Meet the PSC Candidate: Peter Hubbard
As Georgia voters prepare to elect members of the Public Service Commission, Encounter GA is committed to fostering informed and thoughtful participation in public life. Our Meet the Candidates series invites those running for office to share their perspectives on issues that matter deeply to Georgia’s Catholic community—and to all who care about environmental stewardship, justice, and the common good.
The Commission plays a vital role in shaping Georgia’s energy future by ensuring affordable and reliable service, addressing the challenges of climate change, and protecting God’s creation. To help voters engage with these responsibilities, we invited each candidate to respond to questions rooted in Catholic Social Teaching and aligned with our four core values: conservation, climate change, sustainability, and environmental justice/community impact.
We are pleased to share unedited responses below from Peter Hubbard (D). Our hope is that these reflections will help Catholics as they exercise faithful citizenship in the upcoming election.
Name: Peter Hubbard
District: District 3
Party: Democratic
Bio: Peter Hubbard is a clean energy advocate with 15 years of experience in the energy industry. Currently he works for a solar and battery storage company to build renewable energy projects. Before that he was a consultant preparing long-range power plans for electric utilities. In 2019, Peter formed a nonprofit to advocate for clean energy before the PSC, testifying to how Georgia can lower power costs with more clean energy, not fossil fuels. Peter is an energy expert who is prepared to work to lower our power bills in Georgia. Peter grew up in Tennessee, studied physics and math at the University of Memphis and economics at Johns Hopkins University, and is married with two children ages 4 and 9.
Conservation: Catholic tradition teaches that creation is a gift, and we are called to be good stewards of natural resources. How would you approach the Public Service Commission’s responsibility to protect Georgia’s land, water, and air while ensuring reliable infrastructure and energy development?
I feel strongly that a PSC Commissioner's duty through regulatory action is to be a good steward of nature and to conserve Georgia's land, water, air, and, most importantly, its people. Public health should be a key concern for any Commisioner, and I will put people at the center of my decision-making. Thankfully, the PSC can still ensure a reliable electric grid and affordable energy with responsible infrastructure development, even as it ensures a sustainable environment and future for all people in Georgia.
Climate Change: Pope Leo calls on all of us to confront the climate crisis with urgency and courage. What steps would you support as a Commissioner to transition Georgia toward cleaner energy sources and reduce our state’s contribution to climate change?
Pope Leo has been a notable advocate for confronting the climate crisis, as was his predecessor Pope Francis with his encyclical Laudato Si'. As a PSC Commissioner, I will continue to advocate for the clean energy resources that I have advanced for six years before the PSC with the nonprofit I formed (please visit the website at www.Georgia-CES.org). Thankfully, embracing clean energy also happens to strengthen the reliability of the grid and lower electricity costs even as it decreases harmful emissions that exacerbate the climate crisis. I am deeply concerned that we are building expensive natural gas-fired power plants for data centers without considering the costly impact it will have on the climate crisis.
Sustainability: Many Georgia families are concerned about rising energy costs. How would you ensure that decisions made by the Commission support long-term affordability and stability for both ratepayers and utility providers?
The best way to plan for an affordable, stable, and clean energy future for both ratepayers and the utility is the Integrated Resource Plan. The IRP is the 20 year projection, updated every three years, that helps to determine what power plants we should build and retire in Georgia. This plan must be balanced against the reality of energy and financial markets, federal regulation, state law, economic development, public health, and the environment. To find that balance requires an honest and transparent assessment of the benefits and the costs of each pathway we can choose for our energy future in Georgia. I am confident that the most affordable, reliable and sustainable energy pathway for Georgia is with renewable energy.
Environmental Justice / Community Impact: The Commission’s decisions can affect rural and urban communities in different ways. How would you ensure that the needs of local communities—including access, affordability, and infrastructure development—are heard and considered in Commission decisions?
The PSC conducts its meetings in Atlanta with a broadcast of meetings and hearings on YouTube. Members of the public are invited to provide comments at each meeting or hearing, but in many cases those comments go unheeded by the Commissioners at the PSC. It is important that we put the Public Service back into this Commission and listen to what the people are telling us. We must also get out of Atlanta and visit with the people of Georgia to hear their concerns and meet them where they are at. In this campaign I will have visited the cities of Albany, Columbus, Athens, Savannah and far flung counties like Rabun and Dade to get out the educational message of what the PSC is and does (it regulates your power bill and how we generate our electricity in this state) and that there is an election this November 4th with early voting October 14th.
