Two state senators are asking why the nominee to head South Carolina’s environmental agency doesn’t plan to work full-time from an office at the department’s Columbia headquarters.
Democratic Sens. Joel Lourie and Brad Hutto wrote the agency’s board chairman, Allen Amsler, on Monday, asking whether the board is comfortable with Catherine Templeton working from the Department of Health and Environmental Control’s office in North Charleston. She lives in nearby Mount Pleasant.
“We intend to make that a very big issue’’ at Templeton’s confirmation hearing, said Lourie, a Columbia lawmaker. “It could be somewhat of a disqualifier.’’
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Both are skeptical of Republican Gov. Nikki Haley’s choice of Templeton to lead DHEC, in part because of her limited background in state environmental and health regulation. Templeton is currently director of the state Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation. A Senate committee on which Lourie and Hutto sit must confirm her nomination.
Haley spokesman Rob Godfrey said Templeton “will be a full-time director of DHEC, just like she was the full-time director of LLR — a job at which her results speak for themselves.”
Efforts to reach Templeton were unsuccessful Monday, but she told The State Jan. 13 that “I’ve been unequivocal about the fact that I will not leave Charleston.’’ She said she has managed LLR “very well from Charleston. I’m in Columbia all the time and whenever I need to be.’’
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