The Advisory Committee would be appointed by the Chairpersons of the House and Senate Natural Resources Committees, and would assist the Water Plan Study Committee in gathering information, preparing briefing documents, and preparing and evaluating proposed water recommendations. Realizing the seriousness of the current water crunch, House legislators hope these committees will be valuable sources of information and ideas as Georgia struggles to cope with the increased demands of growth, while preserving the quality of its streams for future generations. Even more tragic, many or even most of these deaths could have been prevented if detected early enough with the right screening methods. With this in mind, SB 98 makes an effort to ensure the proper screening of women at risk for this horrible disease. SB 98 therefore passed by a vote of 159-1.
Privacy is one of the most highly valued individual rights among Georgia's citizens.
While the Open Records laws are valuable tools for citizens' groups checking up on the operation of government, they have also become a means by which unscrupulous persons or corporations may request personal information on individual citizens from government records. To protect the people of this state, members voted 154-9 in favor of SB 205, which beefs up protections for personal information. An exemption was included allowing representatives of the media to obtain social security numbers and dates of birth upon request, but only under stiff penalties if that information were misused. A couple of amendments were offered to tweak the legislation into working order. The first ensured that school teachers and public school employees would remain exempt from any open records requests.