Georgia lawmakers promise resource study amid data center boom

January 10th, 2025

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp greets House Speaker Jon Burns and Lt. Gov. Burt Jones before delivering his 2024 State of the State address on Jan. 11, 2024. (Matthew Pearson/WABE)

This coverage is made possible through a partnership between WABE and Grist, a nonprofit environmental media organization.

Georgia House Speaker Jon Burns this week announced plans to develop a plan to ensure the state has enough energy and water to support the ongoing economic development boom.

Burns made the announcement while laying out his priorities for the upcoming legislative session. This occurs amid an influx of new economic development projects, including high-profile manufacturing projects and data centers. He said State Representative Brad Thomas will lead the effort, which he said would create the state’s first comprehensive resource management plan in over 20 years.

“We will leave no stone unturned. There will be nothing that we can’t talk about,” Burns said. “We want to make sure that we look at how sustainable our energy production is, our energy usage, and certainly our water usage.”

He stressed that the effort is not targeting data centers. Concerns about resource use often arise around large economic development projects of any kind; the new Hyundai electric vehicle plant near Savannah, for instance, is in the midst of a battle over its water usage plans.

But the recent boom in data center development has drawn sharp criticism because those facilities in particular use significant amounts of electricity and water. A bill to pause data center tax breaks last year called for a resource study like this, but Gov. Brian Kemp vetoed it.

“We would have had our big study commission, which is what we should have done,” said Georgia Sierra Club legislative chair Mark Woodall of the 2024 bill. “So, better late than never.”

Woodall and other environmental advocates have raised concerns about data centers because they say the high energy usage could hamper Georgia’s transition from fossil fuels to clean energy. Georgia Power is already planning to build new gas-powered turbines to meet growing energy demand the utility says comes mostly from data centers, and analysts are watching for more fossil fuel use when the company unveils its next long-term plan this month.

“We’re not gonna be able to put in clean energy and batteries fast enough to handle these data centers where they’re locating them here,” said Woodall. “We’re just bracing now for a possible fossil fuel bonanza.”