Open Letter from Senator Luke Rankin to DHEC Chairman Bo Aughtry
February 13, 2009 by admin
Friends - I thought you would want to see this open letter I recently wrote
to DHEC Chairman Bo Aughtry urging him to open the Pee Dee power facility.
Thank you,
Luke
Dear Chairman Aughtry:
I write to you and the other board members today to recommend to the Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) Board that you affirm your staff’s decision to issue a permit for the Pee Dee energy facility. I am concerned that recent submissions by agencies and officials in our state who have previously sat silent throughout an extensive period of public comment and analysis have unnecessarily, and irresponsibly, politicized this issue. This is bad public policy. Read more
Rankin bill pushes Limehouse to act on I-73
February 2, 2009 by admin
Good for Secretary Buck Limehouse of the S.C. Department of Transportation, for agreeing last week to lead the quest to get some part of Interstate 73 built in the next 12 months. His willingness to start work on the road well may have been inspired by a proposal to give control of the S.C. DOT back to the General Assembly. But we attribute his leadership effort to recognition that a political moment for this much-needed economic lifeline has come into being and to his desire to seize that moment.
As Limehouse no doubt would agree, others who understand the importance of this 85-mile limited-access link between Horry County and metro Charlotte, N.C., deserve the credit for creating this political moment. During a visit to Washington last week, Horry County elected officials and business leaders impressed the importance of the project upon the S.C. congressional delegation, key staff members and key federal agency members.
Out of that hard work grew a limited commitment from U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham to back I-73 during stimulus negotiations under way in the Senate and in the future. In return, he wants state leaders to identify a financing source for the state’s share of the cost.
In response, the Horry County legislative delegation, led by S.C. Reps. Alan Clemmons, R-Myrtle Beach, and Tracy Edge, R-North Myrtle Beach, partnering with S.C. Sen. Hugh Leatherman, R-Florence, unveiled a proposal to create a multicounty authority to generate revenue for the project. The Pee Dee economic development consortium to which the counties belong, the North Eastern Strategic Alliance, also backs the bill.
The proposal would create a 3 percent motor fuels surtax in the four counties through which the highway would run: Horry, Marion, Dillon and Marlboro. If the councils of those counties agree, as the proposal requires, this surtax would be levied between April 1 and Sept. 30. This provision would ensure that tourists provide as much of the money to build I-73 as the residents of those counties - maybe more.
The potential that a stable, recurring revenue source for Interstate 73 could come into being apparently got Limehouse’s attention. Gone was his earlier inclination to exclude an I-73 project from the state’s stimulus list because no other source of money for the project was apparent. Limehouse also agreed that the most-discussed such project, an I-73 interchange at Interstate 95 in Dillon County, might work as a stimulus project after all - if it could be connected with existing roads on the east and west sides of I-95.
It’s possible that S.C. Sen. Luke Rankin’s proposal last week to return the S.C. DOT to total legislative control had an effect on Limehouse. That scenario, if enacted, could cost him his job - or at the very least render him a pawn to the legislative transportation committees.
Rankin, R-Myrtle Beach, believes that the current S.C. DOT setup, under which Limehouse reports to Gov. Mark Sanford while six of the seven members of the DOT Commission are legislatively appointed, hasn’t worked. Perhaps because Sanford’s grip on the agency is so tenuous, he’s devoted little political capital to I-73 or other signature projects - and he opposes the stimulus in any event.
It would be better if the S.C. DOT became a full-bore Cabinet agency. But as long as Sanford is governor, that seems unlikely to happen.
Regardless, Limehouse’s welcome decision for I-73 well may undercut the impetus behind the Rankin bill. The gentleman has made an early start on the long-awaited road a real possibility at last. For that, his many friends in Horry County and the Pee Dee should be grateful.
