July 2010
Conservation Voters Legislative Year-in-Review:
2010: Water Matters
Milestone victories were achieved by South
Carolina's conservation community in 2010. Despite prevailing economic
and budget woes, several Common
Agenda Priorities came out on top, including e-waste recycling,
energy efficiency financing, and a compromise to finally permit how much
water can be taken from our lakes and rivers. Funding for the landmark
Conservation Bank and natural resource agencies like DNR was kept alive
during a bare-bones budget year. We were also successful in holding the
line on environmental protections as we defeated a Senate bill that
would have allowed mountains of out-of-state trash to be burned on South
Carolina soil.
Thursday, June 3 marked "Sine Die," the final day of the 2009-2010
legislative sessions — unpredictable at times due to intermittent
furlough weeks, overlapping committee meetings, and political
distractions. Fortunately, a sense of urgency prevailed in the waning
days of the session. Please read more about how the Conservation Agenda
fared below in our year-end Hotlist Wrap Up. (If you'd like to
receive a shortened version of this weekly email about the progress
of conservation legislation at the State House- when the
Legislature returns in January- please email us here.)
We'd like to thank everyone who supported the team effort to turn our
Common Agenda priorities into law: conservation-minded legislators,
active citizen volunteers and the members of Conservation Voters.
The conservation lobbyists were outstanding: Cary Chamblee (Sierra
Club & Wildlife Federation), Christie McGregor (The Nature
Conservancy of SC), Debbie Parker (Conservation Voters), and
Patrick Moore, Dennis Glaves, Cathy Warner, Merrill McGregor and
Hamilton Davis (Coastal Conservation League). Lobby Team
volunteers made the difference as they came to Columbia every Tuesday to
attend committee meetings, testify at hearings and speak with
legislators. We also want to recognize the citizens who continue to say
“no” to out of state trash, whether it’s opposing a mega dump in
Marlboro or an incinerator in Chester County.
We’d especially like to thank the 36 organizations listed below, that
represent more than 45,000 members, who supported our Conservation
Common Agenda. 2010 marks the sixth year that Conservation Voters
Education Fund has hosted the Agenda - and we are already looking toward
the 2011-2012 legislative session.
Our issue teams begin meeting in July, followed by the priority setting
session in September and the Conservation Leaders' Summit in November.
“Home visits” will be scheduled with legislators again in the fall and
we’ll be presenting the new Agenda to Senators and Representatives in
early January. Conservation Voters needs your continued help to pass
sensible laws to protect our environment and create a safe, clean and
healthy future for all South Carolinians. Every pro-conservation bill
passed today is a vote cast for our children's future. Join
us.
Sincerely yours,
Ann S. Timberlake
Executive Director
Protecting Clean Water
It's about bass, boats and Bubba. This year, after nearly four years of
negotiations, conservation organizations, DHEC, manufacturers,
utilities, farmers and water suppliers finally reached a compromise in
March. The water withdrawal permitting bill (S.452 by Sen. Paul Campbell) passed the Senate
unanimously in March after it was amended to maintain natural seasonal
flows in our rivers to protect fish and wildlife and natural wetlands,
which are important for recreation, flood protection and clean water
supplies. In June, the House passed the bill and the Governor signed it.
This legislation is an important first step to managing our state’s
waters and to negotiating with other states over shared water resources
like the Savannah, Catawba-Wateree, and Pee Dee rivers. S.452 gives
regulators a full picture of who is taking how much water, and when and
where that water is being used. The bill also 1) establishes a
permitting system for water withdrawals over three million gallons per
month, 2) sets seasonally variable minimum instream flows and 3) requires new users to have contingency plans so that they can cease
their consumptive use of water when stream flows get too low. We'd like
to thank Senators Paul Campbell, Chip Campsen, Wes Hayes, Vincent
Sheheen and Danny Verdin and Representatives Don Bowen,
Jeff Duncan and David Hiott for their leadership in guiding
this bill through the House and Senate.
Several water quality bills introduced by Rep. Mike Pitts also
progressed through the Legislature this year - but ultimately did not
pass. H.3603 would have required DHEC to create a standard procedure for emergency
notification about major spills in public waters. This bill passed
the House in 2009, but died in 2010 with Senate objections. H.4503 aimed to place restrictions on the use, sale or manufacture of
dishwashing detergents containing phosphates, a prevalent
pollutant in our waters. This bill passed the House unanimously in
March, then stalled in the Senate Medical Affairs Committee. H.4500 would have required inspection of septic tanks for compliance
with laws and regulations upon sale of a home. When the Realtors
Association opposed this bill, the House Environmental Affairs
Subcommittee buried it.
Another good bill died in the Senate Medical Affairs Committee without
even a hearing. The “Three Strikes” bill (S.1170 by Senators Paul Campbell and Thomas Alexander) would
have required sewage treatment facilities with three or more spills in
any 12-month period to implement recommendations resulting from a
mandated review by DHEC of their operations. Improving water quality
will remain a top priority of the conservation community next year, as
we continue to garner support for legislation to keep South Carolina's
waterways clean and healthy.
Preserving
our Natural Heritage
Conserving working farms, forests and wildlife habitat at discount
prices provides real value to both our economy and our quality of life.
Last year, the Conservation Bank’s budget was cut more than any
other state agency. H.4269 by Rep. Bill Herbkersman sought this year to eliminate the
“death clause” that currently zeroes the Bank’s budget when there are
across-the-board cuts to state agencies, but the House Ways and Means
Committee struck the language to delete the death clause on a voice
vote. The extension of the Sunset Provision from 2013 to 2023 was
retained in the House bill, but H.4269 stalled in the Senate Finance
Committee.
During House budget deliberations in March, Representatives Jim
Merrill’s and David Umphlett’s attempt to redirect $2 million
in funding to the Bank failed on a 68-45
vote, but the House ultimately provided $207,000 to keep its doors
open. The Senate added $1.5 million to help fund the $4.5 million in
commitments that the Conservation Bank had made before funding was cut
last year. Ambiguity about the source of this funding was clarified in
the very last days of the session. We want to especially thank Senators
Glenn McConnell, Hugh Leatherman and Chip Campsen, as well
as Representatives Bobby Harrell, Kenny Bingham and Dan Cooper for guaranteeing this much needed and greatly appreciated additional
funding for the Bank. The uncertainty about the Bank’s future existence
and the confusion surrounding its funding argue for removing both the
sunset and death clause provisions as soon as possible. The Conservation
Bank has proven its value and it deserves to be treated as a legitimate
state agency.
The conservation community also supported the prescribed fire bill, H.3924 by Rep. Jim Harrison. Controlled burns are an efficient, cost
effective and necessary forest management tool. This bill passed the
House in April but died in the Senate in May after Sen. Gerald Malloy raised objections about unforeseen consequences from reducing the
liability for landowners who conduct prescribed burns on their property.
In 2010, we also worked to prevent environmental rollbacks of land
protections. H.
4445, the Permit Extension Joint Resolution by Rep.
Dwight Loftis was ratified in May, and prevents approved, but
postponed development permits from lapsing or expiring until 2012. The
conservation community was successful in amending the bill to uphold
protections for marsh islands.
Fueling our Economic Engine
Forestry, agriculture, outdoor recreation and tourism contribute $30
BILLION and over a quarter million jobs annually to our state's
economy. Although the Department of Natural Resources, Forestry
Commission, Parks, Recreation and Tourism, and the Department of
Agriculture protect and promote the natural resources that deliver this
significant return on a relatively small investment of public dollars,
their combined funding comprises less than 1% of the state budget.
Conservation organizations defended the funding requests of these
agencies and worked to limit additional drastic cuts. We supported the
overrides of the Governor’s vetoes that threatened further cuts. The
House and Senate thankfully overrode those vetoes during the last weeks
of June. The conservation community remains concerned about the human
and natural resource fallout from the severe lack of funds at these
important agencies. We urge the Legislature to re-evaluate funding
for natural resource agencies next year and to recognize the
essential boost that they provide for our economy.
Stop
Wasting South Carolina
In April, thanks to the efforts of the conservation community and
several grassroots citizens groups, legislation that would have made
South Carolina the nation's pay toilet was defeated. S.1325 by Sen. Creighton Coleman aimed to undermine South Carolina’s
solid waste management plan by exempting large incinerators that
generate small amounts of power as “waste to energy” facilities. It
would have allowed the proposed Covanta incinerator in Chester County to
exceed the current 600 ton per day limit by purchasing unused capacity
from existing landfills. However, the net effect would have swapped
South Carolina’s future capacity with imported trash from northeastern
states. Covanta proposed to burn over half a million tons of trash per
year and leave behind almost 100,000 tons of unwanted ash waste and emit
dangerous dioxins and more mercury per unit of electricity than
coal-fired power plants. We'd like to thank the Senate Medical Affairs
Subcommittee (Sen. Wes Hayes- Chair, Kevin Bryant, Joel Lourie, Shane
Martin, Floyd Nicholson and Danny Verdin) who voted
unanimously to carry the bill over, effectively killing it for the year.
Conservation Voters will continue to monitor this issue in 2011 to
ensure that South Carolina does not become the nation's dumping or
burning ground. Promoting recycling, energy efficiency and renewables
are better and cleaner energy options for South Carolina than burning
out-of state garbage.
The passage of E-Waste Recycling (H.4093 by Rep. Dwight Loftis) was another step forward for a cleaner
and healthier South Carolina by keeping toxic heavy metals out of our
landfills and waterways. It requires electronics manufacturers who sell
most TVs, computers and printers to establish recovery programs at no
cost to the consumer. This legislation was supported by a powerful
coalition of manufacturers, the waste industry and the conservation
community. We’d like to thank Representatives Loftis and Laurie Funderburk for their leadership in guiding the bill to passage. The alcoholic bottle recycling bill (S.173 by Sen. Ray Cleary) failed, however, to pass out of the
Senate Judiciary Subcommittee. It would have established an on-site
recycling program for beer, wine and alcoholic liquor bottles and
required beverage permit holders to separate, store and provide for the
collection of containers sold on their premises. Concerns about the
economic impact of the bill on small bars prompted the Subcommittee to
kill the bill.
Re-Energizing
South Carolina
The cheapest kilowatt of electricity is the one that we don’t have to
build, and it’s also the one that we don’t have to purchase from
increasingly expensive and dangerous foreign sources. An energy
efficiency milestone was reached the last week of March when Governor
Sanford signed S.1096,
the Energy Efficiency Financing Bill, into law. This
legislation, which passed both the Senate and House almost unanimously,
will help pave South Carolina's way to a brighter energy future by
saving money for ratepayers, reducing energy use and creating local,
green jobs. Sen. Glenn McConnell’s bill enables electric
cooperatives and municipal electric systems to offer voluntary financing
and loans to their residential customers for weatherization,
insulation, and upgrading to more efficient heating and cooling systems.
Loans would be liens tied to the electric meters rather than to the
properties. The homeowner repays the loan over time on the utility bill
and if the property is sold, the new owner assumes the loan.
Conservation Voters applauds Mike Couick and the Electric Cooperatives
for leading this pioneering initiative in South Carolina.
Another good bill that would have encouraged greater energy efficiency
in South Carolina died in a House Subcommittee. H.4683, Municipal Financing Districts, by Rep. Shannon Erickson would have allowed counties and municipalities to issue bonds for the
purpose of making energy improvement loans to residents and businesses.
Loans would be repaid as a special line item on the property tax bill.
H.4683 was considered by a House Ways and Means Subcommittee in April.
No public testimony was taken and the committee adjourned debate on this
measure, effectively killing it. All interested parties have agreed to
rewrite the legislation over the summer to address concerns so that it
can be reintroduce next session.
Standing
up for Public Health
The Department of Health & Environmental Control is charged
with protecting the health of the public and the environment, but too
often its decisions permit excessive pollution. DHEC needs new
leadership and a clear mission to stand up for clean air and clean
water. In 2009 Senators Phil Leventis and John Courson introduced S.384,
to restructure DHEC as a cabinet agency to improve accountability.
Although the Senate Medical Affairs Subcommittee, headed by Sen.
Danny Verdin, gave the bill a positive report, the full Committee
bent to industry pressure and political reality and rejected cabinet
status. In lieu of cabinet accountability, the conservation community
offered amendments to give the Board a more meaningful role in the
management of the agency and make the permitting and appeals process
more transparent. Only minor amendments were adopted and the full Senate
never voted on the bill after several Senators raised objections. We'd
like to thank Senators John Courson, Phil Leventis, Harvey Peeler,
Danny Verdin, Vincent Sheheen and Dave Thomas for their
leadership in beginning this important discussion about how to better
empower DHEC to protect public health.
Two House bills supported by the conservation community that would have
improved the health of South Carolina's school children unfortunately
died in the Senate this year. Rep. Dan Cooper's Farm to School Bill, H.3179 encouraged school districts to purchase locally and regionally produced
foods in order to improve student nutrition and strengthen local and
regional farms. And Rep. Bakari Sellers' School Health Food
Standards, H.3297 called for elementary schools to offer only full meals for student
consumption, and aimed to create fat, calorie, and sugar content
standards that snacks and beverages must meet in order to be sold in
schools. Both bills passed the House last year, and received a favorable
report from the full Senate Education Committee in February 2010, only
to stall on the Senate floor when objections were raised.
Offshore
Drilling
After the Gulf’s disastrous oil leak, the House and Senate adopted S.1478,
a resolution calling for an Oil Spill Contingency Plan by Sen.
Chip Campsen and Rep. Chip Limehouse. This resolution
directs DHEC, DNR, and the Governor's Office to develop contingency
plans for protecting our coastline should oil from the Deepwater Horizon
spill in the Gulf make its way onto South Carolina's shores.
