It’s Time to Claim Power 4 Southern People NOT Southern Company
Ending the climate crisis centering racial and economic justice is rooted in the southern states of Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi as Arm in Arm kicks off its flagship campaign. Customers and residents within Southern Company’s three-state footprint kicked off a Power 4 Southern People NOT Southern Company week of planning and actions to hold company CEOs and legislators accountable, recruit people into the fight, and build relationships across our states. Alabama Power, Georgia Power, and Mississippi Power (each a subsidiary of Southern Company) together with the legislators and enablers in their pockets are actively denying the climate crisis and dismantling our democracy and reproductive rights. From voting rights, anti-trans and LGBTQ bills, including threats to Roe v Wade; the same legislators that are stripping away our civil rights across every frame are perpetuating inequitable energy outcomes that are hurting families and communities across the south.
“Southern Company, the parent company of MS Power, has a long documented history of placing profits before people. From needlessly clinging to the use of dirty coal that poisons our groundwater with five times the safe amount of Lithium like Plant Daniel in Escatawpa, to attempting to cover up its malfeasance in the failed Kemper Plant and passing billions of dollars in cost overruns on to ratepayers, to using its money and lobbyists to influence legislators to slow the growth of clean solar energy, Southern Company has shown itself to be a threat to Southern people.”
“Southern Company and its operating companies have contributed more to the climate crisis than many countries have. They are also one of the leading companies in lobbying against just and ambitious climate action, not to mention supporting anti-democratic legislation in our states. Southern Company has a moral and ethical responsibility to decarbonize much faster and more equitably than its current plans. That is why we are calling for Southerners to rise up and fight back with us. We are demanding that Southern Company stop being an obstacle to climate action. We refuse to comply with the tyranny of the status quo.” - Michael Hansen, GASP
“If you want to understand how private industry and government collude to oppress and poison their own residents, constituents, and customers, you must look to the current working model and relationship Southern company has in three separate states. Our communities are under attack on their utility bills, environment, and future when CEOs and legislatures have so much power and influence and no adequate oversight.” - Lindsay Harper, Arm in Arm
We are of all colors, ages, races, religions, genders, backgrounds and abilities who want to protect the people and places we love.
We believe everyday people can identify solutions for themselves and their communities. And across Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi we are working together and sharing leadership to prioritize equitable solutions that address the climate crisis. For decades, our legislators have acted against the best interests of residents and constituents and instead prioritized the dividends of private industry. We believe our energy systems should support the health, safety and well-being of our communities, and not extract our wealth or threaten our well-being. To get there, we want to shift power into the hands of our communities to determine a clean and just energy future and to shift power away from the hands of shareholders and CEOs of Southern Company. And unlike their enablers, we do not take money from fossil fuel and other extractive corporations or their executives.
“As an intervenor on the net-metering docket currently pending before the Mississippi Public Service Commission, EEECHO is aggressively advancing the need for community solar and incentives for transitioning to renewable energy. However, Mississippi Power Company, a subsidiary of the Southern Company, continues to engage in race and class baiting, They’re blocking any substantive rule with false claims that net-metering would result in a cost shift to poor, minority ratepayers. They’re using the very population they’ve systemically harmed most as pawns in a shameful effort to maintain their profit. Low-income communities of color would greatly benefit from transitioning to solar. But the Southern Company’s moral turpitude and recklessness continue to wreak havoc on the most vulnerable.” - Kathy Egland, EEECHO
The Power 4 Southern People NOT Southern Company campaign team put our words to action for a week of planning and action, May 23-26, 2022. This was a week of important decisions and conversations being held in Georgia such as the Georgia primary elections, the Integrated Resource Process (IRP) hearings, and the Southern Company annual shareholders meeting. The goal was to maintain a constant presence throughout the week to put Southern Company on notice of our campaign, and make the connection between monopoly utility companies, the legislators in their pockets and the shareholders they're all working for. People from Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, New York, and Tennessee, joined forces in acts of civil disobedience to show solidarity by participating in a candlelight vigil to honor each other and the collective impacts on our communities, light projections on the State Capitol and Southern Company CEO offices with key justice-centered messaging, and a banner drop reading “We Deserve a Liveable Future.” The largest days of actions were a rally outside, strategic meeting attendance at the Southern Company shareholders meeting at Callaway Gardens in Pine Mountain, GA on Wednesday 5/25 and a rally and mutual aid support to the houseless in the area outside the IRP hearings at the Georgia Public Service Commission on Thursday 5/26.
On Wednesday our multi-state team confronted local sheriffs outside the Callaway Gardens entrance while trying to drop off our team members holding shareholder proxies on the property. We were not allowed to enter the parking lot, were threatened with arrest, and were forced to move across the street for the rally. When we were able to send in our shareholder proxy holders from Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi, they were temporarily detained, blocked and flanked by police cars while their rightfully attained proxy documents and IDs were taken from them and passed around by the sheriffs. Once they were finally let into the building to attend the meeting, law enforcement was not truthful about the intimidation tactics they used on the small group.
Southern Company Annual Shareholder Meeting, Q&A Period
During the question and answer portion of the meeting, our team members asked questions to Southern Company CEO, Tom Fanning. In a particular question about contamination from a Mississippi shareholder, Tom Fanning immediately shut down the question, told them they were wrong and moved on to the next question. This unfortunate exchange between a shareholder and the Southern Company CEO is indicative of the relationship between monopoly utility companies and the environmental justice communities where they employ their dirty energy practices; time and time again, the decisions propelling the dirty energy economy — the extraction and burning of fossil fuels and other natural resources — sacrifice those most vulnerable.
“This company for those of you that don’t know it as well as perhaps others operates effectively in every state in the United States. We make, move, and sell energy. Not just electricity and natural gas and maybe one day hydrogen. And we define what we do by providing clean, safe, reliable and affordable energy for the benefit of customers in the middle of everything that we do. And good heavens! The performance of this company, as measured by total shareholder return, has been doing great.”
Developers and Manufacturers often destroy natural resources and pollute air, streams, oceans, and land. Destruction of natural resources greatly contributes to climate change, and pollution from these projects is often detrimental to the lives of those who live and work nearby. Plans are seldom altered or halted to protect those whose health is negatively affected. This must change. If not, days on earth for man are limited. Emily Gaddis - EEECHO
On Thursday, we turned up the heat by continuing our presence outside of the Georgia Public Service Commission to draw attention to the IRP and its connection to Georgia Power. Partners came together to provide mutual aid to the houseless living across the street and in the immediate footprint of the State Capitol, Atlanta City Hall, and the Georgia Public Service Commission. Because we put impacted people and communities first, we thought it important to take care of those in need while we disrupted their environment during the rally. At the same time, others in the group rallied, held signs, and passed out flyers to PSC staff and passers-by to share information about how people are impacted by decisions made at the IRP and why their utility bills are so high. At the end of the rally, four police officers were dispatched to confront partners that had written messages for those coming in and out of the PSC in sidewalk chalk. This was a clear display of law enforcement protecting profits instead of people.
Profit-obsessed corporations and the politicians who do their bidding have used, abused and discarded our communities. They tell us that some communities must choke on dirty air for others to put food on the table, that we must choose between a stable climate and a robust economy, between “us” and ”others.” Instead, we must answer the call for innovative, ambitious solutions to create a government that works to protect all people and all of life on earth.
It’s unfortunate that Southern Company customers have not benefited as much as the shareholders have. They are one of seven utility holding companies that shut off more than 100,000 customers' electricity during 2020 and 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic. The disproportionate energy burden in the south has contributed to high utility bills forcing too many to have to choose between food, gas, medicine and other critical things and paying their energy bills. We believe our energy systems should support the health, safety and well-being of our communities, and not extract our wealth or threaten our well-being. To get there, we want to shift power into the hands of our communities to determine a clean and just energy future and shift power away from the hands of shareholders and CEOs of Southern Company. Time and time again, the decisions propelling the dirty energy economy — the extraction and burning of fossil fuels and other natural resources — sacrifice the most vulnerable. We will not be silent while being abused.