As Gov. Brian Kemp and other state Republicans work to make Georgia the “electric mobility capital” of America, other Republicans are blasting EVs like the ones set to be built in Georgia as left-wing luxury items.
The latest salvo against EVs is coming from Georgia’s U.S. Rep. Andrew Clyde, who has introduced legislation to roll back a proposed EPA emissions rule that would favor electric vehicles like the ones set to be built outside of Savannah by Hyundai and in Rutledge by Rivian. Bringing those factories to Georgia has been one of Kemp’s key economic bragging points.
Credit: TNS
Credit: TNS
The 9th District Republican told Fox News EVs, “are costly, less efficient and more dependent on Chinese supply chains than traditional gas-powered cars.”
A group of 20 Republican state Attorneys General has also written to the EPA, blasting the proposed rule and calling it “part of the left’s impossible green-energy fantasies.” Notably, Georgia’s Attorney General Chris Carr was not among them.
For his part, Kemp is trying to reconcile his boosterism of the EV sector, which is bringing tens of thousands of jobs to Georgia, with other federal clean energy incentives that have helped fuel the green jobs boom in Georgia and other states.
Kemp and his allies are hammering a specific provision in President Joe Biden’s tax and climate measure that restricts vehicles assembled overseas from qualifying for lucrative consumer tax credits. That means that customers of Hyundai, which is building a $5.5 EV billion Georgia plant, can’t receive those benefits until that factory opens in 2025.
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
The Biden administration has made no apologies for the made-in-America requirement. At a town hall in Atlanta last month, U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm called it “tough love” that will result in American jobs in the end. Democrats have noted the South Korean automaker has sped up its timeline for its southeast Georgia factory to qualify for those credits.
But the Wall Street Journal reported that sales for electric vehicles from Hyundai and Kia, another Korean automaker with a plant in Georgia, dropped during the first six months of the year after the foreign-assembled EVs became ineligible for a $7,500 tax credit under the new law.
Kemp spokesman Garrison Douglas said it underscores the Republican concerns with the law.
“If this is what partnership looks like to Joe Biden and some Washington politicians,” he said, “Georgians aren’t interested.”
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Credit: Hyosub Shin/AJC
Credit: Hyosub Shin/AJC
KEMP 2024? The “draft Brian Kemp” calls are getting louder as the many Republican rivals to former President Donald Trump fail to gain any sort of traction in the run up to the 2024 elections, which kicks off in Iowa in just six months.
The Georgia governor still hasn’t taken any concrete steps to run, but he’s surfaced repeatedly in national conversations among Republicans worried about Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ faltering campaign and the gaggle of other GOP contenders polling in single-digits.
The latest salvo came over the weekend when the Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin suggested that Kemp and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin offer Republicans the “only real chance for the party to move beyond Trump.”
Credit: Natrice Miller/AJC
Credit: Natrice Miller/AJC
Over the weekend, former Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan was asked about Kemp’s prospects on CNN. (The anchor called the governor Duncan’s “former boss.”)
“He’s conservative but not angry. That, to me, is the model. If Brian Kemp wants to run for president, then I’ll certainly be there to help him.”
An even bigger, but unintentional, endorsement came from the Democrat on the panel, Bakari Sellers, who said that if Kemp runs for president: “He’s actually talented enough to make inroads and do well in that field and do well in a conservative primary and strike a little fear in the hearts of Democrats.”
As we’ve reported plenty, Kemp hasn’t shut the door on a White House run but he has just two staffers working on his federal PAC. That has plenty at the state Capitol and beyond skeptical.
But note this quote in The Hill from former New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg about late entries to the presidential race that’s making the rounds among Georgia Republicans:
“New Hampshire is notoriously late deciding. We can be two weeks from a major election, especially the primaries, and we don’t know who’s going to win. Very late-deciding voters.”
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Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
ANTISEMITISM SNAG. When the legislative measure to combat antisemitism failed to reach a vote in the Georgia Senate, supporters and detractors alike pointed to one key opponent: Republican state Sen. Ed Setzler, R-Acworth.
Now the Cobb County lawmaker has written a commentary for the Marietta Daily Journal outlining his opposition to the measure, which seeks to define antisemitism in order to include it in Georgia’s hate crimes law.
Setzler wrote that the House’s overwhelming support for the measure didn’t “mean that the bill has been adequately vetted and is ready for prime time.” He said adopting a definition from “an international convention of academics,” namely the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, was “not the right answer for Jewish people and institutions in Georgia,” declaring them to be vague and legally troubling.
Credit: Miguel Martinez/AJC
Credit: Miguel Martinez/AJC
State Rep. Esther Panitch, D-Sandy Springs, an author of the bill and the lone Jewish member of the General Assembly, wrote a 30-tweet response to Setzler essentially questioning his sanity.
She said Setzler was acting with “utmost audacious pomposity” by trying to rewrite the Holocaust alliance’s definition of antisemitism. She finished by writing: “It takes a special person to vote to make a community less safe, then gaslight them about what and why he did it. Shame on Sen Setzler b/c the Jewish community deserves better.”
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Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
LOTT OUT. State Rep. Jodi Lott, an Augusta-area Republican, told WGAC radio that she is term-limiting herself and won’t run for reelection in 2024.
Lott, a former floor leader for Gov. Brian Kemp, said she’s also not planning to run for Congress or another office. Instead, she said she’s considering work as a government policy advocate or lobbyist.
“I hear that members of Congress spend half their day going from their car to their office and back,” she told WGAC. “I don’t think I could deal with that.”
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Credit: J. Scott Applewhite
Credit: J. Scott Applewhite
PRICED WRONG. Former Health and Services Secretary Tom Price didn’t say that Donald Trump can “kiss my big medical butt,” as Fox News reported in an online story Friday that was soon retracted.
But while we’re on the topic, the former Georgia lawmaker recently went into detail on the Ben Burnett podcast about his brief and tumultuous tenure as Trump’s top health care deputy.
“We didn’t know each other well,” he said of his relationship with Trump. “I wasn’t a general, I wasn’t a billionaire and I wasn’t a governor. I think he basically viewed me as the general contractor for Obamacare repeal. … And so when that didn’t happen, that really soured our relationship, and I think he lost confidence in me, and it was clear he lost confidence in me as the next month occurred.”
Trump ousted Price in September 2017 after expressing outrage that the then HHS secretary had chartered private jets for his government travel.
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Credit: Miguel Martinez/AJC
Credit: Miguel Martinez/AJC
MAYORAL MUGSHOT. The City of South Fulton’s mayor was charged with first-degree burglary and criminal trespassing over the weekend.
Khalid Kamau was booked into the Fulton County Jail on Saturday and walked out hours later after posting bond, the AJC’s Caroline Silva reported.
According to the police report, Kamau ventured into a private home in South Fulton because he said he was interested in buying it. The homeowner confronted Kamau, pulled out a gun and told him to stay until authorities arrived, the report stated. The mayor told police he believed the residence was abandoned.
Kamau is perhaps the highest-profile elected official in Georgia who considers himself a democratic socialist. He is also feuding with many members of the city’s leadership.
Five of the seven members of South Fulton’s city council filed a lawsuit in March to throw Kamau out of office, accusing him of violating the city charter.
As he was led away in handcuffs, the mayor apologized to the homeowner and to residents for the attention he was getting.
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Credit: Bob Andres/AJC
Credit: Bob Andres/AJC
DAVID SCOTT WORKAROUND. An agriculture task force created after some U.S. House Democrats expressed worries about U.S. Rep. David Scott’s job performance will meet for the first time this week.
Mississippi’s U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, who most recently led the Jan. 6 select committee, will chair the House Democrats’ agriculture task force instead of Scott, D-Atlanta, according to Politico.
Politico was the first to report about the creation of a new working group focused on the 2023 farm bill, which comes amid continued concerns over Scott, a 78-year-old slowed recently by health challenges.
Scott, the top-ranking Democrat on the Agriculture Committee, has insisted that he is up for the job and said questions are coming from rivals who want his leadership position.
But there have been rumblings that fellow Democrats don’t think he has been strong enough during negotiations over legislation that will determine agriculture and food assistance policies for the next five years.
SCOOP: @BennieGThompson + his new House Dem ag task force are holding a 2023 farm bill roundtable at the Capitol July 13, per invites, instead of the Ag Cmte minority
— Meredith Lee Hill (@meredithllee) July 7, 2023
Jeffries created the group after Dems tried to replace top House Ag Dem David Scott, as @politico has reported
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RELIEF FOR FARMERS. U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock is celebrating the launch of a new U.S. Department of Agriculture program for Black farmers that aims to replace an earlier initiative he pushed for that has been jammed up by lawsuits.
The $5 billion initially set aside in coronavirus relief funds for “socially disadvantaged” farmers was challenged in court by white farmers who said it would prioritize minority businesses over white-owned firms.
Credit: Nathan Posner for the AJC
Credit: Nathan Posner for the AJC
Last fall’s Inflation Reduction Act redistributed some of that money through a new program that relieves debt for “distressed borrowers” whose businesses are at financial risk. And on Friday the USDA announced that it had begun accepting applications for a second program that provides financial assistance to farmers who’ve faced past discrimination from the agency.
Warnock, a Democrat from Atlanta, welcomed the news while saying the USDA can do more to help farmers in need.
“Today is a good day because I’ve been waiting to tell these farmers that relief is on the way, and I’m going to continue holding the USDA’s feet to the fire to ensure they’re reaching the farmers they need to and that these resources are disbursed as soon as possible,” he said in a statement.
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TODAY IN WASHINGTON:
- The U.S. Senate is back after a two-week break. The House returns Tuesday.
- Republicans on the House Administration Committee will hold a field hearing in Atlanta on election integrity.
- President Joe Biden is in London to meet with United Kingdom Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and King Charles III.
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Credit: AJC staff
Credit: AJC staff
IN MEMORIAM. Our condolences are going out to the many friends and family of Bill Shipp, the longtime Georgia political journalist who died Saturday at the age of 89.
The legendary newsman wrote for the Atlanta Constitution and, later, the AJC, and became a familiar face to Georgia viewers as a regular panelist on The Georgia Gang.
He’ll be best remembered for his irascible wit and razor-sharp pen, which could leave politicos both fuming and impressed, all at the same time.
One of Shipp’s biggest scoops came in 1974, when he reported that Jimmy Carter was “seriously” considering a run for president.
From the AJC obit:
Jimmy Carter felt Shipp's barbs — but also relied on the newspaperman to put out the early word about his presidential ambitions.
Shipp is credited with a scoop on news that then-Gov. Jimmy Carter would run for president, reporting in a front-page story in July 1974, months before Carter's formal announcement, “Gov. Jimmy Carter is seriously considering seeking the Democratic presidential nomination in 1976, it was learned Monday."
Then-Constitution editorial page editor Reg Murphy responded with a column headlined “Jimmy Carter is running for WHAT?" Carter announced his candidacy in December 1974.
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Credit: Courtesy photo
Credit: Courtesy photo
DOG OF THE DAY. If a picture is worth a thousand words, Miss Maple Davis might be worth a million.
The Boykin spaniel puppy calls AJC subscribers Shawn and Angie Davis her people. And we just call her adorable.
Send us your dogs of any political persuasion and cats on a cat-by-cat basis to patricia.murphy@ajc.com, or DM us on Twitter @MurphyAJC.
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AS ALWAYS, Jolt readers are some of our favorite tipsters. Send your best scoop, gossip and insider info to patricia.murphy@ajc.com, tia.mitchell@ajc.com and greg.bluestein@ajc.com.
