Effort to break up DHEC moves forward as SC Senate unanimously passes bill. What’s next?

For the second straight year, the South Carolina Senate has voted to break up the state’s Department of Health and Environmental Control.

A bill passed unanimously by the Senate on Wednesday night would dissolve DHEC and create two separate agencies that would fall under the governor’s control.

The new environmental agency would be named the Department of Environmental Services, which would have divisions to monitor air quality, land and waste management, water usage, regional and laboratory services, and coastal management, according to the plan. Some of DHEC’S environmental responsibilities would shift to the Department of Agriculture.

“It’s been a long time coming,” said state Sen. Brad Hutto, D-Orangeburg. “Generally, we’ve built a consensus to say that an environmental agency deserves its own standalone agency. What we haven’t wrapped our heads around yet is how broad the health agency should be.”

A newly structured health agency would be called the Department of Public Health. But the Senate bill doesn’t provide details about how the agency would be structured. Last year, the bill stalled in the House because of concerns over the public health department. This year, the Senate agreed to ask an expert in the Department of Administration to provide recommendations on how to structure the agency.

The bill also eliminates the DHEC board. Critics say that will eliminate an option for appealing decisions made by the agency staff. Currently, a decision can be appealed to the board before landing in the South Carolina Administrative Law Court. Under the new organization, an appeal would have to immediately go to the court, a more expensive avenue.

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.

A move to dissolve the agency and split it into two needs to be done thoughtfully and thoroughly, so as to avoid any unintended consequences, said Bill Stangler, the riverkeeper for the Saluda, Broad and Congaree who has testified on the Senate bill.

South Carolina is one of three states that combine environmental regulation and health care under one roof. Other U.S. states and territories have separated them into at least two standalone agencies.

DHEC has come under scrutiny for being bureaucratic, unwieldy and slow to act, The State reported previously.

In 2011, reporting by the newspaper revealed that the department knew about low quality and lead-tainted drinking water in a poor Columbia-area community for 20 years before resolving the issue. More recently, in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, DHEC came under fire for not publicizing information about outbreak hot spots.

The legislation now goes to the House of Representatives. The bill would need to garner House approval before the legislative session ends May 11. Following that hurdle, Gov. Henry McMaster would have to sign the legislation as well.

Last year, after the Senate passed a plan to break up the agency, the House didn’t act on it.

Department of Environmental Services

Debate over how to split the agency pushed the Senate’s vote into the late evening hours Wednesday.

Hutto said major issues Wednesday included whether to maintain “automatic stay” and how to regulate the use and quality of water.

Automatic stay temporarily stops work on construction activity when a government-issued environmental permit is being challenged. The Senate bill maintains the practice.

The South Carolina Environmental Law Project pushed to maintain automatic stay.

“That was really significant for citizens that want to protect the environment before the harm happens,” said Amy Armstrong, the law project’s executive director.

Hutto, who advocated to maintain automatic stay, gave the example of a property owner concerned that a hazardous waste facility may be built nearby. A process should be available for the property owner to question and challenge the environmental consequences.

“They should have a right to question that and make sure that the setbacks are there and that the river nearby or their ponds, or lakes, are not be exposed to any pollutants,” Hutto said.

Upstate Forever’s Megan Chase-Muller said the conservation nonprofit was “happy to see the status quo for the automatic stay preserved in (the Senate’s) version of the bill.”

Another issue was which agencies would be responsible for overseeing water quality and use. Those responsibilities now are spread over several agencies, including the Department of Natural Resources. But senators decided the new environmental department would handle everything related to water.

South Carolina Farm Bureau President Harry Ott supported that change.

“We need restructuring and streamlining to provide certainty for business owners — like our almost 25,000 family farms — and to ensure they don’t have to bounce from one agency to another looking for answers and permission to do their jobs,” Ott said.

Moving the agency’s water management under one agency may be a “bit” of an issue as the House considers the bill, Hutto said. However, he said putting those functions under one department with “the right person in charge” makes sense.

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

“I’m concerned that stripping away that program from DNR is going to have that negative effect,” Stangler said.

Department of Public Health

While senators agreed on how to organize the environmental agency, they still need to decide on the health department’s structure.

Sen. Tom Davis, R-Beaufort, who’s been steering the bill, said all of the health care pieces of DHEC “remain in place” for now. But an expert in the Department of Administration is being asked to submit a recommendation to the General Assembly in April 2024.

As it stands right now, the handful of agencies working separately is “very inefficient,” Davis said.

He heard testimony from a resident with autism who needed mental health treatment. The state’s Department of Mental Health said because of the person’s autism, they needed to go to the Department of Disabilities and Special Needs. But that agency said they should go back to the mental health department.

“We can’t have six or seven different agencies fractured out there and in delivering those services,” Davis said. “That’s not the best way to deliver health care to the people of South Carolina.”

Last year, in the final week of the Legislative session, a bill to split DHEC stalled in the House after mental health advocates complained. They packed a House hearing to complain that the measure was ill-conceived and moving too fast, according to previous reporting by The State.

Davis said Thursday the same concerns exist.

“The health piece of it still needed some work,” Davis said. “We agreed that we’re going to hear some more and get some more advice.”