BRACK: Seize the rudder to thwart ambivalence, apathy, neglect

By Andy Brack, editor and publisher  |  With the annual legislative session roaring to a close, there are a multitude of unresolved issues, as usual.

Most prominent is the state’s nuclear mess, a $9 billion fiasco stemming from a nuclear plant project that failed last year without generating a watt of power.  Currently, the state House and Senate are mired in working out differences in how to deal with this issue that has consumed hours and hours of legislative time.

Years ago, the General Assembly wrote a law that has allowed SCE&G, the majority partner in the unsuccessful Fairfield County project, to charge fees to ratepayers to help pay for the facility as it was being built.  But now with the abandoned site being little more than humongous chunks of concrete, there’s still debt – and the utility wants to keep charging, claiming it might go bankrupt otherwise.

Not so fast, the legislature has said for months, pounding on bully pulpits that the gouging of ratepayers has to stop.  At issue now in these waning days of the session is whether to cut the full amount of extra payments by 18 percent, an amount sought by the House and Gov. Henry McMaster, or go with a 13 percent cut, which the Senate prefers because it doesn’t want SCE&G to face financial peril.

A compromise must be forged.  We say split the difference at 15 percent.  Otherwise, there may be nothing to show for a nuclear debacle that has sucked the life out of a host of other challenges, such as education, health care and poverty, that lawmakers should have been dealing with.

House members want a deal.  Otherwise, they’ll face angry voters at the polls in November.  But if a deal isn’t hammered out, the state Public Service Commission will decide on the issue at the end of the year when it also considers a multi-billion-dollar pitch by Dominion Energy to take over SCE&G and its parent, SCANA.

Let’s now shift to some other topics:

Is it only me? State officials announced all sorts of emergency measures to improve security after seven inmates died in a bloody melee at Lee Correctional Institute a few days back.

McMaster issued an emergency order to allow the understaffed state Department of Corrections to stop following state hiring regulations so it can boost pay and hire staff more quickly to fill 600-plus openings at state prisons.  Makes sense.

But notice this paragraph from a story in The State newspaper about the order:

“McMaster’s order also allows the prisons agency to avoid the state’s lengthy procurement system to buy and install $7 million in netting at 11 higher-security prisons that could stop contraband from being tossed over prison fences.”

What?  State lawmakers and corrections officials have known for years that prisons have been a powder keg waiting to explode.  What happened in Bishopville wasn’t surprising.  But the story suggests the state knew of a way to improve security but hadn’t done it because of its own procurement rules.  How much sense does that make?

Unfortunately, this is typical of South Carolina leadership.  There has to be a horrible problem or a really squeaky wheel before anything gets done.  Witness disastrous property tax reform, the years it took to pass a gas tax people wanted for better roads, and now the challenges with holding utilities accountable for their failures.

Be careful about the development you hope for.    Overdevelopment in popular parts of the state is another looming challenge.

Think about the South Carolina you love.  Is it a complex of new buildings?  A four-lane expressway?  A skyline of cranes?  Traffic congestion?

No.  It’s a park, a beach, a lake, the great outdoors.  But as more people move into South Carolina, particularly in the metros, there’s so much bowing to the altar of rampant development that we’re slowly eroding what’s special about South Carolina.

All of these things – unsafe prisons, failing infrastructure, leaders who don’t know how to lead, unmet challenges that spin  out of control– illustrate the need for comprehensive planning at state and local levels.

Let’s seize the rudder.  Let’s shout for leaders to stop dawdling and plan our future instead of letting it be thrust onto us through exploitation, neglect, ambivalence and apathy.

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