Environmental Justice
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This international agreement includes 17 goals—several of which target reducing environmental inequities faced by vulnerable communities.
What are the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)?
This term describes the percentage of a household’s income that goes toward energy bills, often highest in frontline and low-income communities.
What is Energy Burden?
This billing policy allows customers with rooftop solar to earn credits for the extra electricity they send back to the grid.
What is net metering?
This state regulatory body oversees utilities like electricity, gas, and sometimes telecommunications
What is this Public Service Commission?
These facilities store and process massive amounts of digital information for companies like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft.
What is a data center?
Often found in drinking water and disproportionately affecting frontline communities, this “forever chemical” was federally regulated for the first time in 2024.
What is PFAS?
This term describes a framework that outlines the shift from fossil fuels & an extractive economy in a way that protects workers and communities most affected by pollution and economic change.
What is a just transition?
This principle asserts that frontline communities should shape and benefit from decisions about energy, climate, and infrastructure investments that affect them.
What is energy democracy?
In 2025, this Democrat defeated long-time incumbent Tim Echols to become the first Black woman elected to Georgia’s Public Service Commission.
Who is Alicia Johnson?
Prior to the 2025 election, most Georgia Public Service Commissioners didn’t receive power from this utility, meaning they weren’t its residential customers.
What is GA Power?
Dr. Ben Chavis, former leader of the NAACP, helped coin this term to describe the disproportionate environmental burdens placed on frontline and fenceline communities.
What is environmental racism?
These community-based facilities provide backup power, cooling, heating, and essential services during grid outages or extreme weather events.
What is a resiliency hub?
The recent lawsuit over Georgia’s statewide PSC elections argued that the at-large system violates Section 2 of this landmark civil rights law.
What is the Voting Rights Act?
This long-term utility planning document—updated every 3 years in Georgia—outlines how a power company will meet energy demand.
What is the Integrated Resource Plan?
To keep servers cool, many data centers rely on this precious resource—leading to environmental concerns when they are built.
What is water?
This 1982 North Carolina protest, sparked by plans to dump PCB-contaminated soil in a rural Black community, is widely credited with igniting the modern Environmental Justice movement.
What is the Warren County PCB landfill protest?
This household system takes the top spot for the highest annual energy use in American homes.
What is heating and cooling (HVAC)?
This Georgia law created Innovation and Economic Prosperity Planning Districts around historically Black colleges to support community development and infrastructure upgrades.
What is the HBCU Planning District Act?
This clean energy expert founded the Georgia Center for Energy Solutions and won the District 3 PSC Seat.
Who is Peter Hubbard?
This nuclear plant has faced repeated delays and cost overruns while constructing its new reactors. Despite public opposition, the PSC voted to continue the project, with the plant reaching commercial operation in 2024.
What is Plant Vogtle?
This 1991 gathering brought together more than 1,000 activists in Washington, D.C., resulting in 17 foundational principles that still guide the global environmental justice movement.
What is the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit?
This type of community energy model allows renters and people without rooftop access to benefit from renewable energy generation.
Cities and counties in Georgia are required to update these long-term planning documents every five years to guide land use, housing, transportation, and community development.
What are Comprehensive Development Plans?
This Georgia Public Service Commissioner’s seat is set to be up for a regular election in November 2026, following the 2025 special elections.
Who is Tricia Pridemore?
In Georgia, many rural residents get electricity from these cooperatives rather than from Georgia Power.
What is an EMC (Electric Membership Corporation)?