New plan to breakup DHEC unveiled as senators move to dissolve huge state agency
If the state Legislature breaks up South Carolina’s health and environmental agency as proposed, it would create a new department to oversee programs that protect the state’s air and water — instead of delegating much of that authority to the S.C. Department of Agriculture, as previously discussed.
That’s according to the latest plan to dissolve the Department of Health and Environmental Control, a huge agency criticized for being unwieldy, bureaucratic and slow to react to problems.
A Senate subcommittee agreed Tuesday to create a Department of Environmental Services to handle many of the duties DHEC’s environmental division now has. The plan to include DHEC’s health division in a combined agency with other health-related departments is still part of the bill.
Both new departments would be cabinet agencies directly under the governor’s control.
Sen. Harvey Peeler proposed the changes after some environmentalists and lawmakers criticized the plan to let the agriculture department run many of the state’s environmental programs if DHEC is broken up.
Critics said the Department of Agriculture, with an elected secretary, is designed to promote farming, but those farms sometimes run afoul of DHEC’s environment division over pollution, odors and water withdrawals. That could create a conflict within the agency, critics said.
Peeler, whose family for years ran a successful Upstate dairy operation, did not explain during Tuesday’s meeting his reasoning for amending his original bill to break up DHEC.
Details of the bill also had not been widely distributed Tuesday and questions remained about the measure.
Senate staff members said many of the state’s biggest business groups, including the S.C. Farm Bureau and the S.C. Chamber of Commerce, were aware of the latest DHEC breakup proposal. Many of their members are regulated by the agency.
But representatives from two environmental groups said their organizations were not asked to discuss the latest version of the DHEC breakup bill.
“We wish we had been part of drafting this, but we were not,’’ said Rebecca Haynes, an official with the Conservation Voters of South Carolina. “I wish we had been invited to the table. This kind of intense reform needs to have a dynamic stakeholder process.’’
Alan Hancock, who tracks legislative issues for the S.C. Coastal Conservation League, said his organization also was not consulted. Hancock said he is still scrutinizing the bill, but so far, questions have surfaced about how legislation might affect agriculture.
Peeler’s amendment contains several references to North Carolina in a section that discusses chicken farm rules, an obvious error that could indicate new environmental rules were written into the bill, Hancock said. But he said his organization will need to look more carefully at the legislation in coming days.
“On first glance it seems like it could be promising,’’ Hancock said. “But doing a cursory glance, it also looks like some of this was copied and pasted from North Carolina rules. North Carolina has a lot confined animal feeding operations that we don’t want here.’’
Senate subcommittee member Sen. Kevin Johnson, D-Clarendon, said putting environmental programs under the agriculture department would place too many burdens on the farming agency. Johnson voted with the committee to change the bill to include a Department of Environmental Services.
“I’m sure that Ag has their hands full with what they are doing already,’’ Johnson said, noting that a new environmental department “might be a better option. We’ll discuss and debate it and we’ll get testimony and we’ll go from there.’’
Johnson said the criticism that DHEC currently has too many duties, as both a health and environmental agency, ‘’is a pretty valid argument.’’
According to the plan, programs to be run by the Department of Environmental Services would include air quality, hazardous waste, dam safety, water pollution compliance and enforcement and drinking water protection.
DHEC’s current Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management also would be included in the new environmental division, according to the Senate Medical Affairs Committee. The S.C. Department of Natural Resources’ water division also would fall under control of the new environmental services department.
The new plan, outlined by Senate staff during Tuesday morning’s subcommittee meeting, would still put some of DHEC’s functions under the agriculture department, but many of those are related to food sanitation. Shellfish monitoring, retail food and restaurant inspections would go to the agriculture department.
DHEC is one of the few agencies in the country to include both health and environmental services. Founded in the early 1970s from the merger of the state’s health and pollution control agencies, the department has more than 3,000 full-time workers and about 1,000 part-time and temporary employees, making it one of South Carolina’s largest departments.
For years, critics have said the department has so many duties it is difficult to excel. The most recent COVID 19 pandemic exposed the department to heavy criticism over what some said was a sluggish response to the disease.
Under the bill introduced by Peeler and amended Tuesday, DHEC’s health division — which is much larger than its environmental division — would be merged with the Department of Mental Health and the Department of Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse Services. The new department would be called the Department of Public and Behavioral Health.
This story has been updated with additional comments.
This story was originally published March 30, 2021 at 3:40 PM.
