Priority 02

Honest Oversight of Data-Center Power Expansion

On December 19, 2025, the current Public Service Commission voted 5–0 to approve Georgia Power’s nearly 10-gigawatt expansion to serve the data-center boom — a $16 billion plan that includes five new methane gas-burning power plants. Environmental groups have sued over the lack of customer protections, and the promised ratepayer credit of roughly $100 a year does not begin for three years.

Georgia should welcome data-center investment. It should not ask Georgia families to pay the power bill. Carolyn will demand real cost-benefit analysis, enforceable ratepayer protections, and transparent allocation of the cost of new generation between the industry that uses it and the households that already carry too much of the load.

Priority 03

Real Prudency Review on Plant Vogtle

Plant Vogtle units 3 and 4 have added roughly $14.38 to the average monthly bill and the prudency review that determines how much of the project’s cost overruns are recoverable from ratepayers is still pending before the Commission.

Carolyn will ensure the prudency review is rigorous, not rubber-stamped — because the standard for cost recovery is whether the spending was reasonable and prudent, not whether the utility wants to be made whole. Georgia ratepayers have already paid for the promise of nuclear. They should not pay for the mistakes on top of that.

Priority 04

Deliver for Rural Georgia

Rural electric cooperatives, rural broadband, and rural water service are the long-tail work of utility regulation — where the margins are thin, the distances are long, and the stakes are deeply personal for the families who depend on them. Rural Georgia has been an afterthought in state utility policy for too long.

As Senior Rural Broadband Advisor at the USDA Rural Utilities Service, Carolyn helped build the federal policies that bring rural America online — representing USDA on the American Broadband Initiative and on establishing the FCC Precision Agriculture Task Force. She will bring that same focus to the Public Service Commission.

Priority 05

A Reliable, Affordable Grid

Storm hardening, grid modernization, an all-of-the-above energy mix, and honest long-term planning — every major investment decision at the PSC is a tradeoff between reliability, affordability, and accountability. Carolyn will bring discipline to that tradeoff. No rubber stamps. No sweetheart deals. Just regulated utilities doing regulated work at rates Georgia families can afford.