Splitting up DHEC hits snag as SC legislature heads into final days of session

For the second straight year, a bill to split up the state Department of Health and Environmental Control has hit a possible snag in the state House of Representatives.

On Tuesday, the House Ways and Means Committee voted to reject the Senate’s plan for breaking up the agency. The committee instead approved its own plan, which was proposed in an amendment by state Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, D-Orangeburg.

Cobb-Hunter complained that the Senate last week sent to the House a detailed plan with just days left before this year’s regular legislative session ends on Thursday.

“The Senate sent over a bill that’s 119 pages. I don’t know what they expected the House to do,” Cobb-Hunter said during the Ways and Means Committee meeting. “We tackled this issue last year and thought the Senate would do their due diligence and not try to cram something down our throats at the 11th hour and 59th minute. But alas, here we are.”

Last year, an effort to break up DHEC fell apart in the final week of the legislative session because of concerns over how the new public health department would be structured. This year’s last-minute snag raises questions about whether legislation splitting the agency will pass this year.

Formed in the 1970s, DHEC for the first time combined the state’s pollution control agency with the state health department. It has become one of South Carolina’s largest agencies, employing more than 3,500 full-time workers, according to previous reporting by The State Media Co. The department does everything from restaurant inspections to running county health departments to monitoring shellfish beds.

“We don’t need to rush into it, and if we are doing this under the guise of efficiency and more convenience for the taxpayers, then we really need to be careful in what we do and how we do it,” Cobb-Hunter said.

Similar to the Senate’s bill, the House would create a Department of Public Health and a Department of Environmental Services. Both would be headed directors appointed by the governor.

Like the Senate’s, the House bill would preserve “automatic stay,” which temporarily stops work on construction when a government-issued environmental permit is being challenged.

The Senate’s proposal included a detailed plan for a new environmental agency, but senators called for the state Department of Administration to propose how the health agency would be structured. The Ways and Means Committee plan calls for the Department of Administration to propose detailed plans for both agencies, including how water resources would be managed.

Bill Stangler, riverkeeper for the Saluda, Broad and Congaree and who serves on Broad River Basin Council, said he doesn’t want the DNR’s state water planning, which includes formulating and establishing a comprehensive water resources policy, to get derailed in the process. He said he’s now seeing a lot of progress.

Cobb-Hunter shares Stangler’s concern about moving carefully and making sure the right voices are heard.

“Water is a resource that all of us care about regardless of what we do,” Cobb-Hunter said. “We just want to make sure that we’re doing it based on the best interests of the state and the people of this state and that we are protecting our waterways and our water resources.”

State Rep. J. David Weeks, D-Sumter, shared reservations about how quickly the process was moving.

“I’m concerned about us ending up with two agencies that don’t function very well, when we have one that does OK,” Weeks said during the committee meeting.

Environmentalists largely said it’s too soon to know whether legislation splitting up DHEC will be passed this year.

Upstate Forever’s Megan Chase-Muller said the nonprofit would support any move that makes the Senate plan mirror the House version more closely. She said if the legislation isn’t passed this year, she expects it will be next year.

Sen. Tom Davis, R-Beaufort, who’s been steering the Senate’s bill, said he expects the bill will head to a conference committee, where both chambers will negotiate the final outcome.

The bill could be voted on Thursday or the following week when the Legislature is called back to session by the governor.

However, even so, the bill outlines that it would not become law until July 2024.

Joe Bustos, state government and politics reporter at The State, contributed to this report.