Beaufort County Rep picked to lead the SC House LCI committee
State Rep. Bill Herbkersman, R-Beaufort, will lead the House Labor, Commerce and Industry Committee, putting him in the forefront of guiding through a potential energy bill when it comes from the state Senate.
Herbkersman, who has been in the House since 2003, most recently served as second vice chair of the Ways and Means Committee, tasked with writing a state budget.
His move to LCI follows the ouster of former state Reps. Bill Sandifer and Jay West, two Republicans who lost their primaries in June and were the highest ranking members of the committee.
Because of elections and members opting not to run, LCI had 10 vacancies coming into the new General Assembly. The committee has 12 new members because two LCI members moved to Ways and Means.
But how South Carolina addresses its future energy needs may be one the most consequential pieces of legislation it deals with this year.
The House passed an energy bill last year, but it never moved in the Senate. The upper chamber opted to have a special committee work during the fall to discuss the state’s energy needs before finalizing an energy package to bring to the floor.
“We’ll have discussions with it right away, even in the off session, just to keep in touch with what the Senate has been doing,” Herbkersman said. “So we want to stay up on this and try and move this as quickly as we can.”
He added that committee will be open to all sources of energy, including green energy, but that could come in separate legislation.
Herbkersman said it was hard to come off of the Ways and Means Committee. It’s a move that fellow LCI committee member Craig Gagnon made this year.
“I thought LCI just needed a new direction,” Herbkersman said. “Through the years, LCI had one direction, and I think we need to broaden it a little bit to go in different directions on that.”
Herbkersman said Sandifer was a “great chairman,” but the committee had an autocratic direction.
“I think we have a variety of people,” Herbkersman said. “We’ve got people from different backgrounds who can add to this, who could broaden what LCI can do.”
State Reps. Gary Brewer, Don Chapman, Brandon Guffy, Bill Hager, Jermaine Johnson, Brian Lawson, Fawn Pedalino, Carla Schuessler, Mark Smith and Chris Wooten, also joined the committee. Herbkersman said he doesn’t believe the committee will be overly difficult with so many new members.
“I think it’s going to be easier, because there’s no preset notions,” Herbkersman said. “I think the discussion is going to be open about where we need to go.”
Herbkersman becoming a committee chair gives Beaufort County four House committee chairmanships.
State Rep. Shannon Erickson chairs the Education and Public Works Committee, Weston Newton is the Judiciary Committee chairman and Jeff Bradley chairs a special artificial intelligence committee.
“It’s not anything that’s planned,” Herbkersman said. “It’s just the amount of time that you stay here and the amount of relationships you build up just happen to work in our favor.”
This story was originally published December 4, 2024 at 1:18 PM.
