Our weekly Top Five feature offers big stories or views from the past week with policy and legislative implications.
1. How South Carolina overcame the economic crisis, Badisch Zeitung, Sept. 22, 2016
(NOTE: This story is in German, but you can translate it through Google Translate or other tools. Thanks to reader Dale Rhodes for forwarding the story.)
“Who wants to see economic recovery, would be well advised to look at the US state of South Carolina, especially in Charleston: ‘We are now back to where our business figures were mid-2000s, before the global financial crisis,’ says Clint Eisenhauer, Vice-President of the port authority of the State. Charleston is the fastest growing port in the United States. On the flow of goods for a delivery area of 94 million consumers of the 63-year-old Eisenhauer can read the uptrend. Around Charleston is full employment.”
2. Pensioners irritated about state retirement liability, The Post and Courier, Sept. 27, 2016
State lawmakers are holding hearings about a whopping $20 billion current underfunding of the state’s pension fund, which has been highlighted here in recent Statehouse Report coverage. An excerpt from the above story:
“’You promised us when we were hired that if we would accept a lower salary you would take care of us,” retiree Lynne Schmidt told lawmaker members of the Joint Committee on Pension Systems Review on Tuesday. ‘You take away our pensions, we’ll probably have to drop to one meal a day,’ said Schmidt, who along with her husband worked for the state as accountants for a combined 60 years. Now they eat only two meals a day to cut costs.”
3. Government should protect bees, Natalie Shoemaker in Big Think, Sept. 26, 2016
“Scientists have pointed the finger specifically at neonicotinoid pesticides, typically used in agriculture, causing a scientific debate to become slightly politicized. However, if nothing is done, America could be losing some valuable free labor. After all, bees are responsible for pollinating 75% of the fruits, nuts, and vegetables we eat.
“Honeybee pollination alone adds more than $15 billion in value to agricultural crops each year in the United States,” the White House said.
4. Learn lessons from last year’s flooding, WBTW TV, Sept. 28, 2016
A quote from Robert Hartwig, co-director of the Risk and Uncertainty Management Center at the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina:
“The reality of it is these events that are called one-in-one-thousand-year events are actually becoming more common, and that means even the events that are referred to as one-in-one-hundred-year events are becoming more common. And so consequently, when you think about it, during the life of your mortgage you have a very good chance of actually sustaining one of these floods and suffering the consequences, so it’s a very good investment. Coverage is inexpensive. It’s subsidized by the federal government. It’s available everywhere throughout the state.”
5. Plan to establish another nuclear waste site rears its head, The State, Sept. 26, 2016
“A plan has surfaced to establish another nuclear waste disposal ground in South Carolina, a state with a history of taking atomic refuse from across the country. An organization called the Spent Fuel Reprocessing Group wants federal approval to open a disposal area near Barnwell and the Savannah River Site nuclear weapons complex. Spent fuel, a type of highly radioactive waste, would be moved from the state’s four nuclear power plant sites and stored indefinitely at the new facility, records show.”
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We Can Do Better, South Carolina!