Bills would force SC to comply with federal ID law

South Carolina may be taking steps to conform with federal Real ID standards just a month before the state’s refusal threatens to disrupt citizens’ access to military bases.

Beginning on Jan. 30, visitors, delivery people and workers without U.S. Department of Defense identification will not be able to use their state driver’s licenses to gain entry to installations such as Fort Jackson in Columbia and Shaw Air Force Base in Sumter — unless the federal Department of Homeland Security grants another exemption to the identification standards. Without one, visitors will have to show a another form of federally acceptable identification, primarily a passport, to gain entry to the bases.

In January 2018, S.C. driver’s licenses would no longer be accepted to board an airplane anywhere in the nation or enter a secured federal building like the Matthew Perry Federal Courthouse in Columbia, unless the exemption is extended. While an extension has been granted for five years, the Department of Homeland Security has threatened not to grant another one.

“We’ve been tiptoeing around a huge nightmare,” said state Sen. Thomas McElveen, D-Sumter, whose district includes Shaw.

Bills pre-filed in both the S.C. House and Senate would begin the process of making the state’s driver’s licenses comply with such requirements as an eight-year federal renewal period, rather than the 10-year state period.

McElveen said he pre-filed the Senate bill as a first step in addressing the issue. Homeland security officials met with key state leaders Dec. 5 and outlined a path toward a possible extension.

The senator said he was sympathetic to fears that a national identification card would lead to intrusive government surveillance.

“But it’s come back to haunt us,” he said. “At some point you have to cut your losses and move on.”

‘They’re tracking us anyway’

Congress passed the Real ID Act in reaction to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The terrorists who carried out those attacks used driver’s licenses issued in Florida and Virginia as identification to board airplanes that they crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania.

The idea behind the law was that secure, modern identification should be consistent across the country, and it should be linked to the data that the individual used to get the driver’s license.

But many states, including South Carolina, passed laws prohibiting Department of Motor Vehicle officials from complying with the Real ID requirements. The thought was that the federal government was overstepping its authority by requiring what the states considered to be a national identification card. State officials also believed the law would lengthen lines at the DMV.

State Sen. Paul Campbell, R-Berkeley, is co-sponsoring the Senate bill with McElveen. Campbell is chief executive of the Charleston County Aviation Authority, which operates the Charleston International Airport and two smaller general aviation airports in the Lowcountry.

Campbell said he, too, was sensitive to fears of federal intrusion. But the lack of compliance would heavily impact the nearly 2 million people who fly out of Charleston each year.

“I don’t like Big Brother tracking me either,” he said. “But they are tracking us anyway. Every time you use your cell phone. Every time you use GPS. Every time you use a credit card. We need to fix this.”

Complicated and expensive

But airline passengers have a year before the state’s exemption disappears.

In a meeting with Lt. Gov. Henry McMaster earlier this month, commanders of the state’s major military installations said the failure to comply with the federal requirements could cause them headaches beginning in January.

Col. Daniel Lasica, commander of the 20th Fighter Wing at Shaw, told McMaster the identification problems would affect everything from food deliveries to the base to access for major construction contractors.

In a letter Nov. 16, U.S. Rep. Mark Sanford, R-Charleston, asked U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Jehcq Johnson to push back a deadline for South Carolina to comply with the Real ID Act of 2005.

Department of Homeland Security officials met with state’s leaders leaders Dec. 5 to begin discussions about the situation. State Rep. Mark Willis, R-Greenville, and state Rep. Rita Allison, R-Spartanburg, sponsored the House bill and attended the meeting.

Allison, chairwoman of the House Education and Public Works Committee, said state leaders were given a list of six initiatives that need to be seriously pursued in order for a waiver to be considered. The pre-filed bills are one way to show good faith efforts to comply with federal standards, she said.

“The session starts on January 10th and subcommittee meetings on this will be one of the first things we do,” she said. “We feel very strongly about this moving forward.”

But a permanent fix might be more complicated than it might seem, DMV Executive Director Kevin Shwedo has warned. For instance, federal law requires a birth certificate, Social Security card, proof of address and proof of name change — such as a marriage license — to receive a driver’s license or state ID.

The state began requiring those items in 2010. But if everyone who received their licenses before then needed replacements, it would cause logistical nightmares and be hugely expensive. Shwedo has estimated $72 million.

So the fix may be expensive as well as complicated.

“And January 2018 is just one year of a governmental cycle,” McElveen said. “It’s complicated. It’s going to cost money. We need to get started quickly.”

This story was originally published December 28, 2016 at 5:12 PM with the headline "Bills would force SC to comply with federal ID law."