Environmental injustice continues to harm low-income communities and people of color, exposing them to higher levels of pollution and health hazards. Together, we can create a future where everyone has equal access to clean air, water, and land.
Current Priorities
There were many bills before the Georgia General Assembly during the 2025-26 Legislative Session.
The good news is that nothing terrible happened for Environmental Justice.
The bad news is that nothing useful happened either. And the General Assembly replaced income taxes with sales taxes – which typically negatively impacts low-income individuals.
The General Assembly is continuing to support corporations, not communities –
No legislation passed that would have helped with the monitoring and prevention of Bad Actors, PFAS transparency, Consumer Utility Council, ending data center tax breaks, and protecting customers from the cost of data center electricity generation.
What do we do next? There are a lot of elections this year – it is time to hold our policymakers accountable!
Find your local legislator here.
Impacts of Pollution on Health and Wellbeing
DIED – HR 100 – Study Committee on the Cumulative Impact of Pollution on Economic Development and Growth
HR 100 – A study to review and understand how pollution impacts our economy is needed. We want shovel-ready projects to invest in; however, we also need clean air, water, soil, and a healthy educated workforce to ensure that economic development programs and projects bear long-lasting benefits.
The health of a community directly impacts how successful economic development programs perform-a healthy workforce is vital, however, asthma, dangerous pregnancy outcomes, heart disease, and various forms of cancer can cluster in polluted areas, areas near highways, and areas near industrial plants; addressing the environmental causes of disease is important for the health of communities, but also for the economic prosperity of the state.
Georgia’s leading economic engine, agriculture, is put at risk by air, soil, and water pollution that can stunt crop growth and affect both Georgia’s economy and the food security of all Georgians.
Home prices, property values, and generational wealth are directly linked to the surrounding environment. Lower property values are directly related to limited amenities, and poorer schools.
Learn more about Cumulative Impacts here
DIED – HB 1072 – Bad Actor Bill
Enable the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (EPD) to deny permits for known bad actors (repeat offenders) from outside and inside the state.
BioLabs was a repeat offender.
PFAS
DIED – HB 611 & SB 538 – Forever Chemical Transparency Bill
PFAS (also knowns as forever chemicals) are everywhere. And, until recently, they were not considered a hazard by the EPA. Thus, we don’t know where they are and we don’t know who is putting them into our water. This bill would help us to close the information gap. It requires significant industrial users to disclose their intentional use of PFAS chemicals to municipal facilities (i.e. water treatment centers). This bill promotes transparency. HB 611 & HB 538 will help local governments and their public utilities create plans to reduce contamination risks. By increasing transparency around the use of PFAS, the bill helps protect public health, reduce pollution in Georgia’s waterways and drinking water, and prevents cleanup costs from falling solely on utility ratepayers. This bill does not require specific monitoring or cleanup actions.
Watch the documentary “Contaminated: The Carpet Industry’s Toxic Legacy” at pbs.org/frontline , in the PBS App, and on FRONTLINE’s YouTube channel. It is also available on the PBS Documentaries Prime Video Channel.
DIED – Some really bad PFAS legislation that would have helped companies
HB 211 excludes ‘PFAS Receivers’ (which are people who don’t manufacture PFAS but use manufacturing processes with PFAS, receive or maintain goods with PFAS, or purchases goods with PFAS) from legal liability when spreading PFAS. Anyone who is not a chemical manufacturer would be excluded from liability. This differs from many PFAS receiver shield acts – where only unintentional users are shielded. Read the bill rubric here.
HB 1212 – Place an excise tax on PFAS damages recovered
SB 577 – Blocks cities and counties from filing PFAS law suits.
Energy Burden
DIED – SB 94 – Consumer Utility Counselor at the Public Service Commission (PSC)
There is no one on the PSC that is charged with solely representing the needs of the individual ratepayer. As such – the average power bill has risen by about $45/month in the past year — driving many Georgians into energy poverty.
Monopoly public utilities must be held accountable to protect the financial interest of Georgia ratepayers by keeping profit earnings within national standards and to ensure that the financial cost of bad business decisions are not passed on to customers.
DIED – HB 641 – Ensure utilities cannot cut off services to those who need them for their medical care
DEAD – HB 641 – makes it so that electric utilities cannot disconnect a person who is behind on their bills and needs electricity due to a medical hardship. Apparently, Georgia Power, already has this as a rule, but many other municipal and co-op utilities do not. Read Rubric Here.
Data Centers
All the data center bills died. All of them.
Read about all of them here.
DIED – SB 34 – prohibited the cost of data center power infrastructure from being passed to consumers. After being stripped of its good language and replaced by the inadequate PSC rules, it passed out of committee. Sen Hufstetler had the votes to amend and fix it on the Senate floor, but Georgia Power shut down the Senate for the day instead of calling it for a vote. Bill Rubic. Died in Senate Rules
DIED –HB 528 – High use facilities transparency act. Requires high resource use facilities to submit annual disclosure reports providing detailed information about their energy and water usage, and the taxes they pay to the state. Read the bill rubric here. Introduced, no hearing.
DIED – SB 408, SB 410, SB 476, SB 530, HB 134, HB 186, HB 559 – All of these bills repealed or shortened the tax breaks on data centers.
DED- HB 1063 – codify into law the current PSC regulations that require data centers to pay their incremental costs. Only covers all costs if all new power generation has a large-load customer.
DIED –HB 1012 – institute a state-wide halt on the construction of data centers. No local government will be allowed to issue a permit, license or certificate for the purpose of data center construction between July 1, 2026 and March 1, 2027. Introduced.
DIED – SB 421 – Transparency of resource use – no government body can enter into a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) around data center power and water use. Introduced, no hearing.
DIED – SB 436 – A combination of transparency of resource use (SB 421) and a moratorium on tax breaks for one year. Introduced, no hearing.
Benefit to Georgia of EJ Protections
Empowerment of Marginalized Communities: Provide a mechanism for communities to participate in discussions on environmental and local development issues, ensuring that their views are heard and that their concerns are taken into account.
Legal Protections: Establish a framework for resolving environmental injustices, making it simpler to challenge and correct circumstances where at-risk groups suffer disproportionately from pollution and other environmental risks.
Healthier and More Prosperous Georgia: Focuses on enhancing health equality by lowering exposure to dangerous pollutants, which can improve health outcomes for all inhabitants, regardless of their background.
Environmental Sustainability: Encourage cleaner and more environmentally friendly practices to create a more resilient Georgia.
News & Information
Check out some news coverage about topics relevant to Environmental Justice.
Georgia environmental groups lay out priorities for 2026 legislative session | WABE | 30 Jan, 2026
Georgians lobby over data centers and environmental impact | Columbus Ledger-Enquirer | 31 Jan, 2026
