HOLIDAY. With Labor Day approaching, this weekend may be the last big beach blowout for many South Carolinians. Be safe, whether you’re on the beach at Edisto Island, shown here, or in the Upstate’s mountains or enjoying various activities across the Palmetto State. (Photo provided.)
IN THIS EDITION
NEWS: New day for solar power in South Carolina
BRIEFS: Again with the “New South”
COMMENTARY: S.C. can learn a few things from Cuba
SPOTLIGHT: S.C. Senate Democratic Caucus
MY TURN, Victoria Middleton: Who is policing the police?
FEEDBACK: Two letters about Cuba
SCORECARD: Senate 45 to Haley, McKnight
NUMBER: 24
QUOTE: Afterthought
SC ENCYCLOPEDIA: South Carolina’s connection with Barbados
NEWS
New day for solar in South Carolina
By Bill Davis, senior editor
SEPT. 4, 2015 | South Carolina may finally be ready for solar power.
C. Dukes Scott, executive director at the S.C. Office of Regulatory Staff (ORS) announced this week that his office, which oversees utilities and other power-generating issues, has finally put the finishing touches on its process for guiding the expansion of solar power in South Carolina.
For years, solar regulation was left in the hands of the utilities, and critics contended they slow-footed the process so they wouldn’t lose any power, pun intended, to citizens generating their own.
But last year, the state legislature passed a law to hand the responsibility to ORS. Since then, there have been no major leaps in solar installations across the state, according to Scott, because everyone was waiting for the state’s process to be completed.
“Six months out from now, we should have a better idea of how the solar market is doing across South Carolina,” in conjunction with other renewable energy sources identified by the state’s Definitive Energy Resource (DER) program, according to Scott.
The DER program also put goals for solar implementation, along with similar goals for landfill, wind, and hydroelectric power generation. Interest in solar energy has increased nationally as technology improvements have coupled with cost reductions to make solar more and more viable.
Scott said that there was already some good news for individuals wanting to convert roof space into solar panels as the process has already yielded one certified company that can lease panels.
Several churches across South Carolina had been thwarted in past efforts to use their roofs for an additional revenue streams, as churches had done in other states. Scott said the leasing company would be able sooner rather than later to begin leasing the panels.
Net-metering — buying back power
Another important piece of the legislative solution crafted last year was to mandate that utilities buy back power generated by solar sites at rates comparable to what they were charging on a retail level.
South Carolina seems to have had some good luck on this issue: utilities in many other states have complained they were paying retail for power they could generate otherwise at wholesale rates. Scott said neither South Carolina Electric and Gas nor Duke Power, two heavyweights in the energy generation and distribution market in South Carolina, have complained about the net metering rates.
Hamilton Davis, watchdog on energy and climate issues at the S.C. Coastal Conservation League, said the legislature and Gov. Nikki Haley have created a much more “fertile landscape” in South Carolina for solar growth than was available when utilities regulated the industry.
But, Davis warned, there may be need for more policy tweaking or legislative solutions going forward. State agency Santee Cooper is not held to the same goals under the DER program as the utilities, he said.
Santee Cooper is one of the largest power generators in the state, but instead of delivering the power to consumers like a utility, it distributes a large portion of its megawatts to electric cooperatives across the state, which then pass on the power to customers.
Davis said he was especially concerned by the Santee Cooper board’s recent decision to implement an interim fee schedule that would charge property owners who chose to install panels.
“Santee Cooper has basically adopted one of the most regressive anti-solar polices in the nation,” said Hamilton. “For a state agency, you would not think it would make a move opposite to legislation that was just passed by state government last year.”
Santee Cooper spokesman Mollie Gore said the agency, while committed to growing renewable energy in the state, also wants to make sure it doesn’t shift the cost of these newer technologies to all of its customers.
While he agreed with Davis’ concern for possible policy tweaks, Mike Couick, the president of The Electric Cooperatives of South Carolina, said that his organization was being singled out by a national solar advocacy group for its successful approach to solar energy.
Worried about loopholes
Solar panel activist Jim Kubu of Solarize South Carolina said he worried that since the state’s “landscape is peppered” with cooperatives, there could be too many loopholes for homeowners to get excited. Solarize South Carolina has set a goal of getting 2,000 solar panels installed on roofs throughout the state in the next year and a half.
Kubu used himself as an example of what can go wrong without uniform rates.
The house directly across the street from his is serviced by an electric cooperative, which means he can get better deals and rates from his power-provider, SCE&G, than can his neighbor.
Kubu said the solar field, in general, has benefited in recent years from technological improvements, cost drops and tax credits on the state and especially the federal levels of governments. But without uniformity in net metering rates and the possibility of set-up fees, some property owners could be put off.
Additionally, South Carolina, unlike neighboring North Carolina and Georgia, and nearby Florida, doesn’t have what Kubu called a “solar bill of rights,” which would trump homeowner association covenants against solar panels. Kubu said he hoped the legislature would become proactive rather than reactive on this issue.
Davis observed, “There likely has got to be a critical mass of frustrated homeowners for the legislature to respond.”
Bill Davis is senior editor of Statehouse Report. Have a comment? Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com.
NEWS BRIEFSAgain with this “New South” thing?
How many times can people use the term “New South” in a new way?
Georgia editor Henry W. Grady started using the term in 1886 to highlight the region’s need to reinvigorate itself with more manufacturing, in part with northern investment. Editor W.J. Cash dusted off the term during the Depression and bandied it about in his “The Mind of the South,” an exploration of Southern culture. And then came waves of politicians and political wannabes who kept the term alive, each iteration causing the real meaning to become less focused and more innocuous.
So now comes hyper-ambitious S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley in a much-publicized speech on, yet again, the new South. The speech, however, seemed to be more of an appetizer for what Haley’s team really wanted to be the main course — serious consideration of the governor as a possible vice presidential candidate. (Note, for example, the low number of stories that focused on the guts of the speech, compared to the many on the presidential political horse race.)
Nevertheless, Haley’s speech, titled “Lessons from the New South,” focused on race and touting South Carolina’s economic and cultural successes. Racial progress, she said, comes from listening, not shouting. Some snippets from the speech:
- “My family and I have faced discrimination in the past. My mother always taught me not to talk about the things that are obvious. It is to make this clear: a lot of people make the mistake of thinking the South is still like that today. It’s not. I know. I lived through it.”
- “Today there truly is a New South. It is different in many ways, perhaps most especially in its attitudes toward race. We are still far from perfect. We still have our problems. There’s still a lot more to do. But the New South, in many ways, is a place to look toward, rather than away from, when it comes to race relations.”
- ‘Black lives do matter, and they have been disgracefully jeopardized by the movement that has laid waste to Ferguson and Baltimore. In South Carolina we did things differently. After the horrendous death of Walter Scott, we didn’t have violence. As a state, we came together, black and white, Republican and Democrat.’
Haley didn’t, however, forget to inject a little conservative politics into the conversation, as she supportedvoter ID laws, often considered controversial. Many see them as a way to chill voting because they erect barriers. Read the speech.
COMMENTARYS.C. can learn a few things from Cuba
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher
SEPT. 4, 2015 | For as long as Americans not old enough to be in the AARP have been alive, Cuba has been a pariah, a non-democratic experiment whose embarrassing Soviet connections caused a geo-political chess game.
But as Soviet reg
imes crumbled in the early 1990s, Cuba was left hanging, still isolated and cut off from its rich neighbor to the north. Cubans literally lost weight, as food became harder to get. But its economic crisis forced institutional changes. The Cuba of today isn’t the Cuba of the Cold War.
According to Cubans met during a recent visit, one-fifth of the people in the 5 million person labor force have jobs in private businesses from family-owned restaurants to small shops to other tourism-related jobs. Today, Cubans can swap houses if they want to live somewhere else — and have to pay some kind of confusing tax to do so. Sure, the socialist state still provides ration cards for free food for families as well as free education, health care and more. But the country also is changing economically, which eventually should have a positive trade impact with the U.S. as relations thaw.
Without getting into deep discussions over Cuba’s experiment with socialism, South Carolina may be able to learn a little from Cuba’s experiences over the last five decades. Some observations, courtesy participants in a 19-person group tour in August:
Health care. Cuba’s health care system — particularly its emphasis on high-quality doctors and medical research — has led to some innovations, such as a lung cancer vaccine called Cimavax that’s been free to Cubans since 2011. The treatment offers such promise that N.Y. Gov. Andrew Cuomo went to Havana in April to take a look. Since then, an agreement for clinical trials in the U.S. has been signed.
Cuba focuses on preventing people from getting diseases and treating them quickly. Doctor-nurse teams live in neighborhoods they serve and know their patients. Health care is coordinated and community-based at a cost that reportedly is 4 percent of what the U.S. pays. Meanwhile, Cubans have the same life expectancy as Americans.
Noted one participant in the tour: “If Cuba has figured out a way to take care of its people, why can’t the biggest economy in the world do it? Societies need to take care of their children.” A lesson for South Carolina: Accept federal Medicaid expansion money so that the poorest of South Carolina’s poor can get access to better health care — medical treatment that focuses on prevention, not expensive emergency treatment.
Literacy. Cuba, while poor, has a universal public education system that has created a literate population with some 99.8 percent of people older than 14 being able to read and write a short simple statement about everyday life, according to the United Nations. In South Carolina, data indicate literacy rates of about 85 percent. It’s obvious that Cubans are doing something right, at least in early education, that merits a closer look.
Trash. Cuba seems like a pretty clean country. Maybe it’s because there’s not a fast-food joint on every corner. But there’s also an obvious pride of place that regular people have to keep roads and neighborhoods in urban and rural areas relatively free from trash.
Agriculture. Perhaps the biggest lesson we can learn is in agriculture, particularly in getting back to basics of our grandparents in growing foods without lots of chemicals or pesticides. Cuba did it out of necessity and it seems to be paying off. After the Soviets, Cuba, just to feed itself, launched a program of urban and family organic gardening to produce more food. Fresh, seasonal foods seem to be widely available. Additionally, there’s apparently a rise in the countryside of small, family farms that produce an array of foods for local restaurants and markets.
One group participant found the focus on neighborhood and small farming to be Cuba’s biggest lesson, noting how he was impressed by “the importance of small family farming and how it can diversify the crop base and reduce the influence of corporate farming.”
There is much to gain from improved relations with Cuba — for us, as much as for them.
MORE ON CUBA:
- Photo essay: The cars of Cuba
- Photo essay: The faces of Cuba
- Commentary: Cuba faces big changes with thaw with U.S.
Andy Brack is editor and publisher of Statehouse Report. Send feedback to: feedback@statehousereport.com.
IN THE SPOTLIGHTS.C. Senate Democratic Caucus
The public spiritedness of our underwriters allows us to bring Statehouse Report to you at no cost. This week’s spotlighted underwriter is the S.C. Senate Democratic Caucus. Organized almost 25 years ago, the Caucus has played an important role in many of the historic issues facing our state. As a vibrant minority party in the Senate, its role is to represent our constituents and present viable alternatives on critical issues. The S.C. Senate Democratic Caucus remains a unique place for this to occur in our policy process.
- Learn more about the Caucus at: www.scsenatedems.org.
Who’s policing the police? Greater transparency needed
By Victoria Middleton
SEPT. 4, 2015 | This year, we saw a Columbia man shot by a police officer after reaching for the very ID the officer was asking for. We watched a bystander video of Walter Scott’s shooting in North Charleston. We read of a Seneca teenager’s death in a drug sting. These and a number of other South Carolina victims of police shootings — 32 in our state already this year, 13 of them fatal — were unarmed.
At the time of Walter Scott’s shooting in April, approximately 209 people had been shot in the past five years, and 79 of those had died at the hands of police. Only three police officers have been charged with a crime in connection with any of the 209 shootings, according to The State newspaper.
In other communities — Ferguson, Baltimore, and many more — the breakdown of police-community relations as a result of police shootings has been devastating. Protests in our state have been peaceful, but community trust in local police departments has been shaken.
This is an opportunity to delve into what has gone wrong and what needs to change. We need to jump-start dialogue about police practices, particularly those that harm the community, and talk about reforms. A starting point is to look at how we got here.
The legacy of the “war on drugs” launched in the 1970s came out of the legacy of criminalizing communities of color. Measuring the success of drug enforcement efforts too often was based on arrest figures and metrics that didn’t focus on overall public safety.
In fact, aggressive policing of low-level offenses can erode community safety by increasing adversarial relationships and distrust. “Broken windows” policing, pretextual stops, unregulated surveillance and ‘militarization’ of police units supplied with surplus Pentagon equipment – all these policies contribute to over-policing. And they are being increasingly discredited.
Of course, communities of color are vulnerable to violent crime, and police are not the enemy. At the same time, the problem goes deeper than abuse or excessive use of force by a handful of officers.
We need to promote a culture of greater transparency. Law enforcement and civilian authorities need to ensure that police do a better job of collecting, examining and publishing data on stops and arrests to investigate possible bias. The body cameras being mandated for law enforcement by our state officials could help deescalate encounters between the police and citizens – but only if the public has appropriate access to what the police are recording. Since release of video is currently at the discretion of law enforcement, it remains to be seen whether this measure will increase public confidence.
One way to build greater trust is to engage all community residents. Civilian review boards should could be created that are endowed with substantial authority, which could include subpoena power and independent disciplinary authority. These boards could be charged with regularly analyzing data on a range of police department practices to determine if there are any unjustified racial disparities or other system-wide problems in enforcement practices. In a number of cities around the country, community coalitions are pressing for a strong local police-civilian oversight system that would identify patterns of misconduct and hold officers more accountable.
The issues raised by Walter Scott’s death and other shootings in South Carolina can’t be managed by a public relations campaign. If we’re serious about eliminating racial bias and creating a fairer and more equitable climate in our communities, we need system-wide change in our institutions.
Here in South Carolina, the ACLU is joining with other advocacy and civic groups to urge a review of police practices statewide. One conversation will go on during the “Days of Grace” rally in Charleston on September 5-6. What will we be asking for?
- A zero-tolerance policy toward racial profiling, and an increase in training, including implicit bias training, to end discriminatory practices.
- A review of use of force and training in deescalating situations.
- Greater transparency and better data collection so everyone knows what the police are doing and how they are doing it.
- Greater accountability, with the police being held responsible by the community.
- And police departments made up of more people from the communities they serve. Real community safety depends on it.
Victoria Middleton is executive director of the ACLU of South Carolina, which is based in Charleston.
FEEDBACKGreat trip to Cuba
To the editor:
We travelled with the San Francisco Art Alliance four years ago to Havana. I can’t remember a more exhilarating trip. We were treated each evening to dinner at an artist’s home. The art was astonishing in its freshness. It was art that called out for an association with the United States. Every artist “dreamed” of a time when there would be normalized relations.
Being some of the few citizens who were allowed to travel freely, they were sophisticated explorers of the larger world. Hands down, their love for America was resounding. I am hopeful that we can extend the hand of true friendship to this country that is so eager to join the 21st century and all that capitalism has to offer.
— Ellen Harley, Charleston, S.C.
To the editor:
I enjoyed reading the first installment in the Statehouse Report concerning your recent Cuban trip, and especially appreciated the photos. I actually went to Cuba in May 2014 on a Road Scholar sponsored trip, and wrote a synopsis of my experiences shortly after returning.
— Freida McDuffie, Charleston, S.C.
Send us a letter. We love hearing from our readers and encourage you to share your opinions. Letters to the editor are published weekly. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity. We generally publish all comments about South Carolina politics or policy issues, unless they are libelous or unnecessarily inflammatory. One submission is allowed per month. Submission of a comment grants permission to us to reprint. Comments are limited to 250 words or less. Please include your name and contact information.
- Send your letters to: feedback@statehousereport.com
Up on election, recommendations; Down on Haley, McKnight
Thumbs up
Bright, Hodges in runoff. A packed slate of Democratic candidates who wanted to fill the seat left vacant after the murder of S.C. Clementa Pinckney is down to two people — Walterboro attorney and newcomer Margie Bright Matthews, who polled the most votes, and state Rep. Kenneth Hodges. The runoff is Sept. 15, which will be followed by a general election with the winner versus GOP candidate Alberto Fernandez on Oct. 20.
Domestic violence recommendations. A special gubernatorial task force has made more than four dozen recommendations to help the state combat domestic violence, including more 911 operators, better training, more shelters and better police documentation. Good work — now let’s just follow up and make it happen. More.
Thumbs down
Haley. While Gov. Nikki Haley’s team pulled out the stops to get national attention at a Washington press club event, it’s fairly obvious (even to non-cynics) that the real purpose was to launch the uber-ambitious Haley as a possible vice presidential candidate. While the governor has an economic record many may find compelling, people need to look deeper. There are so many other deficiencies in the Haley record that being on the presidential ticket would be a train wreck of tremendous proportions.
McKnight. Thumbs down to state Rep. Cezar McKnight (D-Williamsburg), fined $54,000 on Thursday by the Senate Ethics Committee for 31 unreported campaign expenditures and 23 unreported campaign contributions during a 2014 special Senate election. The committee, which also publicly reprimanded McKnight, also ordered him to pay $6,190 in previous fines by Sept. 30.
Harrell. The news just keeps getting worse for former House Speaker Bobby Harrell, who has been ordered by a legislative committee to repay $113,000 to the state general fund following his guilty plea on corruption charges.
Drought. Fingers are crossed that two thirds of the state — the part not along the humid, wet coast — gets some rain soon to protect crops and ameliorate the effects of a moderate drought.
NUMBER24
Percentage decline in the number of gun permits issued in 2014 compared to the previous year. The state issued 64,400 permits in 2014. The state, however, has about 264,000 active concealed weapons permits now in total — a 150 percent increase since 2009, according to this story.
Afterthought
“It tends to be an area that we just look at as an afterthought. There’s been very little attention paid to this area.”
— S.C. Department of Social Services Director Susan Alford on the state’s job of protecting South Carolina’s elderly and disabled adults. “A decade of budget cuts and staff shortages have “marginalized” such services, she said,” according to this story.
S.C. ENCYCLOPEDIASouth Carolina’s connection to Barbados
S.C. Encyclopedia | One of the enduring myths of American history is the centuries-old assertion that the thirteen original colonies were “English” colonies. While they were governed by the English, the colonies were not peopled only by individuals of English ancestry. Almost one-half of Virginia’s white population has been identified as ethnically English. New York, often cited as having one of the more heterogeneous colonial populations, was some forty-four percent English. For all of the colonies in what would become the United States, on average nearly fifty-eight percent of the European settlers were of English descent.
South Carolina was far below the colonial average and had one of the most diverse populations in British North America. For more than two-thirds of its colonial history (1706–1775), settlers of European extraction were a minority of the population. And within the European minority, no single nationality was a majority. Persons of English descent were the largest European ethnic group, comprising some 36.7 percent of the white population. Except for Pennsylvania, this was the smallest English population (in terms of percentage) in the thirteen colonies. Just as the European population was diverse, so were the origins of the colony’s English settlers.
In 1670 a group of about 130 white immigrants arrived in South Carolina. Almost all were from the mother country, but a small number of English men and women were from the English islands in the West Indies. Although there were only a handful of real Barbadians in the first group of 130 settlers in 1670, during the next twenty years a majority of the whites who settled in South Carolina came from Barbados, the prosperous island colony that was often called “Little England.” While the settlers who emigrated from the islands to South Carolina were ethnically “English,” culturally they were Anglo-Caribbean—an important distinction.
In South Carolina, regardless of the islands from whence they came, they were referred to as “Barbadians.” These Anglo-Caribbeans who emigrated from the various English colonies in the West Indies—Barbados, Jamaica, Antigua, Nevis, St. Christopher’s, and Grenada—became a powerful presence in the new colony. Quickly rising to prominence, these English settlers who had spent time in the West Indies established the cultural ethos that shaped the development of the colony. The influence of the Barbadians was so pervasive that many historians consider South Carolina to be the colony of Barbados—not of England.
– Excerpted from the entry by Walter Edgar. To read more about this or 2,000 other entries about South Carolina, check out The South Carolina Encyclopedia by USC Press. (Information used by permission.)
CREDITSEditor and Publisher: Andy Brack
Senior Editor: Bill Davis
Contributing Photographers: Michael Kaynard, Linda W. Brown
Phone: 843.670.3996
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