Readers write
No excuse for DHS service cuts
In these times of chaos, I’m hard to shock, but the top story, “Ga. agency cuts services to families,” Dec. 20, took my breath away.
Most of the 50 years of my law practice have been with cases involving children and a disabled adult who receive essential services from the Department of Human Services. The dedicated and overworked case workers at DHS must have the resources to address serious cases of abuse and neglect.
There is no excuse for a state with a $14.6 billion budget surplus, $9 billion of it as “undesignated funds,” to have cuts to care of our most vulnerable populations who have no alternative to foster care or high-quality in-home services to prevent their removal from family homes.
Thanks to you, state Rep. Katie Dempsey, R-Rome, for your assurances that our legislature understands DHS Commissioner Candice Broce’s message. Help must come from those who hold the purse strings. We voters expect our Georgia legislators to do the right thing so that DHS can fulfill its duty to protect children.
LINDA PACE, DECATUR
Energy plans must focus on people, public health
The Public Service Commission’s approval of roughly 10,000 megawatts of new power generation for data centers, when considered alongside proposals for data centers to operate around the clock using on-site “prime power,” reveals troubling gaps in Georgia’s energy planning.
The PSC’s decision commits Georgians to decades of largely gas-fired infrastructure based on demand forecasts that remain highly uncertain. At the same time, data-center developers are seeking to bypass grid constraints by operating fleets of diesel or gas generators not as emergency backup, but as continuous power sources. While this may lower costs for developers, it shifts long-term financial, environmental, and health risks onto nearby communities and ratepayers.
Missing is a clear focus on people and public health. Sustained generator operation raises known concerns about particulate pollution, ozone-forming emissions, noise and cumulative exposure, especially in communities already facing elevated burdens of respiratory and cardiovascular disease. These risks are real, yet they remain largely outside utility planning and permitting decisions.
This is not an argument against data centers or reliability investments. It is a call for phased, evidence-based planning that distinguishes firm demand from speculative growth, closes regulatory gaps around on-site generation, and fully accounts for public-health impacts alongside energy affordability and reliability.
Energy planning is no longer just technical or economic. It is a people-and-public-health decision. Georgians deserve a real voice and a seat at the table before these choices are locked in for generations.
JAY BASSETT, ATLANTA
CITIZEN CLIMATE LOBBY, NATIONAL ELECTRIFICATION ACTION TEAM CO-CHAIR
