Break up DHEC? Agency in charge of COVID response under fire. ‘No one is in control.’
South Carolina’s environmental and health department, a combined agency that for years has drawn criticism as unwieldy, would be broken up under a plan announced Wednesday morning by state Senate President Harvey Peeler.
In a news release shortly before noon, Peeler said he’s introducing legislation to dissolve the Department of Health and Environmental Control. DHEC’s health division would meld with other health-related agencies to form a state health department, he said.
The department, one of the state’s largest with more than 3,000 employees, has had four executive directors in the past 10 years and has been criticized this year for its response to the coronavirus crisis. Peeler said DHEC lacks leadership and needs reform.
“No one is in control at DHEC and hasn’t been for quite some time,’’ Peeler, R-Cherokee, said in a news release, noting that his legislation “will ensure government runs more efficiently and will give each agency clearly defined responsibilities.”
Peeler, who formerly headed a legislative committee that screened DHEC director candidates, said the panel has examined the qualifications of four candidates for the job in recent years. DHEC’s governing board is now trying to find a new director to replace Rick Toomey, who quit in May after less than two years on the job.
Asked whether he was satisfied with the pace of the search, Gov. Henry McMaster told reporters Wednesday that he wished the previous directors had stayed, but said he knows the board is “very actively seeking just the right person in this position.”
But DHEC’s acting director Marshall Taylor, who took over after Toomey left, pushed back against Peeler’s suggestion that DHEC has had no leadership.
“Well, I believe that leadership has been in place obviously. I’m there,” Taylor told reporters. “But, you know, the Legislature may have different ideas about how DHEC should be restructured, and that’s certainly in their purview. And whatever the Legislature decides, that’s what we’ll do.”
Details of Peeler’s plan were still developing, but his announcement follows rumblings that reform at DHEC was on the way. State Rep. Murrell Smith, R-Sumter, told The State last week that he hoped the Legislature “would do a real thorough review’’ of whether DHEC was too large.
Smith, chairman of the House budget committee, said breaking up the agency might be well-received by the public if proposed changes can be explained clearly.
Critics have said it’s better for South Carolina to have a department focused only on health, rather than also dealing with often controversial environmental issues.
South Carolina is one of the few states with a combined environmental and health agency, which gives the agency wide ranging responsibilities.
Among other things, it oversees public health — including the coronavirus response this year — as well as hospital expansions, sanitation of tattoo parlors, regulation of tanning beds and an array of other programs.
But the agency, established in the early 1970s when the state health and pollution control departments were combined, also is in charge of inspecting restaurants, ensuring people get clean drinking water, issuing pollution control permits to industry, regulating hog and chicken farms, monitoring coastal development and testing water and air quality.
According to Peeler’s news release, his legislation would combine DHEC’s health division with the Department of Mental Health and the Department of Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse Services.
The release said the departments of agriculture, veterans affairs and natural resources would undertake programs “relevant to their departments.’’
In an interview Wednesday afternoon, Peeler said his bill will spread the duties of DHEC’s environmental division among the three agencies.
A big chunk would go to the Department of Agriculture under a new environmental division. Among those programs going to agriculture would be hazardous waste management, mining, stormwater management, low-level radioactive waste and groundwater, Peeler said.
The state’s coastal protection program would be absorbed by the Department of Natural Resources. The DNR also would take over the state’s dam safety program, Peeler said.
If approved, the changes would take effect upon McMaster’s signature.
The State newspaper highlighted many problems the agency has had in the 2008 series “DHEC Under Fire.’’
Plans have been offered to break up DHEC, but they never passed the legislature, in part because agency officials opposed the change. Peeler introduced a proposal to do that in 2015. Opinions through the years also have varied. Ten years ago, the business community opposed making DHEC a cabinet under the governor.
Supporters of DHEC have said environment and health issues go naturally together and have said the agency has done a solid job through the years. Some business leaders have worried that changes could result in tighter environmental regulation.
Some environmentalists also have expressed concern about past plans to break up DHEC, worrying that any merger with the Department of Agriculture would not be advisable since DHEC regulates farms.
“Certainly, we can debate that question and see if there is a better way,’’ Peeler said.
DHEC is overseen by an eight member board appointed by the governor, but it is not directly under the governor’s control.
Peeler said he expects plenty of debate over his plan, but it’s time to break up DHEC. The coronavirus pandemic has focused a spotlight on the agency, he said.
“This is nothing new; I introduced a similar bill four or five years ago,’’ he said. “But what’s going on with Covid, we need someone in control at DHEC.’’
Maayan Schechter contributed to this report.
This story has been updated.
This story was originally published December 9, 2020 at 2:01 PM.
