Chandra Farley, Candidate for Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC)

The North GA Blue: Getting into Good Trouble podcast covers democratic politics in North GA, the 9th Congressional District, and across the state of Georgia. The podcast is in Q&A/Interview format with various democratic politicos including county chairs, democratic operatives, politicians, and more. It is our mission to deliver crucial information to our listeners in a timely manner as we fight for community values and principles in the 3rd most Conservative district in the state. Our website is: https://www.fcdpga.com/podcasts

Our guests highlight democratic activities and actions to work toward a Blue Georgia. The 9th Congressional District spans 20 counties across the region and covers a good deal of northern GA including Blue Ridge, Morganton, Fannin, Union, Banks, Athens/Clarke, Dawson, Elbert, Forsyth, Franklin, Gilmer, Habersham, Hall, Hart, Jackson, Lumpkin, Madison, Pickens, Rabun, Stephens, Towns, and White counties. 

Our democratic party podcast also disseminates information and interviews powerful Democrats across the state of GA working to overthrow the suppression tactics of the GOP and ensure democracy and our values, grassroots efforts, and goals remain intact. 

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Transcript

Meral Clarke: 0:17

Hello and welcome back to the North Georgia Blue Podcast produced and distributed by the Fannin County, Georgia Democratic Party. I'm your host Meral Clarke and we're getting into some good trouble today with our guest Chandra Farley, candidate for Public Service Commission district three in Metro Atlanta. Welcome to the show, Chandra. We're happy to have you with us today.

Chandra Farley: 0:42

Thanks so much, Meral. I'm really excited to be here on the North Georgia Blue Podcast.

Meral Clarke: 0:46

Oh, terrific. Thank you. Let's let our listeners know a little bit about you. Chandra is an activist at heart and credits her parents with instilling a sense of duty to always do what she can to advance justice and fairness with a passion for elevating the connection between environmental justice, strong communities and our daily lives. Shandra continues to build upon a career foundation in the design and construction industries. These intersections inform her perspective on energy and its impact on built in natural environments. Currently, Shandra serves as the CEO of Resolve a consulting practice with a mission to increase the impact of energy, climate and utility initiatives by centering equity. Shandra also founded the Good Energy Project with a vision to connect the transformational power of black women and their vote to the movement for equitable, clean energy. Well, thank you for all that you do, Chandra. We appreciate your servant leadership. So what is the Public Service Commission or PSC and why does it matter?

Chandra Farley: 1:56

The Public Service Commission is currently in Georgia an all Republican commission that is responsible for regulating the rates charged and the services provided by electricity, gas and telephone utilities operating in Georgia. So they are in charge of our utility bills.

Meral Clarke: 2:17

Gotcha. And what are the specific ways that the current all Republican I want to add commission again, has increased our bills harmed our health and protected the utility monopoly of Southern Companies, of which Georgia Power is a subsidiary?

Chandra Farley: 2:34

Georgia's all Republican Commission has been all about doing what the utilities want, building and profiting from large expensive over-budget projects, like plant Vogtle, which is now about seven years behind schedule, and about$15 billion over budget, but that total approaching $30 billion. So protecting our wallets has not been the priority. In 2019, they increased our bills by approving a rate increase that has been getting added to our bills starting in 2020. So that spread over three years. And they also voted to increase the fixed fee. And the fixed fee is a charge that goes on all of our bills. And sometimes that fee is even hidden. However, that is a fee that we pay, and that we have no control over no matter what we do to conserve energy. So we all know about ways to try to turn the lights off when we leave the room, turn the AC off when we you know leave the house, particularly in the summer, but the fixed fee takes none of that into account. And that is starting to make up a large portion of our monthly bills.

Meral Clarke: 3:55

Why do you suppose there's such a lack of transparency on our utility bills?

Chandra Farley: 3:59

Well, one, I think there's a lot of stigma around the bill, paying the light bill. Let's think about that first rate, I think historically, it has been something Wow, why can't such and such pay their light bill or your church might have a fund and they talk about people they've got to help pay the light bill. So it's been something where it's someone's fault for not working hard enough or not making enough money. And therefore when people look at the bill, or look at the light bill, it's about either you can pay it and you're blessed to have it on auto pay. You don't have to worry about it. Or you're struggling to pay your bills and the utility bill the light bill is a source of stress. And you may not be paying attention to all of those different rates and fees one because you may just you just may not know what they are. And two all you're worried about is how you're going to cover that amount you may Need to cover before you're gonna get a disconnection notice, which we know adds on more fees to your bills if you get disconnected. So I think sometimes, you know, our utility bills and other bills are just things where it's a burden. And it's something we don't want to talk about, because we feel like we don't have control over it. But what I like to tell people is that there are five people in Georgia, five Republicans in currently in Georgia, who make a decision about how much our utility bills are. And we need to be speaking up and talking to them and letting them know what their decisions are and how those decisions are having an impact on everyday Georgians.

Meral Clarke: 5:40

Does Georgia Power offer any programs for low income or individuals or underserved communities? Or are they just oblivious?

Chandra Farley: 5:49

There are some programs that support our seniors, once you are 65, there are senior discounts. What I have learned about that, in talking to a lot of our retirees and seniors across the state, is that let's look at federal government jobs or city jobs or others where you might be retiring at 55, or 56. So there's a big gap in your eligibility before you're able to benefit from those senior discounts. So that's one where we have a gap, too, there are a number of what we call income qualified programs, those programs that focused on those who may be classified as low income, that the utility will roll out every couple of years. But the issue becomes is that they're lagging in investment. And they're lagging in expansion. And they're lagging in consistency. And they are lagging in their ability to direct any of that investment to those communities that needed most Georgia ranks at the bottom of lists for energy efficiency programs, which is what we're talking about here, the kinds of programs that the utility can be rolling out to folks to help them manage their energy use, which helps them manage their bills. On the flip side, we consistently rank along with other states and cities, particularly in the south, for high energy burdens. energy burden is the ratio of household income to the amount of the utility bill. So the higher your utility bill, the lower your income, the higher your burden. And so we have a mismatch there, particularly when we know that utilities can be investing more money in programs like energy efficiency programs, that have the ability to help people better control their bills, save money on their bills, create healthier home environments, and also be good job creators. Energy efficiency has been one of the fastest growing job sectors across the nation. These are good thriving wage jobs. And these are really great small business entrepreneurship opportunities. But without the commission making decisions to help push the utility to increase those investments we'll continue to lag behind in the bottom 10 states relative to energy efficiency.

Meral Clarke: 8:25

It's quite a struggle, isn't it for for so many folks to pay their bills these days? Certainly Georgia is not really instituting any clean or renewable energy programs at the moment with the Republican leadership. What are your thoughts on how we can make that more of a priority?

Chandra Farley: 8:43

This is where we talk about protecting the utility monopoly a bit. Georgia has become actually a really important state for solar, because of utility scale solar. So these are the big solar farms that you see, if you're driving across the state, particularly down around South Georgia, sometimes they're on both sides of the interstate, but that power? Well, it's great to help us with our greenhouse gas emissions reductions that do contribute to climate change, that power is generally going to the utility. What we are looking for more investment in that we could be doing a better job around clean energy, like solar is making sure we are creating pathways and programs that allow all Georgians to benefit from clean energy like solar. So for instance, there are opportunities for neighborhoods and towns to create their own small scale solar and sell subscriptions of that solar to people in the community or sell that solar directly to people in the community that has a day direct benefit by being able to not only lower people's bills, but help people stabilize their energy cost over a longer term. We have laws and Public Service Commission decisions active right now that actively block that opportunity. Also, we can look at rooftop solar. And this is an opportunity for people to put solar on their homes or on their businesses. The reason that can work from an economic perspective is because when people have solar on their homes, you produce more you might be storing with batteries, which we need more of that extra energy goes back to the grid. So the utility will charge you about 12 cents per kilowatt hour for the electricity they give you. But if you are sending electricity back to them, they're only going to give you about three cents. Yeah, so what we want is what's called net metering. And instead of expanding opportunities like this, that can really generate good clean energy, economic development, the commission has put arbitrary caps on people's ability to benefit from that kind of mechanism. They put a 5000 home cap on that a couple of years ago, and there has been a lot of work from advocates trying to get that increased. And it's, it's been very difficult. So these are the kinds of things that the Commission is doing to block Georgians abilities to control their own bills to block Georgians abilities to benefit from the clean energy economy.

Meral Clarke: 11:44

That's not surprising, because we know that most Republicans, I would say 99.9% are obstructionist. So it's good to know that we have people like you out there that are looking out for individuals and for residential communities. Speaking of which, I wanted to ask you about the report that came out recently about Vine City in West Atlanta about them being designated as a superfund waste site by the EPA. Can you elaborate a bit on that? And is it unusual for residential communities to be designated as EPA Superfund sites, once again, an underserved community and people of color who are suffering, so tell us more.

Chandra Farley: 12:27

So what we are looking at with that issue on the west side of Atlanta, is one yes, that is a residential area. But the history of that area has a history of industry that used to be there some time ago, that left heavy metal contamination.What is happening is that soil contamination by heavy metals is really serious. And if you're thinking about gardening in these areas, if children are playing in your yard, this can be dangerous because it is contaminated. And it was actually a professor at Emory professor at the School of Public Health, who decided to investigate levels of this heavy metal, particularly around the urban garden movement, lots of urban gardens and urban agriculture movement in metro Atlanta. And so it became a really community based research project. What we have now with the designation of this Superfund site is one an opportunity to call attention to this issue. It is Atlanta's Flint, if you will the level of seriousness of this issue. But what the Superfund designation does bring with it is the funding necessary to start remediating the soil. And as someone who has partnered with communities on the west side of Atlanta, done community gardening projects, a lot of what you saw was raised bed construction out of necessity, because the growers know, the people that live in the community know what was going on with the soil. But now they have the power of the data and the power of this designation, to be able to drive the resources they need to the area to move through this remediation process. I've talked to some folks who have been watching this going on, and this is what we talk about when we're talking about environmental justice, right? Environmental Justice is the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people in these kinds of decisions. And so we've identified the issue. We've got a strategy for remediation in place. And now we'll hear from communities that wow you know, the people even working on this don't come from Georgia. They don't come from from our neighborhood. So when we're talking about environmental issues, when we're talking about issues of clean energy, at the intersection of justice at the intersection of equity, we have to be able to look at the whole issue. And make sure not only are we valuing and prioritizing the voice of the people in the communities, because we know the people closest to the problem are the people that are going to have the best solution. Yeah, that's what we really want to make sure that we continue in this process. And unfortunately, with the history of industry, in our nation, with the history of toxic waste facilities being disproportionately placed in black communities, communities of color, rural communities, these types of contamination issues are something we will be dealing with for a long time, we can look at the coal ash issue here in Georgia, which is an issue that stays in front of the commission, particularly the related to whether they are going to allow Georgia Power to collect their costs to clean up the coal ash issue, that is their mess. And whether or not they're going to be able to charge ratepayers, they're going to whether or not they're going to be able to charge us for that. So these are the kinds of decisions that also come before the public service commission issues around our land issues around our water and issues. And both of those together, you know, also become issues around being able to protect our air.

Meral Clarke: 16:31

So is Georgia Power doing anything on their own? I guess they won't do. They won't spend any money on this because it's so expensive, without passing it on to the ratepayers and the taxpayers. Have they instituted any programs to clean up this waste on their own? Or are they going to have to be forced to do it.

Chandra Farley: 16:52

And coal ash includes toxic leftovers from combustion at coal burning generating plants, just so we have a level set about what that is. Georgia has historically had some of the largest carbon polluters in the south, and that needs to be cleaned up. It leeches into our groundwater. And the debate around this becomes whether or not Georgia Power should leave its ash in unlined pits, or whether those pits have to be lined.

Meral Clarke: 17:30

Can you explain the difference between the two before you move on?

Chandra Farley: 17:34

Yeah, lines pits are essentially a way to protect the ground and ultimately the ground water from that contamination. So without those protective liners underneath, we run the risk of that ground water being contaminated by that coal ash waste.

Meral Clarke: 17:56

So are they using lined pits or no,

Chandra Farley: 17:59

no. And so why am I not surprised? Yeah. So they have actually, they've asked regulators to let them continue to leave that, at least the ones they've started already in unlined pits. Many advocates want Georgia Power to dig up the ash, dry it out, and move it further away from water to landfills with protective liners underneath. And we're talking about toxic waste, like mercury, arsenic, and other pollutants that could be seeping into our groundwater and spilling into rivers. And we've already got neighbors in one rural Georgia community that are suing their electric utility for contaminating the groundwater wells. So Georgia Power is taking cleanup steps in some cases, but not taking the kinds of steps they could be taking at other steps. They are estimating that their plans are going to cost about $9 billion. And it's Georgia Power customers that are likely going to fit the bill

Meral Clarke: 19:09

That is terribly unfair. Can you explain the difference between monopoly utility like Georgia Power and electric membership cooperatives or EMCS? What are the differences there?

Chandra Farley: 19:21

Georgia Power is what's referred to as an investor owned utility. Investor owned utilities make money for their shareholders. Electric membership cooperatives are actually nonprofit utilities. So people who pay their bills aren't just ratepayers, you are actually a member owner, because you are a member of a cooperative and electric membership cooperatives can sometimes come with benefits like a return on earnings instead of going to shareholders. It goes to the members of the electric cooperatives.

Meral Clarke: 19:55

So EMCS are definitely preferable. In my book.

Chandra Farley: 19:59

Electric memberrship cooperatives are a great model. I've done a lot of work with a lot of advocates across the south and across the nation on democratizing our electric membership cooperatives, meaning that just like a lot of people don't know what the public service commission is or what it does. A lot of people don't know that they are member owners of their electric membership cooperative, not just customers. That means that they are able to vote on certain items when they come up at their annual meetings. And we see practices from some electric membership cooperatives of not transparently communicating certain votes or annual meetings to their members. Another big opportunity with electric membership cooperatives that we would love to have Georgia Democrats step up and run, if you are served by electric membership cooperative, is to run for seats on these electric cooperative boards. That's really a great opportunity for us for electric membership cooperative boards to also help advance the clean energy and renewable energy opportunities across the state. So love the electric membership cooperative model, definitely lots of work still to be done to make sure electric membership cooperatives are sticking to those seven cooperative principles. So that's the difference between investor owned utilities like Georgia Power, or electric membership cooperatives. And we also have a third type of utility here in Georgia, and those are municipal utilities. So those are the ones that are run by the cities. So sometimes those municipal utilities are run by the city council. Sometimes there are separate utility Commission's for those municipal utilities. Those are also opportunities where we need more progressive leadership in making those decisions that because we know that the people who hold the power around directing investment and holding the purse strings are the people that can advance us more aggressively towards a clean energy future, or stall our progress.

Meral Clarke: 22:02

Is Georgia Power, or the State of Georgia doing anything right now to mitigate climate change? I'm going to guess no. And that's pretty much an educated guess. But I want you to confirm that

Chandra Farley: 22:16

We do not as a state have any state wide, comprehensive clean energy policy. There have been moves by advocates, I've been a part of these coalition's that have worked to put forward 100% clean energy bills, statewide emissions reductions targets, we don't have that as a state right now. So that is largely left up to our utilities. And that is also left up to a lot of cities. So Georgia has a few cities that have made commitments to transition to 100%, clean energy, Atlanta, Savannah, Athens, Augusta was moving on their way. I believe there's it's official, Decatur is considering making this adoption. But what's really important is not just the resolution, you've got to have a budget line item. Because what we have seen with a lot of these commitments is we spend a lot of time we the royal we advocates technical assistance experts, see the sustainability staff spend a lot of time co creating with community on language to make sure that not only are we addressing climate reduction targets, such as a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, but we're also putting a lens of equity on these targets. So talking about things like workforce development, opportunities for cities to run their own energy efficiency programs, which we know are job creators, like we've talked about, men have the ability to also lower these energy burdens. So what we are seeing as we're seeing across the nation, quite frankly, is that cities really have to step up and lead. And what I'm really excited about this year, is that we have a number of cities across Georgia, including some of those who have made these 100% clean energy commitments, who are coming together to speak up at the Public Service Commission about what their needs are, and what we need from the Public Service Commission to help them move their clean energy goals forward as well. Not just getting the public participation, we want the individuals to come and speak out because like we were saying the people closest to the problem are the people that have the best solutions. And we also have to remember that people's lived experience is expertise, just like those who are technical experts present their expert testimony. So really excited about this movement, particularly with our cities coming together with community members to be more active in front of the Public Service Commission particularly do during the process, that is called the Integrated Resource Plan that is kicking off in front of the commission here very soon.

Meral Clarke: 25:07

Fantastic, which is why we need Democrats, yes. All of these commissions running our businesses. So what are your top three priorities? If you're elected, what are your top three priorities once you get on the PSC?

Chandra Farley: 25:22

Priority number one is to expand opportunities for public participation in these energy planning, and utility decision making processes. We have historically had a commission this all Republican commission that has consistently put profit over people. And it is critical for us that if we are going to have an understand that we need a fundamental shift in how our energy decisions are being made, that fundamental shift has to include the voice of the people who are closest to the problem, closest to the burden and currently being locked out of access to the benefits of a transition to a clean energy economy. So more town halls, the Public Service Commission is at 244, Washington Street and downtown Atlanta, a lot of these hearings are at nine or 10am. In the morning, people gotta go to work. So we need a commission that is willing to host meetings in the evening, we need a commission who was willing to go into other parts of the state where these other commissioners are representing their districts are cut, you know, residing in their districts. So we need a more accessible commission. So that is number one that I want to be a champion for, as the people's Commissioner, making space for the voice of the people who have short term, and sometimes immediate impacts immediately impacted by commission decisions. So that's one, two, I want to be the energy efficiency commissioner, there is absolutely no reason that Georgia should be at the bottom of lists for energy efficiency, we should be leading, we have seen the commission take action related to utility scale solar, and push in Georgia, from nowhere into a Top 12 Top 11 state for utility scale solar, because who does that mostly benefit big developers, and the utility. So we can do the same for energy efficiency, we can push the utility to increase their investment in energy efficiency. And when we increase our investment in energy efficiency, we are increasing good thriving wage job opportunities for Georgians, we are increasing opportunities for new business in Georgia. So definitely, energy efficiency is something that I really want to push forward. And three, we got to stop the bleeding on Plant Vogtle. We have to shift the burden of these unfair rate increases from our residential ratepayers who are currently bearing the burden for the mismanagement of this project, the gross mismanagement of this project back to the company and the shareholders.

Meral Clarke: 28:19

Well, that sounds fair. And what are your thoughts on Plant Vogtle and nuclear energy? I wanted to ask you about that as well.

Chandra Farley: 28:27

This is a big debate. We all know and I have had conversations and gotten insight from both sides. And I do not think that nuclear is the solution. One, and this is something that I heard Al Gore, say at one of his Climate Reality trainings that I've went through some years ago, when people talk about nuclear, you say, Well, how much is it gonna cost? I don't know. Well, how long is it going to take? Well, I don't know. And we see that playing out right here in Georgia, not just with the current construction of Vogtle units three and four. But we saw the same thing play out 30 years ago with Vogtle units one and two. And when people talk about clean emissions free energy from nuclear, they are not talking about the burden of that production on the communities that surround those nuclear power plants, the water, they have massive amounts of water that utilities have to draw to put into those cooling towers, that contamination that happens to the water to the soil, where it's difficult for people to grow their food, where people shouldn't be fishing in the water, and the long term health impacts that we see related to the production of this type of energy. The costs, the full spectrum of costs from the economic, to the environmental, to the social, the impact on actual people is just not necessary, particularly in Georgia, where this is a place where we could be tripling our investment in solar, we could be tripling our investment in energy efficiency, we could be tripling our investment in batteries, we should not have to harm our neighbor to produce energy.

Meral Clarke: 30:30

I agree with you completely. And thank you for that. Is this your first foray into politics? And if so, why did you decide to run and why now?

Chandra Farley: 30:40

I am a first time candidate. Congratulations. Yes, definitely. It's interesting to talk to voters and colleagues around was like, wow, statewide first time, hmm. Like I'm going all in, I'm going all in. I was brought up in a civil rights oriented environment. I was raised by my grandparents, and they remember not being able to vote, they went to segregated high schools. They're segregated schools. You know, those school houses later were my elementary schools. So having this grounding, and civil rights and social justice is something that has always been a part of my life, our family business was a restaurant. And we were closed on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. And sometimes I had a cousin who was the vice mayor, or people from our church, you know, would run for city council. And sometimes they would use our restaurant for meetings. So I've been knocking doors and canvassing and around the process of democracy for a really long time. And so the more I did work on energy and environment, and started to learn about the Public Service Commission, I felt like this was my place. For too long, the Public Service Commission has made decision after decision that increases our bills, harms our health, and protects the utility monopoly. And I am running to change that. I want to be the people's Commissioner, I want to make space for the voice of all Georgians, because these are the people who feel the burden of commission decisions on their households, on our incomes and on our future. And that is what I will bring to the Public Service Commission.

Meral Clarke: 32:20

Well, it's so important to vote on the ballot from the top down, all the way down all the way down the ballot, because the Public Service Commission is such a vital part of our everyday lives. And we certainly need people like you who are interested in helping out individuals instead of subsidizing corporations. So if anyone wants to get involved with your campaign, donate or volunteer, where would you send them?

Chandra Farley: 32:50

First, I would have them start at Chandra. For georgia.com. When you go to Chandra, for georgia.com, you will see a link to donate, we'd love to have you on Team Chandra. With a donation no matter how small, there's also a link to join Team Chandra. And that is where you can sign up to be alerted about volunteer opportunities, maybe to join me out at some of the festivals that we're getting ready to be able to enjoy for the first time and a couple of years this spring. So start there at Chondra for georgia.com. You can also follow Chandra number four, Georgia, P S. C, on Facebook, and on Twitter. But all of those links to my social media are on the website. So I would definitely start by checking out Chandra for GA Shaundra f o r georgia.com.

Meral Clarke: 33:48

Terrific and Chandra spelled CHANDRA. I just wanted to make that clear.

Chandra Farley: 33:54

Yes, thank you very much for all of our listeners.

Meral Clarke: 33:57

And finally, and I ask all my guests this question they always tell me it's the hardest one to answer. Tell us a fun fact about yourself something just about you that doesn't necessarily have to do with your campaign, your candidacy, your work with all that you do to maintain and ensure environmental justice. Tell us something just about

Chandra Farley: 34:18

Yeah, so I was a cheerleader. And that was my Chandra career for about a decade. I started cheerleading probably when I was four years old and I cheered all the way through college I cheered a little while at the University of Kentucky and I worked for a spirit leadership company. So I taught cheerleading camps in the summer. I coached competitive cheerleading in the fall and I judged cheerleading competitions in the spring so year round cheerleading and all the time and that is how I made my living for a long time. Those are still some of my best friends that I made during those years. There will definitely be some good cheering going on as we get out get out on the campaign trail.

Meral Clarke: 35:01

Fantastic. Well, you've got all those units and people built in to your campaign. Right? There'll be cheering you all the way. Well, thank you Chandra for joining us today and sharing more about your critical work to maintain our environment and mitigate climate change. I'm Meral Clarke and on behalf of our team, I'd like to thank everyone for listening to the North Georgia Blue Podcast. To learn more about us and the work that we're doing, visit us online at Fannin County, Georgia democrats.com. Share the North Georgia Blue Podcast with your friends and family be sure to subscribe and follow and if you enjoy our podcasts be a founding patron and friend of the show at North Georgia blue podcast.com/patron Now with three different giving levels to choose from offering cool swag recognition on the show and website and valuable gift cards to help us continue getting into more good trouble.