Capitol Information Affiliates, LLC Volume XXVII Issue 2 January22,2016
Auto Closing Fees, Refugees and Dams & Reservoirs
Motor Vehicle Closing Fees
The Senate Judiciary Committee met Tuesday and gave a favorable report to S.911, closing fees on motor vehicle sales. Senator Hutto told the committee that both sides had been working on a compromise and had not reached one before the meeting. He suggestedgiving the bill a favorable report and said he would place a minority report on the bill.
Senator Malloy agreed and said he would make the motion to give the bill a favorable report carrying over all amendments. “There will be full debate on the floor of the Senate,” said Malloy. Senator Allen said, “I will join in the chorus to allow the billing to be reported out.” Senator Massey agreed with them.
Chairman Larry Martin said they needed to adopt the bill as amended. “There has been discussion on the retroactive issue of the bill. We are talking about altering the procedure, not the underlying claims,” said Martin.
Senator Rankin urged the car dealers to work out the issue of retroactivity. Martin said, “We are not asking the Senate to overturn the Supreme Court decision. We are asking the Senate to deal with the procedure – the underlying premise.” Senator Bright Matthews asked if it would affect the 200 cases and Martin said yes. Malloy expressed concern over the damages brought in a class action. Martin responded, “When people complied with the statute, they were doing what we had passed.” Hutto said they were not undoing Freeman and that they needed to be careful about what they asked for. “Freeman is the law of the land,” said Hutto.
Massey indicated he did not like the approach of the bill. He said the opinion of the Supreme Court was “bad and I’m not comfortable with it.” The bill was reported out favorably and Hutto placed his name on the bill as desiring to be present.
Refugee Resettlement
The Senate General Subcommittee met Tuesday on S.928 refugee resettlement and S.997 on the Department of Social Services. Karen Wingo, Department of Social Services, reviewed the parts her department plays in refugee settlement. She said that DSS reviews cash assistance and Medicaid assistance for refugees. This can take 18-24 months. She said they look at the country of origin and not the country where they are living when they make application. Chief Keel said his concern was that information is not being provided to local law enforcement by the federal government. Bright said they would have another subcommittee meeting on the topic.
The committee met Wednesday. Chairman Bryant said there were two agenda items: the refugee settlement and DSS. Senator Young explained his committee’s process. Senator Shealy said the agency was not where it should be and the 24 child caseload for a case worker has not been achieved. Bryant asked if more money was needed, legislation needed or a culture change needed?
Young said they needed all 3. Shealy pointed out there had been a reduction in child deaths and that some child care centers had been closed.
The chairman moved on to the issue of refugee resettlement. There will be another subcommittee meeting after full Judiciary committee on Tuesday, and full committee will meet the next day.
Bright reviewed the testimony taken by the subcommittee. He said Governor Haley has concerns about Syrian refugees. The Lutheran Services of South Carolina opposes both bills. Bright said the state does have the right to refuse refugees coming into South Carolina.
Senator Johnson said these refugees are hardworking, law abiding citizens.
Hutto Point of Personal Privilege
Hospitals
Senator Hutto took the Senate floor Wednesday on a point of personal privilege regarding hospitals.
He said the Barnwell County Hospital will close their doors Thursday. Bamberg Hospital closed last year. “Unless we do something about this, other hospitals in rural areas will close. This will be a domino effect across the state,” said Hutto. He said 140 people will lose their jobs and referenced “the woman downstairs” who refused to expand Medicaid. Senator Coleman interjected saying the DHHS has not spent a dime to help these hospitals. Hutto responded, “This state will transition to 5 metro areas for medical care.” He later added that “200,000 people could get coverage in South Carolina for healthcare if we signed on to Medicaid expansion.”
S.972 Unclaimed Life Insurance Benefits Act
The Senate Banking and Insurance Committee met Wednesday and gave a favorable report to S.972 the Unclaimed Life Insurance Benefits Act. Treasurer Loftis informed the committee the unclaimed property fund equaled between $4-5 million. Loftis said this affected all of us and added, “Insurance companies are not going after the beneficiaries. They want to keep the money. This becomes a moral issue to me. It is a matter of integrity.” He later added that there was no incentive for the insurance company to pay a claim. He is in favor of keeping the bill as it is.
John Carmello, a representative of NAIC, said 19 states have adopted legislation that is retroactive. “Retroactive provisions in legislation should not be adopted,” said Carmello. He later added that it “places a significant financial burden especially on small companies.” He said 13 states have developed lost policy services. He said NAIC strongly supports the bill and concluded, “You don’t change rules in the middle of the game. You change rules only going forward.”
Senator Cromer asked Loftis if he disagreed on prospective versus retroactive.Loftis said he would address his concerns in writing.
Dams and Reservoirs Safety Act
The House AG&NR Agriculture Subcommittee met Wednesday and adjourned debate on H.4565 Dams and Reservoirs Safety Act.
Richard Grayson, a homeowner in Greenville lives at the base of Parkins Lake Dam, testified. He thinks 80 percent of the bill is good, but 20 percent needs work. The bill appears to put a lot of extra
regulations but that isn’t the case. This bill says the dams have to account for 30 inches in 6 hours. That is not reasonable. Even this catastrophic flood that happened, 2 inches per hour for several hours came
down. He thinks annual inspections are a great idea but not for everything.
Representative Ott said, “I think you did a good job laying out some concerns that I have. Let’s go back to current law. What do you believe to be the decencies in the current law today? Sometimes we don’t have laws in place to handle situations, but sometimes we don’t have resources necessary to fulfil the law.” Grayson said he thinks the problem with the current law is with the language and how this is different in different states. DHEC is subjective with how the classify dams. They need to say the dam is for example 41feet high. They are subjective in determining the size of the dam. Representative Southard said it is not subjective how much of a dam it is. Grayson said it is subjective how much rain and downstream a dam can be capable of holding. Ott asked Grayson about their specific homeownership fees. Grayson said they do pay into this for the dam.
Grayson does not think that dam owners have liability of a dam breach. He does not know if their homeowner association carries this liability. You cannot ask a homeowner to pay $2 million for something that may happen. Representative Moss said the liability goes up with people living down the stream. Grayson said that the biggest problem with the bill is the design standards. The majority of dam owners in this state would have a problem with this.
Southard asked Grayson about his dam and Grayson replied, “Parkins Lake dam does not meet the standards. Last time they had a dam breach assessment was done in 1995. At that time, according to the engineers the dam did pass the standard test.
Grayson said, “We have to look at what is reasonable, what are reasonable standards for the dam? What are reasonable economic standards? Representative Kirby asked where you feel South Carolina would rank in safety requirements compared to southeastern states. Grayson said they were comparable. Grayson then said, “I am not sure if we have the man power to check all the dams. It takes time.”
Gary Spires, SC Farm Bureau said they are going to focus on high level damns. We may have an impound that is not necessarily a high hazard. I understand the impacts it has on the folks who own these impoundments -specifically as it relates to agriculture. He said, “We are still trying to access all that has happened on the farm. Some of us will plant this spring, some will not. Impoundments mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people, from irrigation, to recreation to property value. For us it is strictly irrigation. We need these to grow our crops.”
David Wilson, DHEC, said the scope of the program as it is now; there are 10 to 20 to 40 small impoundments across the state of South Carolina. We do not regulate something like Lake Murray. Classes 1, 2, 3, are high hazard, or significant hazard, or low hazard. Class 1 dams failing cause loss of life. Class 2 is property damage and class 3 dams would not cause not much problem.
Wilson also discussed classification vs design standards. Classification is just the risk if the dam were to breach. This next part that I am talking about has to do with the owner. Dam owners must register their dam every year. Dam owners need to be able to notify someone if there is a problem with the dam. The emergency action plan has to be up to speed. This would also require that the dam owners would have an inspection and maintenance plan. This requires that each year that owner looks at the dam. This does not require an engineer, but requires someone to look for problems. But for high hazard and significant dams, every year, you or someone from the homeowners association will look at the dam, and every 5 years an engineer would look at the dam. Or every 10 years for low hazard.
Ott said he keeps hearing Wilson say dam, and is assuming you mean regulated dam. He said page 2 of the bill shows that this would encompass every dam in South Carolina, because there is always a dam downstream. It would be hard to argue there isn’t a dam downstream. You wouldn’t be able to not include any dam or pond regardless of the size, etc. Wilson said, “This is not what we envisioned.”
Ott responded, “This is going to encompass everyone. That was not our intention but maybe this bill needs to be looked at.” Wilson said, “To get an engineer to inspect the dam, it would cost anywhere from $1,000 to a tens of thousands of dollars to be borne by the dam owner. If a new dam is being repaired, modified, replaced or removed, there has to be set standards.
Ott asked, “What happens when the ownership or the owners of the dam do not have the financial recourses, what then happens?Any dam owner is going to have to pay a lot of money whether they decide to get rid of the dam or keep it.” Wilson said, “We are working with dam owners. We would work and take actions to achieve what needs to be achieved, but at the end of the day, if the dam is unsafe then the state will then take action.” Ott said, “This isn’t the dam owner’s responsibility. Owners will have that personal responsibility to have the money and funds on the front end. Is there another program that requires owners to have money on the front end? Here we are placing the burden of finding out if the dam is operating properly. This is a high financial bar.”
W&M DAODAS
The House Ways & Means Healthcare Budget Subcommittee met Wednesday to begin reviewing budget requests by the Departments of Social Services (DSS) and Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse Services (DAODAS).After opening remarks from Chairman Murrell Smith, DAODAS Director Bob Toomey began his presentation, noting that the Governor’s Executive Budget fulfilled all of their requests. $1.75 million was requested to expand programs for opioid addictions, which is an increasing epidemic in South Carolina. 301s will provide services, with 3-5 sites housing the operations. DAODAS hopes to branch out into the rural communities from those 3-5 sites, while also utilizing telehealth/telemedicine to reach those in need. Toomey stated they are trying to get “ahead of the curve” on opioid addiction, as it often takes up to 8 years for the addiction to develop & be identified for treatment. Smith asked how those suffering with opioid addictions could be identified, and inquired as to whether or not DHEC shares information from their Prescription Monitoring Program. Toomey replied that they did not – and that DHEC’s efforts involve intervening with the prescriber, rather than the abuser.
Toomey thanked the committee for the financial assistance they provided to help 301s in last year’s budget ($2.25 million), and requested $3 million in non-recurring funds for infrastructure improvements in 2016/2017. He went on to disclose they would be asking for $3 million+ for the next 3 years for deferred maintenance and capital improvement projects. Smith suggested having 301s that have developed “best practices” share those with other 301s for implementation across the state. Toomey closed by saying all their provisos were fine, with the exception of 37.4 which should be deleted (proviso involved working with HHS on a computer program which is now complete).
Larry Martin Point of Personal Interest
Ethics
Senator Larry Martin took the Senate floor Thursday on a point of personal interest regarding ethics. “We have had a very thoughtful and candid debate over here,” said Martin. He said the Speaker of the House said they had never “debated this-didn’t give it a hearing.” He said he, as the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, he was insulted by this.
Senator Peeler said in JBRC yesterday they dealt with the air system in Blatt Building. He said, “Maybe things will get better over there when it is fixed.”
Senator Leatherman said either “people doing press releases can’t read our journal or they don’t care about misrepresenting the facts. To have that kind of garbage put into a mainstream newspaper gives the public the wrong perception of the South Carolina Senate. I don’t think the Speaker read the release.”
Martin said the source of income was a reasonable issue to deal with. He said they could send that to the House with the understanding that nothing else could be added. Leatherman said he thought the Speaker was an honorable person and would be stunned if he saw the release and let it go.
Senator Campsen reviewed the time he has spent on the two ethics bills in both subcommittee and committee. He said it was 40 hours or more of work.
Hutto Point of Personal Interest
Ethics
Senator Hutto took the Senate floor Thursday regarding ethics. He said the Governor wants full income disclosure. “Where was she with Wilbur Smith and the Lexington County hire? Mr. Rainey had to sue her to get to get her to an ethics committee investigation. She uses private email to conduct her business. Talk about calling the kettle black!” He added that ethics reform had not made it through the Senate because of third party disclosures.
Abortion Providers
The Legislative Oversight Ad Hoc Subcommittee met Thursday to discuss recommendations made by DHEC regarding the committee’s study into state agencies and their relationships with, funding of, and other activities relating to Planned Parenthood facilities and other abortion providers in South Carolina.
The first motion passed by the subcommittee was to include a summary of all information obtained in the study, including information regarding abortion procedures, into the report.
The next motion passed was to approve DHEC’s recommendation to add provisions that explicitly make it illegal to donate or sell products of abortions. Representative Felder became concerned after the motion passed that this recommendation makes it so that the fetal tissue could not be donated for medical research. Chairman Cleary noted that the way he understands the recommendation is that yes, this would limit medical research donations as well. Nextthe committee discussed DHEC’s recommendation to require abortion clinics and hospitals to report anytime a female comes to them with post-op complications regardless of where the abortion was performed. Prior to this recommendation passing, Representative Taylor amended the motion by adding that Ad Hoc recommendations to include provisions to ensure that the report itself requests the patient, if willing, to provide where the abortion occurred and also allow DHEC to make reports on such facilities and all post-op complications reported.