by Judy Frank
posted April 18, 2008
) Photo by Wesley Schultz Sen. Jeff Mullis |
Sen. Mullis told SETPAC members that he played no part in efforts to alleviate Georgia’s current water shortage by tapping into the river that lies just north of the current Tennessee-Georgia line.
“Some Atlanta legislators did that,” the North Georgian said, laughing. “I told them that we need to take this battle to the football field. That’s the only battle with Tennessee I’m interested in.”
Earlier this year, the Georgia House and Senate both passed resolutions aimed at creating a commission to work with Tennessee and North Carolina officials to redraw Georgia's northern border at the 35th parallel.
The effort resurrected a decades-old battle over whether surveyors made a mistake when drawing Georgia’s border, putting it one mile south of the actual boundary as defined in an 1802 charter.
Sen. Mullis said he wants to work with Chattanoogans, not fight with them – particularly on efforts to build a high-speed Maglev train that would run between Atlanta and Chattanooga.
He is also a proponent of reducing congestion at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport by diverting some traffic to the airport in Chattanooga, which is underutilized.
The projects are compatible, said Sen. Mullis, who serves as chairman of the Georgia state Senate’s Transportation Committee.
The Maglev train, which would travel at speeds of about 250 miles an hour, would run from Atlanta to Lovell Field, he said. That would enable air travelers to leave their planes in Chattanooga, pick up their luggage and travel the rest of the way to Atlanta by rail.
He said the United States is woefully behind other nations – including China, which has near-Third World conditions in areas such as environmental protection – in technology.
During a trip to Shanghai, he said, even his cell phone worked better there than it does at home.
But he said he was most impressed by Shanghai’s Maglev train, a major asset in that city’s efforts to provide transportation for its 16 to 18 million residents.
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