Consider that Rep. Nelson Hardwick (R-Surfside Beach) is the primary author on a House bill  that could strip private citizens from being able to sue individuals and corporations that pollute the environment, from rivers to pristine Carolina bays.

In contrast, Rep. Paul Agnew (D-Due West), who hails from the hilly western corner of the state, about as far removed from the ocean without living on a mountainside, is hard at work making sure that Hardwick’s bill fails.

Hardwick’s bill would amend the state’s 1976 Pollution Control Act and would give the ability to state government to sue polluters for damages.

Agnew contends that Hardwick’s bill overly restricts who can seek damages in instances of pollution, while Hardwick intimated that Agnew is just another attorney looking to expand his caseload and that his amendment would be to inclusive as to who could sue.

But by the same thinking, it should be pointed out that Hardwick, who holds a master’s degree in environmental engineering and is a former district director for the state Department of Health and Environmental Control, is these days a real estate developer and consults on subdivision projects.

Agnew tried to quash the bill two weeks ago with an amendment, but sensing it would be trounced in a floor vote, he pulled it at the last second. The bill passed easily and has been sent to the Senate, where a companion bill by Majority Leader Harvey Peeler (R-Gaffney) awaits.

Agnew said this week that he hoped that his amendment, which would allow for citizens to sue alleged polluters of their land, among other items, would get a fairer hearing in the slower-paced Senate.

It may not receive a warmer welcome, even though the Senate is known as the more contemplative chamber compared to the faster-paced House, in part, because Peeler sits as chair of the Medical Affairs committee where both bills have been referred for debate next week.

Agnew said he hopes the Senate will be more amenable because of what he sees as a logical problem in Hardwick’s stance. Agnew believes that those in the House and Senate wanting to oppose DHEC’s recent permitting of Georgia dredging the Savannah River may strip themselves of the statutory power to do so if they pass a version of Hardwick and Peeler’s bills.

Hardwick says his bill would not curtail citizens’ common law rights to sue. Hardwick said both he and Agnew are as split as the state’s Supreme Court on the issue, which last year on a related case deadlocked 3-3.

Ann Timberlake, executive director of the Conservation Voters of South Carolina, says defeating the bills is a priority among the state’s environmental community.

Timberlake says the measure, a updated version of similar past attempts, threatens the state’s “iconic” Carolina bays, small inland bodies of water that are rich in a diverse swath of flora and fauna. The sponge-like bays range in size from “nearly puddles in a field” to several square miles like Lake Waccamaw in North Carolina.

They are vulnerable to pollution by development, in part of their isolation from other, larger bodies of water, and that they are surrounded by land, increasing the possibility of pollutants leaching into them.

Timberlake said she and fellow conservationists understand the concerns developers have regarding Carolina bays, and have pushed forward an amendment of their own. That amendment calls for citizens to be allowed to sue, but limits what can be sued over.

For instance, Timberlake said developing around Carolina bays less than a half-acre in size is fair game, and that similar bays located in the middle of farming areas should be exempt from protection, too. Agnew incorporated those in his withdrawn amendment.

“It’s not about going backwards,” said Timberlake, praising the greening of the state accomplished by Republican and Democratic lawmakers and administrations.

Crystal ball: There’s a 50-50 chance that Hardwick’s or Peeler’s bill will make it into law this legislative session, according to a Senate insider speaking on conditions of anonymity. That's not because development-friendly legislators or green lawmakers don’t want to, but because of timing. In short, the clock is ticking fast in the Senate, which now has the beefy budget on its plate and host of other, more powerfully supported House bills to contend with. Additionally, senators likely will be ever-mindful of their coming reelection campaigns and might not want to get bogged down in Carolina bay issues, and prefer spend more time campaigning at home. This could very likely become an issue moved to the top of the legislative agenda in 2013, but it will be important to keep abreast of the rhetoric and small battles in the rest of the session.

Bill Davis is editor of Statehouse Report.  He can be reached at:  bill@statehousereport.com.

With the House out on furlough for another week, the Senate will be focusing on budget hearings in subcommittee meetings throughout the week.

• Senate Finance. The full committee will meet at 3 p.m. Tuesday in 105 Gressette. No agenda has been released, but next week is when testimony from state agencies and review of provisos was scheduled to begin. Click here to see a full schedule of Senate meetings next week.
  
  
• Senate Judiciary. The full committee will meet at 3 p.m. Tuesday in 308 Gressette with bills to be discussed to include ones dealing with child custody cases, making the state’s insurance commissioner an elected official and tort reform. Agenda.
  
  
• Senate Judiciary. A subcommittee will meet at 9 a.m. Wednesday in 307 Gressette to discuss an agenda that includes a House bill that would allow former state officials, elected or otherwise, to be prosecuted for ethics violations for up to four years after leaving office. Agenda.
  
  
• Senate Education. A subcommittee will meet at 9:30 .am. Wednesday in 105 Gressette to discuss a bill that would allow statewide open enrollment in K-12 schools. Agenda.
  
  
• Senate Judiciary. A subcommittee will meet Wednesday at 11 a.m. in 209 Gressette to discuss a bill that would create a statewide system of drug courts. Agenda.
  
  
• Senate Medical Affairs. A subcommittee will meet Thursday at 9:30 a.m. in 209 Gressette to discuss a series of environmental bills, including one that would preclude private lawsuits against polluters. Agenda.

The budget may have whipped through House floor debate in three days last month, but expect it to take considerably longer in the Senate this year. Even though there is extra money on the table, close to $900 million in unforecasted tax revenue collections, the “more deliberative” chamber is expected to snag itself on issues of how to spend the extra funds and how much, if any, of a raise to give state employees to make up for half a decade of flat salaries. Last year, it took the Senate a full five weeks to come up with its own budget plan.

"The Sound and Fury of Sarah Palin" is sure to put a smile on the faces of liberals and to exasperate tea parties who like her -- and don't mind that she periodically flubs history, facts and details.

Haley’s first book

With the House and Senate on furlough this week, the only game in town was Gov. Nikki Haley, who released her memoir, “Can’t is Not an Option.” Some reviewers have criticized the 250-page retelling of her “American story” as an overly scripted “by-the-numbers” memoir. Conversely, the book has been praised for its “remarkable” story as a 38-year-old Indian-American becoming the first female, and minority, governor in the state’s history. Haley is on a national book tour, in which she has repeatedly stated she would not accept an offer to be political ally Mitt Romney’s vice presidential running mate. If she were selected, it would make for an amazing next chapter in Haley’s life, as Republican presidential candidates generally need little help carrying the “Solid South.”

• Tea partiers will fall in love with Haley again for wearing their white hat and repetitively incanting the rhetoric of limited government that bashes the political establishment.
  

• Mainstream Republicans and moderates will spend a lot of time rolling their eyes at the 200-plus pages of gratuitous, preening arrogance, inane recollections and my-way-or-the-highway declarations of revisionism.
  

• Liberals won't be able to finish it because it's such an obvious political attempt to propel the governor to Washington, sooner as a vice-presidential candidate (despite lots of protest by her) or later as a U.S. senator.

If you like Haley and want to be pumped up, go ahead and spend $28 for what seems more like a transcribed version of a lot of self-taped conversations than a book. Otherwise, don't bother. Haley is trying too hard to be a real-life fairy tale.

Nevertheless, here are some observations of Haley's “Can't Is Not an Option:”

Childhood tale. The best part of the book is the beginning in which Haley delves into her childhood as a member of the only Indian family in Bamberg. She talks convincingly about challenges, goodness and the American Dream without too much tea party propaganda.

Philosophical insight. When you read about how Haley worked as a bookkeeper as a teen-ager for her mother's store, you get a better understanding of the anti-government rhetoric that fuels her politics. One such lesson:

“I learned early that we couldn't control our revenue stream – we couldn't control who decided to walk in the door of the store and spend their money. All we could control was our expenditures. So we were constantly focused on tightening our overhead. … I noticed how hard it was to make a dollar and how easy it was for government to take it away.”

What rankles about this statement by Haley, a self-professed policy wonk, is its naiveté about government. Unlike business, government can control revenue streams by raising or lowering taxes, or by providing incentives to bring in more businesses, all of which will increase the amount of money put in the state's pot.

Second, government can't always be run like a business, regardless of the GOP talking points. Sometimes, government is the only entity that's large enough or has enough of a cushion to do really big things, such as provide electricity to rural areas, build interstate roads, provide affordable college opportunities to millions, take care of the health of old people and more. For Haley, government is not a pathway to progress, but an impediment that has to be overcome. In the long term, that kind of vision of government isn't in South Carolina's best interest.

Courage. In the book, Haley often describes how she had courage to take on the establishment which “blackballed, demoted and humiliated” her for trying to get recorded roll call votes to boost accountability in the state House. Interestingly, she did not name the leader of the establishment, House Speaker Bobby Harrell, although she cut at him left and right for eight pages. Then in prose that would gag even a teen romance writer, she celebrated a “turnabout is fair play” moment as governor when she signed into law the bill she had pushed while in the House:

“The day didn't belong to me. It belonged to the people. I looked out and saw my parents, and I thought of what they had always taught me: If you fight for the right things, God will take care of the rest. It had taken a little while, but in the end my parents were right. The people had fought. Their cause was just. And now God was smiling down on South Carolina.”

Playing the victim. Haley also complained about people who saw themselves as victims, but within pages she would paint herself as a victim of Harrell, Gov. Mark Sanford or something else. After a while, it got more than a little monotonous.

Bottom line: Plant a garden. It's spring. There are better things to do than read this book.

Andy Brack is publisher of Statehouse Report.  You can reach Brack at: brack@statehousereport.com.

• 3/30: Voucher bill defies logic
  
• 3/23:  Time to honor Judge Waties Waring
  
• 3/16:  SC gives job security to columnists
  
• MORE BRACK:  See our archives

– B.A. Haskell, Clover, SC

 

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Education. Fourteen teachers from four different South Carolina colleges were included in a list of the country’s 300 best professors. More.

Transparency. Gov. Nikki Haley is all for transparency of legislators’ emails, but her support, oddly enough, may doom a pro-transparency bill. More.