FEB. 21, 2014 -- When it comes to marijuana and public policy these days, the states getting most of the attention are Colorado and Washington where bold legalization efforts have taken root in their legislatures. But here in South Carolina, serious and sober discussions are taking place under the Statehouse dome about whether the Palmetto State should pass a law allowing prescription pot.

Things are set to fire up even more in the next couple weeks with a decriminalization bill on the way in the House and an expected committee hearing set to play out soon in the Senate.

You might not know it, but South Carolina is actually ahead of the times when it comes to medicinal marijuana. Lawmakers here passed a bill in 1980 allowing the director of the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control to obtain and distribute marijuana for medicinal purposes. It was called the “South Carolina Controlled Substances Therapeutic Research Act,” but no practical program ever began under the statutory scheme that created it. The reason is because the state law came with language stating that the DHEC director could only deal with marijuana in means that were consistent with federal law. According to the feds, marijuana is still a Schedule 1 controlled substance, which essentially neutered the state law.

But this year, lawmakers in the House and Senate — Democrats and Republicans — are trying to change that. In the lower chamber, Democratic Minority Leader Todd Rutherford is leading a charge to amend the 1980 law so a program can begin to deliver medical marijuana to patients on a small scale.  He also wants to allow certified growers to produce it within the state's borders.

“I think that we can fix that bill and allow doctors to prescribe marijuana in this state that is grown by farmers in this state that received a certificate to grow it," Rutherford told reporters last month.

Now after talking with more people about the issue, Rutherford is ready to push it further.

“My effort will soon switch from medical marijuana to decriminalization of marijuana under an ounce because of the feedback that I've gotten,” he told Statehouse Report. “I don't want to say it will be easy but it seems to be the political zeitgeist is leaning toward decriminalization -- not full-scale making it legal, but certainly making it not a criminal defense.” He plans to introduce the new legislation next week.

Other Democrats, like Orangeburg Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, have voiced support for decriminalization, but marijuana public policy here isn't falling down strictly along party lines.

Conservative Upstate Republican Sen. Kevin Bryant, a pharmacist, has said he'd keep an open mind about such debates. He has slippery-slope reservations and doesn't believe in legal recreational pot use, but he also said he doesn't like the government getting involved in personal choices. He said he would be more interested in legislation aimed at medicinal cannabis that could help make terminal patients more comfortable.

A Senate proposal is narrower

On Wednesday, Beaufort Republican Sen. Tom Davis introduced a bill along those lines. His proposal would revise the 1980 DHEC law to establish the Medical Cannabis Therapeutic Research Act. As least six other Republican senators have signed on to it so far. Davis said he filed his bill after a constituent told him about her 6-year-old granddaughter who has epilepsy. Her doctors said a substance called cannabidiol — a non-psychoactive chemical in cannabis — might help, but it's illegal for them to prescribe it here. Davis calls the legal barrier “morally wrong.”

“That 1980 law has never been funded and has lain dormant,” Davis says. “It’s time to breathe life into it.”

This two-story brick hotel in Mayesville, S.C., is a shadow of its former self. Kingstree, S.C., photographer Linda W. Brown captured this shot earlier this month on a trip through the Sumter County town.  Mayesville,

“It reached its heyday at the turn of the 20th Century with two banks, a hotel and various other businesses associated with a farming and railroad community. What remains of the Kineen Hotel still stands, but is in very bad repair. The old railroad bed has been removed  and the old railroad right-of-way now serves as green space thought the center of town.” More.

Major meetings of the week will include:

• Bonds. The Joint Bond Review Committee will meet 10 a.m. Tuesday in 105 Gressette. Agenda.
  
  
• House Education and Public Works. A subcommittee will meet 1.5 hours after the House adjournment on Tuesday in 433 Blatt to discuss revising child care regulations to remove daytime programs and day camps from regulation, and a measure on bullying in schools. Agenda.
  
  
• Senate Judiciary. The full committee will meet 3 p.m. Tuesday in 105 Gressette to discuss a number of bills, including proposals to establish a state public integrity unit, a statewide cell phone ban while driving, juvenile restraints, creation of a permanent Joint Committee on Children and other measures. Agenda.
  
  
• Senate Banking. The full committee will meet 11 a.m. Wednesday in 308 Gressette to discuss measures involving competitive insurance, worker’s compensation insurance and captive insurance.   Agenda.
  
  
• House Judiciary. A subcommittee will meet 9 a.m. Thursday in 516 Blatt to consider an array of campaign funding measures. Agenda.

The folks who brought a lawsuit years ago against the state Department of Corrections for abuse of mentally-ill inmates seem to be pressing their advantage after a state judge last month ruled that the department had six months to develop a plan to clean up its act. The department’s newly-confirmed director has asked for mediation, but the plaintiffs in the case essentially said, “No way; we tried that before and it didn’t work.” They want to judge’s ruling to move forward. No word on whether the department, which earlier said it would appeal, will continue to stall. Look for more fireworks in the days ahead.

• Read a new op-ed by Gloria Prevost, director of Protection and Advocacy for People with Disabilities, a plaintiff in the case.

•  Read Andy Brack’s recent column on the issue.

Since scorecards seem to be the theme for this issue, we thought it would be helpful to provide a look at candidates running statewide. There’s so many running for state superintendent of education and U.S. Senate you’ve almost got to keep a written list in your back pocket all of the time.

Isn’t this just precious? 

S.C. Rep. Mac Toole (R-West Columbia) this week introduced a measure (H. 4652) that would prohibit people who receive debit cards for Family Independence Benefit payments -- old-fashioned welfare payments --  from using the cards in a “liquor store, casino, gambling casino, gaming establishment, or a retail establishment that provides adult-oriented entertainment in which performers disrobe or perform in an unclothed state for entertainment.”

What’s kind of amazing is that the state already prohibits the cards from being used for those purposes, as highlighted on the DSS Web site (see if you can find any similar wording):

“The [Family Independence ePay] card can be used anywhere you see the Visa logo with the exception of:

Co-sponsors include state Reps. Todd Atwater (R-Lexington), Ralph Kennedy (R-Leesville), Kit Spires (R-Pelion), Chip Huggins (R-Columbia), Murrell Smith (R-Sumter), Rick Quinn (R-Lexington) and Kenny Bingham (R-Cayce).

New poll coming Wednesday

The Winthrop Poll will be out Wednesday with new data on what's happening in the two races for the U.S. Senate as well as questions on people having kids out of wedlock, interracial marriage and smoking marijuana.  More on Wednesday here.

You’ll recall that as hundreds of thousands of people lost power and sat in dark homes growing ever colder, Gov. Nikki Haley rightfully said South Carolina was in a state of emergency and requested the federal government to officially designate it as an emergency. The move, approved the same day by President Obama, opened the state for lots of federal assistance -- generators, bottled water, meals and more. Who would pay? The feds would pay 75 percent and the state would make up the rest. In other words, it was a three-to-one match to speed assistance.

So if you’re keeping score, it’s fine to take money that helps everyone get over a bad storm.

What about the $2 billion in stimulus money that the state eventually received to help plug shortfalls during the Great Recession? Although then Gov. Mark Sanford railed and steamed about why the state should refuse the money, the General Assembly, facing millions in shortfalls, grudgingly took the money. Then-state Rep. Nikki Haley voted for the money at first, but opposed it on final passage.

So despite a lot of political wrangling, the state took the money, which allowed South Carolina to not fire teachers, state troopers and prison guards, among many other things.

Score: Take the money, 2. Don’t take the money, 0.

Some other issues:

• Unemployment bailout. Also during the recession, the state accepted nearly $1 billion in federal loans to bail out its unemployment insurance coffers, which ran dry because legislators earlier changed a formula to keep rates low for employers.
  
  
• Port deepening in Charleston. The state has put aside millions, but it will match even more millions expected from the feds.
  
  
• Highway bills. The state Department of Transportation in 2011 had to turn to the feds to ask for advance payments to pay some bills it couldn’t.

Score: Take the money, 5. Don’t take the money, 0.

In fact, if you look at the state’s total budget, South Carolina accepts about $2 billion more in federal money each year than it does through its own tax structure. Here are some of the big ticket items the feds paid for -- and we accepted -- in the 2012 fiscal year:

• Medicaid assistance: $2.9 billion.
• Food stamps: $1.7 billion
• Road grants: $776 million
• Hospital subsidies for caring for poor: $326 million
• School services for handicapped: $273 million

Bottom line: As a state, we receive more than $7.7 billion a year in money from federal sources -- money that we paid in federal taxes that comes back to help us here.

 

But what won’t we take money for? Medicaid expansion and an education grant. 

Last year, the legislature, prodded by Haley, refused to accept $11 billion over seven years to expand Medicaid to pay for health insurance for the poorest of South Carolinians. Not only was it money we already pay into federal coffers that would have been returning to the Palmetto State, but it would have been free for a couple of years and required a $1 match for every $9 received in the long run (much better than the 3:1 deal for disaster recovery.)

In 2011, state Superintendent of Education Mick Zais also refused to apply for $143 million in new federal funding available to pay for more teachers. So what happened? Our share went to other states.

Is there a rhyme or reason to what we’ll take and what we’ll fight? This seems to be the formula:

• If it is something we’ve taken for a long time, we’ll take it.
  
  
• Or if it is something that helps a broad range of people, including the rich and middle class, we’ll take it.
  
  
• But if it’s something new that helps poor people, such as Obamacare or more teachers pushed by a president that many in the General Assembly don’t like, we won’t take it.

Overall answer: It’s all politics. Who would have figured?

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

• 2/14:  Give Obamacare a chance to work
  
• 2/7:  High court should make decisions
• 1/31: Rare to vote on 2 Senate seats in one year
  
• MORE BRACK:  See our archives

By D. Lowell Atkinson and Andy Brack
Reprinted with permission

FEB. 21, 2014 -- Improving the energy efficiency of your home saves you money on your utility bill.

But there are broader benefits that accrue as consumers and businesses weatherize and retrofit their homes and buildings.

For example, using less energy in the home reduces the need for government fuel subsidies, such as the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, a federal program that helps pay for home heating and cooling for the most vulnerable and low-income residents.

This program served more than 72,000 S.C. households in 2012, up from 18,218 households in 2009. In spite of more households receiving benefits, the state’s allocation has dropped a dramatic 44 percent over the same period. That means benefits are lower for people on the program.

Because residential weatherization and retrofits can reduce air leakage while maximizing and upgrading heating and cooling systems, investments in energy efficiency can lower energy consumption for residents. And that produces safer, healthier and more energy-efficient homes, reducing the need for the subsidies.

Another value of energy efficiency is its impact on disposable incomes. The Electric Cooperatives of South Carolina reported in 2013 that the average participant in its energy-efficiency pilot program saved $288 a year and $8,500 over the 15-year life of the improvements — after considering the typical retrofit cost of $7,684.

That means retrofitting the homes of all 72,016 S.C. recipients of the federal subsidy program would yield $59 million in savings for the government, homeowners and taxpayers. Retrofitting 225,000 homes by 2020 — a goal of the state’s electric cooperatives — would save homeowners $184 million. Most of these households would use the savings to satisfy other financial priorities and to pump money into local economies through the purchase of goods and services.

Per capita spending on electricity in South Carolina was $3,634 in 2009, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, and our state now boasts the highest average retail electricity prices in the Southeast, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. So imagine how much money South Carolinians would save if they embraced energy-efficiency strategies that are common in other states. Improving the energy efficiency of homes is low-hanging fruit that is spoiling because it’s not being plucked by state residents.

Boosting home energy efficiency also provides other benefits often overlooked in conventional program evaluations. Residents in energy-efficient homes experience fewer shut-offs for non-payment because their costs are lower; they don’t have to move or relocate as much because they can stay in their own home.

And utilities, governments, property owners and rate payers get reduced infrastructure costs from not having to build as many power plants. Property values increase, which boosts local tax revenues. And community pride grows as neighborhoods stabilize. Overall, society benefits thanks to more local spending, job creation and improved health.

There are environmental benefits, too. With half of our state’s power coming from nuclear plants, there would be less nuclear waste to bury. Plants would last longer. And air quality would improve because we’d burn less coal to meet routine power needs.

State government could help by adopting a statewide energy-efficiency appliance standard so that washers, dryers and refrigerators sold in stores are required to be more energy efficient overall. As conveyed in the Center for a Better South’s “Getting Greener” policy guide ( green.bettersouth.org), adopting standards for 15 kinds of equipment in states across the South would allow the region to save enough energy to fuel 10 power plants.

South Carolinians also can support energy efficiency by contributing to a residential rehab or retrofit program with local community development organizations. Donors and investors can help by financing energy-efficient homes among the underserved who have few traditional financing options. And contributors can claim a 33 percent tax credit if they invest with any of the 22 certified community development corporations or community development financial institutions in South Carolina. Learn more at communitydevelopmentsc.org.

EDITOR'S NOTE:  This column appeared earlier this week in The State.  We thought our readers might appreciate.

Atkinson is a program associate at the S.C. Association of Community Development Corporations.  Brack, editor and publisher of this publication, also is president of the Center for a Better South

Cobb-Hunter. Hats off for voting against the House Ways and Means Committee’s $7 billion budget because of how it punished two colleges for their book selections. More.