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A $2.8 million renovation project approved Monday for the Brunswick port could help Caterpillar export machines to overseas markets from its future plant near Athens, which broke ground last week.

The Georgia Ports Authority approved an array of improvements to roads, bridges, staging areas, and rail loading and offloading areas at the Colonel’s Island terminal. The facility is designed to handle autos and machine parts.

Caterpillar’s new plant in Oconee County is the latest step in the company’s long-term strategy to grow its position in Asia’s booming construction industry. Caterpillar intends to focus its plants in Asia on meeting demand in Asia, and use two new plants in the U.S. to service markets in the Americas and Europe.

Environmentalists have won a battle against a coal gasification power plant in Mississippi, but a Southern Co. unit announced plans to continue construction of that plant pending review by the state’s utilities commission.

The Mississippi Supreme Court reversed last week the approval of state permits for a coal gasification plant that’s being built at the headwaters of the Pascagoula River system. The plan is to create a 14,000-acre strip mine to extract lignite, a soft brown coal. The coal would be converted to a synthetic gas used to fuel the power plant being built at the site, according to several reports.

The court ruling in Mississippi follows two recent actions in Georgia on coal-fueled plants. One of them halted construction of a coal-fired plant in Early County. Another proposed plant, this one near Sandersville, may have been hobbled by operational changes being made by one investor.

The U.S. Senate on Wednesday approved a two-year federal transportation bill that protects transit and other surface transportation programs, and moves the funding debate to the House, where its future evidently is unclear.

The Senate bill has strong implications for the upcoming transportation sales tax referendum in Georgia. Federal transportation funding has been earmarked to help pay for projects that are on the project lists that voters will face on the July 31 ballot.

The Senate version is significantly different from a proposal in the House that has stalled amidst opposition. Among the critics of the House bill is MARTA’s board of directors, which voted last month to adopt a resolution opposing the bill on grounds that it would jeopardize MARTA’s ability to serve its customers, as well as all transit systems nationwide.

Will Shirley Franklin help with the conversion of Fort McPherson to civilian use?

That was the question posed by a handful of hopeful community leaders right after a development team was selected Tuesday by unanimous vote of the state authority overseeing the fort’s conversion. The team is comprised of two Atlanta-based companies, Cousins Properties and Integral Group, and is being led by Cleveland-based Forest City.

Franklin does have a record of coordinating the community engagement aspect of major developments. She honed those skills while creating the participation programs for women and minorities as a senior policy advisor with the Atlanta Committee for the 1996 Olympic Games.

Fort McPherson’s long waltz toward redevelopment for civilian use may take its pause Tuesday, if the fort’s state oversight authority votes to enter negotiations with a firm to retool the site.

The authority may vote to sign a deal with a joint venture that includes Cousins Properties. That said, the Cousins team got the nod from a review committee earlier this month but the state authority balked, deferring action until at least Tuesday in order to review written responses from the Cousins team and its rival joint venture, which includes Atlanta-based Carter.

One clear winner in the redevelopment process that started in 2005 is a team of Georgia Tech students, community activists and Georgia Stand-Up. This joint venture completed its own Fort McPherson Community Action Plan that has won two awards – one this month from the American Planning Association and one last autumn from APA’s Georgia chapter.