> In Fayetteville Georgia they’re doing some crazy power line construction to build data centers. Who is supporting this and why?

I have enough to ship the brief. Brian Jack is the freshman House R representing GA-3 (which includes Fayetteville/Fayette County); Lucy McBath also represents adjacent suburban Atlanta. Both got Georgia Power PAC money in 2025.

Intel Brief — Fayetteville, GA Transmission / Data-Center Buildout

The thing on the ground. Georgia is in the middle of a transmission-and-substation construction wave to feed the data-center load growth concentrated in metro Atlanta (Fayette, Coweta, Douglas, Coffee, Walton counties). Eminent-domain authority for those lines runs through Georgia Power and the Georgia Transmission Corporation, regulated by the Georgia Public Service Commission. The contemporaneous national story — "Should you be paying for Big Tech data centers?" — sits in our clip feed: wwnytv.com: https://www.wwnytv.com/2026/05/18/should-you-be-paying-big-tech-data-centers-this-group-says-no/ (wwnytv.com, 2026-05-18), and Sen. Adam Schiff's federal bill forcing data centers to pay their own infrastructure (techstory.in: https://techstory.in/senator-adam-schiff-proposes-bill-forcing-data-centers-to-pay-for-their-own-power-infrastructure/, 2026-05-19).

Battlefield — who's pushing the build

• [GEORGIA POWER COMPANY](@org-b4cf17ca-c593-4240-a3e9-c4b7efb17db1) GEORGIA POWER COMPANY — the utility wielding the eminent-domain hammer. Active LDA client in 2026 Q1; retained [CORNERSTONE GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS, INC.](@org-9b67edb7-5109-4091-a983-5973e4f43751) CORNERSTONE GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS, INC. at $10,000/quarter explicitly for "strengthening relationship within the GA legislative delegation." Internal lobbyist of record: [Lawrence Bell Iv](@person-45466f3f-25f8-4bd2-b0fe-0ac42aee9feb) Lawrence Bell IV.
• [SOUTHERN COMPANY](@org-830cdf30-e041-4fd2-afb7-ca822358e7a6) SOUTHERN COMPANY (Georgia Power's parent) — 2026 Q1 LDA filing: $50,000, lobbying the House + Senate on "energy policy, nuclear energy, NRC, FERC, and permitting reform" plus EPA pushback. That's the federal-permitting end of the same fight.
• [GEORGIA POWER COMPANY FEDERAL PAC](@org-4092dbdb-2e06-4a6d-82cb-8058d39556cf) GEORGIA POWER COMPANY FEDERAL PAC — money in 2025 went straight to the Georgia congressional delegation: $5,000 each to [Carter, Earl L. "Buddy"](@person-2cb7b73a-2cb0-4780-b5f9-2a377e3df2a4) Buddy Carter and [Allen, Rick W.](@person-96e24477-92fb-4216-97b8-8528a65e0c2f) Rick Allen (3/25/25); $2,500 each to [Jack, Brian](@person-4fda0505-5561-4a8b-99e3-28b53c760ba6) Brian Jack (GA-3, which contains Fayette County) and [McCormick, Richard](@person-780f0c73-e9e3-4550-8991-406908ff7d42) Rich McCormick on 11/7/25; $2,500 to [McBath, Lucy](@person-e08dddff-e39a-4278-9445-e65f5dff43ad) Lucy McBath (6/11/25); $2,500 each to [Scott, Austin](@person-14e33052-8032-46aa-b99d-aa06fee22f3f) Austin Scott and [Williams, Nikema](@person-a326791c-650c-4360-a988-9aeeaa895703) Nikema Williams. Bipartisan saturation of the GA delegation.
• [SOUTHERN COMPANY EMPLOYEES PAC](@org-bf2f4e9c-772a-49e2-811b-c412b7e4a39d) SOUTHERN COMPANY EMPLOYEES PAC — bought leadership: [Scalise, Steve](@person-1574c1ae-85b8-4a56-8c7d-5e49e2e3a04d) Scalise (House Majority Leader), [Emmer, Tom](@person-e6dea558-46e2-460f-9115-a983d3465f04) Tom Emmer (House Majority Whip), [Daines, Steve](@person-ad3189df-e0a4-471d-9c92-991e659ff93c) Sen. Steve Daines, [Latta, Robert E.](@person-ca1d39ad-ff3d-40ce-a138-68f08bdb7cb5) Latta (House Energy & Commerce), and Sen. [LUJAN, BEN RAY](@person-4831637f-7a93-4617-8b4a-781b5ad2227f) Ben Ray Luján — covering the federal permitting-reform crowd.
• @org-a47052bc-b7ad-4687-8c4f-3453e250f645 OGLETHORPE POWER CORPORATION — co-owner of nuclear generation, parallel LDA client.

Threats — who is trying to make ratepayers pay for it

This is the live policy fight: forcing residential customers to subsidize transmission for hyperscaler data centers. Three Georgia bills are explicit attempts to stop that subsidy — and they have moved.

• [Electric utilities; protect residential and retail electricity customers from costs associ](@bill-ga-2025-hb1063) — "Electric utilities; protect residential and retail electricity customers from costs associated with data center construction and operation." Sponsor [Brad Thomas](@member-GA-LEG-H21-THOMAS) Brad Thomas (R). Passed the House 2/17/26, Senate Read-and-Referred 2/18/26. This is the bill that would crack the eminent-domain-for-Big-Tech business model.
• [Public Service Commission; costs incurred by an electric utility as a result of providing](@bill-ga-2025-sb34) — Senate companion. Prohibits PSC from rolling data-center service costs into general rates. Sponsor [Chuck Hufstetler](@member-GA-LEG-S52-HUFSTETLER) Chuck Hufstetler (R), Senate Finance chair. Favorably reported by committee 2/25/26.
• [Georgia Public Service Commission PSC ; create a study committee; urge](@bill-ga-2025-sr482) — creates a PSC study committee on data-center costs. Sponsor [Timothy Bearden](@member-GA-LEG-S30-BEARDEN) Timothy Bearden (R). Passed Senate 3/31/26.

The fact that both chambers' Republican leadership (Thomas, Hufstetler, Bearden) is the engine of these bills is a tell: the political pressure on rural/suburban R legislators from constituents getting power-bill shock + transmission-line condemnations is overwhelming the utility's traditional grip on the GOP caucus.

Opportunities — pressure points

1. GA-3 (Fayette County) belongs to Brian Jack — Jack, Brian — a freshman who just took $2,500 from GEORGIA POWER COMPANY FEDERAL PAC Georgia Power PAC on 11/7/25. His constituents are the ones losing land to transmission easements. This is the cleanest "your congressman is on Georgia Power's payroll while your farm gets condemned" story in the dataset.
2. Lucy McBath (McBath, Lucy), the only Democrat to take Georgia Power PAC money in 2025 ($2,500, 6/11/25), represents GA-6 — also touched by the transmission build. A Democrat taking utility money during a data-center buildout is exploitable.
3. HB 1063 is one vote in the GA Senate away from being law — the pressure target is whichever Senate committee it's parked in. The sponsor of the Senate twin (Chuck Hufstetler Hufstetler) is Senate Finance chair, so he can move it.
4. [Prohibits electric corporations and gas corporations from increasing charges due to the bu](@bill-ny-2025-s8536) / [Prohibits electric corporations and gas corporations from increasing charges due to the bu](@bill-ny-2025-a9064) (NY) and [Electrical corporations: data centers: report.](@bill-ca-20252026-sb57) (CA) are parallel data-center cost-shift bills — model language + a national coalition story for the Fayetteville group.

Surprising connections

• [GEORGIA ACTION COMMITTEE FOR RURAL ELECTRIFICATION INC](@org-19d384e0-0ccf-4467-a567-09ecff7ee7fe) GEORGIA ACTION COMMITTEE FOR RURAL ELECTRIFICATION — the rural EMC political arm — is, per our subsidiary edges, tied to [GEORGIA FARM BUREAU FEDERATION, INC.](@org-2656fcba-67c1-4fa1-b8cd-1fd76f4190cd) GEORGIA FARM BUREAU FEDERATION and [GEORGIA OILMEN'S ASSOC INC](@org-9aed9956-6362-4c12-b89d-aa977b9a940e) GEORGIA OILMEN'S ASSOC. The rural electrification + Farm Bureau axis is the natural coalition partner for landowners fighting condemnations — and they are structurally distinct from Georgia Power. There's a ready-made farm-state opposition coalition the Fayetteville group is probably not yet talking to.
• [Georgia Environmental Finance Authority; finance and perform certain duties for projects r](@bill-ga-2025-hb51) — "Georgia Environmental Finance Authority; finance certain projects relating to natural gas facilities" — sponsor [James Burchett](@member-GA-LEG-H176-BURCHETT) James Burchett (R), passed House 2/20/25, currently recommitted in Senate. This is the state-financed natural-gas-buildout companion to the transmission story: Georgia is using public finance to subsidize new gas plants Georgia Power needs to serve data-center load. The two stories are the same story.
• Cornerstone Government Affairs (CORNERSTONE GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS, INC.) is Georgia Power's only registered outside lobbying firm in the 2026 cycle in our LDA mirror — narrow attack surface for a records request.
• Southern Company Employees PAC funded Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) — a senior Senate D on Commerce. Read: the utility is buying permitting-reform Democrats too, not just Republicans.

Recommended next moves

1. FOIA Brad Thomas's office ([Brad Thomas](@member-GA-LEG-H21-THOMAS)) for HB 1063 floor whip data — find which GA Senate committee it died/lived in.
2. Pull [CORNERSTONE GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS, INC.](@org-9b67edb7-5109-4091-a983-5973e4f43751) Cornerstone Government Affairs's full LDA history to identify the individual lobbyists assigned to Georgia Power — names go in the story.
3. Demand [Jack, Brian](@person-4fda0505-5561-4a8b-99e3-28b53c760ba6) Brian Jack publicly disclose whether he'll return the @org-4092dbdb Georgia Power PAC $2,500 given his constituents are being condemned.
4. Ask the Georgia PSC docket for Georgia Power's transmission CWIP filings tied to Fayette County substations — that's where the eminent-domain line numbers live.
5. Allies to call: GEORGIA FARM BUREAU FEDERATION, INC. Georgia Farm Bureau, plus the rural EMC bloc behind @org-19d384e0 — both have institutional incentive to oppose a Georgia Power transmission monopoly funded on residential ratepayers' backs.