Federal officials tout Middle GA gas plants as part of Trump’s ‘energy dominance’
Three federal energy officials visited Georgia this month to celebrate projects they said prove President Donald Trump’s energy agenda is working. However, environmental groups say the same agenda is stripping away important air quality and public health protections.
The officials attended groundbreaking ceremonies at two natural gas power plants — Georgia Power’s Plant Wansley in Heard County and Oglethorpe Power’s Smarr Combined-Cycle plant in Monroe County — as part of a broader push by the Trump administration to promote its “energy dominance” policy, which aims to expand domestic energy production by removing federal regulations officials say are standing in the way.
Both plants are expected to begin operating in 2029.
What is ‘energy dominance’?
On his first day in office, Trump signed two executive orders laying the groundwork for that deregulation. The first declared a National Energy Emergency. The second, “Unleashing American Energy,” directed federal agencies to identify and remove regulations the administration said were slowing energy production.
Acting DOE Under Secretary Alex Fitzsimmons, who attended the Plant Wansley groundbreaking, described Trump’s approach as replacing years of “energy subtraction” with “energy addition.” He cited a DOE study projecting the U.S. would lose 100 gigawatts of reliable power generation by 2030 under the previous administration’s path, which set the retirement of dozens of coal and gas plants in favor of renewable energy sources like wind and solar.
Fitzsimmons also tied the new Georgia plants directly to the administration’s competition with China over AI infrastructure, arguing the country needs a massive expansion of reliable power to “win the AI race.”
“We might have to build another 100 gigawatts of reliable, dispatchable generation and associated infrastructure to win the AI race against China, restore manufacturing, create jobs and economic development in local communities,” Fitszimmons said at the Plant Wansley groundbreaking ceremony.
The DOE recently issued a $26.5 billion federal loan — the largest in DOE history outside of emergency times, according to the agency — to Georgia Power and its sister utility Alabama Power. The money will fund more than 16 gigawatts of new and upgraded power generation across both states, including the Wansley natural gas plant.
Federal officials said the loan is expected to save Georgia and Alabama ratepayers more than $7 billion by reducing the interest costs utilities would otherwise pass on to customers. Southern Company, Georgia Power’s parent, has also announced multiyear rate freezes.
What ‘energy dominance’ means at the EPA
The rules and regulations targeted by the Trump administration included some that had been on the books for decades.
The most sweeping change came to the National Environmental Policy Act, known as NEPA, a 1969 law that required federal agencies to assess the environmental impact of major projects — including new power plants — before approving them. In February 2025, the Council on Environmental Quality removed its NEPA implementing regulations from the federal code, an end to what the White House called “NEPA’s regulatory reign of terror.”
The administration also moved to roll back EPA greenhouse gas emissions limits for power plants, and exempted 68 coal-fired power plants from pollution limits on mercury and arsenic — including Plant Bowen near Euharlee and Plant Scherer in Middle Georgia, both owned by Southern Company, parent company of Georgia Power.
The administration also has proposed revoking the 2009 endangerment finding that required the EPA to treat greenhouse gases as a threat to public health.
John Eunice, the EPA’s Associate Administrator of Congressional and Intergovernmental Relations, attended the Smarr groundbreaking in Monroe County. He said EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin was directed on day one of the Trump administration to identify regulations standing in the way of energy production.
“Over the past year plus, we at the EPA have rolled back numerous burdensome regulations that were posing issues for power plant construction and proving to have very little positive impact on human health and the environment, along with our partners in the interior and the Department of Energy,” Eunice said. “This (natural gas project) is an example of just one of the many projects happening all around the country … to ensure that we have power to dominate in the world stage and also from an economic development standpoint.”
The rollbacks are part of a broader and explicit reversal of the previous administration’s energy priorities.
Through his “Unleashing American Energy” executive order, Trump explicitly terminated what he called the “Green New Deal,” ended federal subsidies for wind and solar and directed agencies to pause clean energy funding — while ramping up oil, gas and coal production under what the White House calls a “drill, baby, drill” agenda.
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine — the body Congress established to advise the federal government on science — concluded in September 2025 that the evidence linking greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels to harm to human health and the environment “is beyond scientific dispute.”
Environmental groups and legal experts say the NEPA reviews, emissions limits and pollution controls the administration rolled back weren’t bureaucratic obstacles, but rather public health protections.
Legal experts warn the rollbacks could have significant long-term consequences for how the environmental impacts of major projects are assessed. Critics also note that the mercury and arsenic limits the administration exempted power plants from were adopted because those metals are linked to brain damage in children, cancer, cardiovascular disease and birth defects.
Critics aren’t convinced
The Sierra Club, the oldest and one of the largest grassroots environmental advocacy organizations in the U.S., disputes that the administration’s energy agenda is lowering costs for everyday people. The Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows electricity prices rose 3.9% in 2025, outpacing the overall inflation rate of 2.7%.
The Sierra Club also points to the administration’s use of emergency orders to force aging coal plants to stay open past their planned retirement dates — costs it says are being passed directly to ratepayers.
On health, critics point to consequences already being felt in Georgia.
Plant Scherer, located in Juliette about 20 miles northwest of Macon, is one of the 68 coal plants the Trump administration exempted from mercury and arsenic pollution limits, despite the plant’s long history of health complaints from nearby residents. Dozens of Juliette residents filed lawsuits alleging coal ash from the plant contaminated their drinking water and caused cancers, neurological damage and other serious illnesses.
The Sierra Club said the exemption will allow Scherer to operate for years past its planned retirement date while releasing more pollution into the surrounding community.
The Southern Environmental Law Center has challenged the air permit for new gas and oil units at Plant Bowen — the other Southern Company facility already exempted from mercury and arsenic pollution limits — arguing the expansion will generate ozone pollution that worsens air quality for millions of Atlanta-area residents. Ozone pollution is linked to asthma attacks, reduced lung function, heart problems and premature death, according to the EPA.
SELC has also filed multiple lawsuits against the administration, including one challenging the EPA’s termination of its Environmental and Climate Justice Block Grant program, and another seeking to restore $7 billion in solar grants that would have reduced energy costs for low-income households — including a Georgia program that had signed up nearly 500 low-income households for no-cost solar within 24 hours of its launch.
