumbent Democrat Peter Hubbard is facing off against former Republican Commissioner Fitz Johnson, who is trying to regain the seat he lost last year. Democrat Shelia Edwards is squaring off against Republican Josh Tolbert for an open seat.

Pro-industry groups have raised more than $2.5 million to support Tolbert, spending most of that money on digital ads and other campaign material, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported last week.

Commissioners must live in their districts, but they are elected statewide.

The PSC is a wonky state agency that sets the rates and profits for Georgia Power and Atlanta Gas Light. It also must approve power grid and pipeline infrastructure for both as well as the type of fuel Georgia Power uses to electrify people’s homes and businesses.

The five-member panel and decisions it makes fly largely under the radar even though their votes affect the wallets of millions of Georgians. Brionté McCorkle, executive director of Georgia Conservation Voters, said the national attention on rising utility bills and data centers is shining an unprecedented amount of light on these races.

“If you are concerned about these issues, (the PSC) is the group that you need to be paying attention to,” McCorkle said in an interview with the AJC.

Outside funding on both sides

GCV’s Action Fund raised $125,000 over the past two weeks, with most of the money coming from the Jane Fonda Climate PAC and the Movement Voter PAC, whose contributors are mostly left leaning, according to documents filed Tuesday, the last day candidates and independent committees could submit reports for the most recent two-week fundraising period.

It has raised more than $2 million for the entire election cycle, with much of that money coming from the national League of Conservation Voters and the Green Advocacy Project. GCV has spent that money on polling, digital and other campaign expenses to boost the profiles of Hubbard and Edwards, who have been campaigning as a pair.

Some money has also been spent in support of the Democratic candidates for governor, senate and other races.

The bulk of the money raised for Tolbert is coming from Powering Georgia’s Future, which has one contributor — Competence Matters, a self-described non-partisan group whose website advocates for energy decisions to be made based upon “real technical competence” and not politics.

Tolbert told the AJC last week that he learned of Powering Georgia’s Future through their campaign texts and ads and that he’s keeping party affiliation out of his race.

The campaign tagline on his campaign website reads: “Engineer for Georgia’s energy future,” and his Facebook campaign page reads: “I’m Josh Tolbert, and I’m running to bring technical competence to Georgia’s Public Service Commission.”

Outside climate and clean energy groups have been targeting Georgia’s PSC races, in part because the state is one of 10 that elects its utility regulators. The others are chosen by the state’s governor or legislature.

GCV has been raising money from those outside groups, which are typically based in New York and California, McCorkle said. She rebuffs any accusation that the money makes them beholden to the mission of anyone else.

“Let’s be clear, nobody came to Georgia Conservation Voters and said, ‘do this thing,’” she said, adding, “We asked for that investment because it allows us to carry out a strategy that we have built and we believe in.”

That strategy is getting voters to make the connection between the economy and jobs — topics that top the list of voter concerns — and climate change and their power bill.

“We don’t lead with, ‘Hey, we need clean energy generation,’ we lead with, ‘Hey, your bills are too high,’” McCorkle said.

There is momentum coming from last November’s election, when Democrats flipped two seats in what people called a referendum on power bills. The GOP-controlled PSC had approved six rate increases for Georgia Power in roughly three years, tacking on an average $43 a month for residential customers since the start of 2023.

The Republicans, facing consumer anger, voted in summer 2025 to keep Georgia Power’s base rates steady for three years. The commission also signed off on lowering power bills starting in the summer of 2026 because of an agreement on how Georgia Power would handle fuel and storm costs.

But it’s data centers that have become a flashpoint in the midterm elections in Georgia and nationwide. Metro Atlanta is now No. 1 in the nation for data center construction, according to the real estate services firm, CBRE. The PSC last December signed off on Georgia Power roughly doubling its grid by 2030, mostly to support the influx of the large, computer-filled warehouses that demand unprecedented amounts of power to operate.