We don’t have engineering problem at Georgia’s Public Service Commission
When I decided to run for the Public Service Commission for the second time, after the state canceled my 2022 election, I did so in a very different environment.
In 2022, I had many issues I wanted to address. I had concerns about donations made by utility executives and their lawyers to sitting commissioners’ reelection campaigns. I was concerned about cost overruns at Plant Vogtle, but then the commission raised our bills six times, and it changed voters’ calculus entirely.
Those bad decisions added over $500 a year to residential bills over the last few years, and that’s before data centers. But what’s really important for us to remember is this: The commission was told about the impacts ahead of time. Repeatedly.
In 2017, concerning the cost overruns at Plant Vogtle, the PSC’s own advocacy staff wrote that Georgia Power “has not demonstrated to Staff that the current Commercial Operation Dates (CODs) have a reasonable chance of being met,” and that there was “a very strong likelihood of further delayed CODs for both Units.” In other words, “there’s no way this is going to happen on time.”
Public trust is integral and essential for the PSC
In 2020, the monitoring engineer testifying for commission staff described the company’s method in one sentence: “develop an unachievable plan, fail relatively quickly, and repeat the process.” He wrote that Southern Co. “has been responsible for (Vogtle) since its inception” and “must therefore be held accountable for where it currently stands and the final cost.”
That was the engineering analysis. It was correct. It was on the record. And it changed nothing.
In the end, the commission never made a finding that any of those costs were imprudent. Instead, it settled. The $7.56 billion, $15/month, that customers are paying now was negotiated between commission staff and Georgia Power before the hearing, and the hearing itself was cut in half.
The lesson is this: We do not have an engineering problem at the PSC. We have an integrity problem.
The engineers did their jobs. Commissioners had access to the right analysis. Our real problem started after that analysis landed on the table. Our problem was, and is, whether or not the five elected commissioners are willing to do something uncomfortable with the information they have.
In short, we don’t need another technical expert on the commission. We need more commissioners with a backbone.
And when you break the public’s trust the way it was broken at Vogtle, you don’t get to skip past it. The first job is earning it back. That starts with being honest about who is actually in trouble here.
It is not Georgia Power. The company earned $2.85 billion in profit in 2025, and $1.4 billion in just the first half of this year; up 17% over the same stretch last year. Nobody needs to coddle this company. Nobody needs to treat a regulated monopoly with a guaranteed rate of return as if it is one bad quarter from collapse. It isn’t, and pretending otherwise is how ratepayers end up absorbing every risk while shareholders keep every upside.
Black and brown families shouldn’t carry the burden
The people in trouble are our neighbors. Forty-four percent of Georgia households — 1.8 million of them — do not earn enough to cover the basics where they live. And in 2024, electric utilities in this state cut off residential customers for nonpayment 458,435 times. Georgia Power accounted for roughly 187,000 of those, the 10th-highest total of any utility in the country.
Those are not abstractions. That is a mother deciding between the light bill and the pharmacy.
That is the reconnection fee and the deposit that turn one hard month into a year of catching up.
I’m a business person. I understand that companies want to make money and provide for their shareholders. But I don’t believe in corporate welfare — not for data centers getting power deals and tax breaks that residential customers could only dream of.
Look at where these facilities are going. A lot of them are south of I-20, in marginalized communities of Black and brown people. They are not going to Alpharetta or Buckhead or Sandy Springs. We need commissioners willing to say so out loud.
We also need commissioners who understand that their ability to maintain financial independence from regulated utilities is the first step in demonstrating competence for the position.
We cannot set the price of natural gas on a global market. We cannot end the war with Iran or steady Wall Street. But we have complete say over whether a state granted monopoly pushes families under water and holds them there.
And that is not an engineering question. It never was.
Shelia Edwards is a community advocate, journalist, business owner and the Democratic nominee for the Georgia Public Service Commission, District 5.
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