Blatant Reality

I don’t know if you have heard about the Utah nuclear waste company that wants to import waste from Italy but now they are becoming one of the largest contributors to several politicians, including one from SC. I’m guessing people aren’t really to hot about the idea of having to ship nuclear waste all the way across the country.

Since 2005, the company’s political action committee, executives and investors have poured nearly $400,000 into congressional campaigns through January, up from about $40,000 in the four previous years, Federal Election Commission reports show.

 

The company’s growing influence in Washington will be tested this year as it tries to kill a bill that would ban the importation of low-level radioactive foreign waste, which would be disposed at its dump in western Utah’s desert.

 

“I’m sure this means many millions of dollars to them, so I’m sure they’re going to be working hard to stop it,” said Rep. Bart Gordon, D-Tenn., the bill’s co-sponsor.

 

EnergySolutions increased lobbyist spending from $680,000 in 2006 to more than $1 million last year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan research group.

Since Utah has this tiny problem of being a landlocked state, the nuclear waste would obviously have to first make its way through a port. What port is it? Well, as the saying goes, all you have to do is follow the money. Guess where the biggest chunk of money has gone too. None other than South Carolina’s very own Lindsay Graham.

The biggest recipient of EnergySolutions’ recent spending spree is Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., an ardent supporter of nuclear energy.

 

Graham has received $24,000 in campaign contributions from EnergySolutions’ PAC and more than $19,000 from company investors and executives since December 2006.

 

He is encouraging the NRC to allow the construction of two nuclear power plants in South Carolina, where EnergySolutions manages the site through which the Italian waste could be imported.

 

The company wants to import the waste through the ports of Charleston, S.C., or New Orleans for processing in Tennessee.

Now I’m not bashing on Senator Graham because I, for one, am all for nuclear energy. Therefore, I know that this problem of shipping nuclear waste from one place to another is a major issue that will have to be dealt with. The fact that Charleston would be the main port for something like this is great because there have been recent reports that Charleston’s port has slowly been receiving less shipments. This will be great to pump some extra cash into the economy.

However, South Carolina’s main source of income is tourism and Charleston is a major tourist city. Therefore, if there were to be an accident dealing with nuclear waste in Charleston, a very vital of the state’s livelihood would be gone. What this means is that even though I am all for nuclear energy and even possibly this Utah deal, there better be some hell of regulations to ensure that everything goes smoothly and safely

The Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer along with 50 state legislators are scheduled to address the issue of affordable housing this month.

The S.C. Workforce and Affordable Housing Special Interest Caucus is an outgrowth of Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer’s special task force on Affordable Housing. Increased housing costs, stagnant incomes and limited availability of affordable housing make finding safe, quality housing a nightmare for hardworking citizens on modest incomes, according to a release from Bauer’s office.

 

[...]

 

The caucus will will work to address the issue through education, funding opportunities and reduction of regulatory barriers to increase the supply of affordable housing, which is critical to the state’s economic future.

 

The caucus will meet on April 9 in Room 321 of the Blatt Building in Columbia.

Three Republicans battled it out yesterday at a debate in Hilton Head’s state House District 123. The three participants in the debate were challengers Starletta Hairston and Stu Rodman along with incumbent Richard Chalk. Throughout this “civil” debate, education seemed to be the number one priority on the peoples’ minds.

The issue that received the most attention was the state’s education formula, which the candidates agreed puts local public schools at a disadvantage.

 

The biggest difference among the three was over who could bring home the most money for education.

 

Voicing her frustration with the current formula, Hairston, a former county council member, said, “I’d like to be that squeaky wheel in Columbia that talks about this and shows them that we have families that are low income; we have families with children that (receive) free or reduced lunch, which they think we don’t have down here.”

 

Stu Rodman, a current county councilman and a former school board member, argued his experience working with the schools makes him ideally qualified to find creative solutions to the funding problem. “I came out of a financial background,” Rodman said during the debate, “but my heart is really in seeing if we can make a difference in education and education funding.”

 

Chalk pointed out that he was already sitting on a task force in the House to examine the funding formula and argued that the best chance the county has to see improvement is by gaining clout in the state legislature.

I’ve just launched a new website called SC Statehouse Blog that I will be running in conjunction with Blatant Reality. Its a blog focusing on what is happening inside the South Carolina State Legislature. Our main source of information will be from one-on-one interviews with various Republican and Democrat legislators. We already have one interview with Representative Michael Pitts about a new bill concerning the release of the concealed-weapon permit list. Check it out.

South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint is often herald as one of the few Senators to stand up against the immigration bill last summer. He was the one the tipped off Drudge to what was going on which led to the ultimate defeat of the bill in the Senate. According to Senator DeMint, this experience is what showed him the true power of the internet.

Now, in order to continue his message of border control, DeMint has created a new website to keep voters informed on what is happening.

He recently created a new Web site — www.completethefencenow.com — to update progress on security the nation’s border with Mexico. “People want to know. We’re responding in a traditional marketing sense. Here’s a consumer need. We’re going to put this site on and let people know,” he said. “I know it’s frustrating for people who call our office and say ‘Nothing is happening.’ I don’t hear anything.”

 

Byars said the site also is a way to communicate with bloggers, who can link to it or ask DeMint’s office to research questions they have about drug or sex trafficking along the border. “It’s an interactive way for us to work to build support outside the dome,” Byars said.

 

“If I don’t have support outside the dome — loud and vocal support — people inside are not going to listen to me,” DeMint added. “They’re going to ignore me whenever they can if it’s anything about changing the culture or the ways things are done. I’m almost completely dependent on the American people to help me push some things through.

 

“In some ways, it’s been encouraging that people have been responsive and engaged. They get information and have a way to respond. They do. It’s like it is a government for the people.”

This is the way government should work. It should allow the people to be educated about what is happening in Congress and allow them to voice their opinions. Whether or not the Congressman listen to their constituents all depends on if they feel voting against the people’s opinion is worth the possibility of them losing their job.

Both South Carolina Senator Kevin Bryant and Representative Jeff Duncan have announced their intent to run for re-election this coming November. Both Bryant and Duncan are two of the very few South Carolina legislators that run their own blogs. To see Bryant’s announcement for re-election on his blog, go here and to see Duncan’s, go here.

It looks like South Carolina Governor Mark Sandford’s top aide Tom Davis will run for one of Beaufort’s Senatorial seats. This seat is currently being held by Republican Catherine Ceips and she seems to be taking the news pretty well.

Tom Davis, 47, a partner at downtown Beaufort law firm Harvey and Battey and a key architect of both of Sanford’s gubernatorial campaigns, said Friday he’s “given a lot of thought” to running against Sen. Catherine Ceips for the District 46 Senate seat.

 

“It’s always been in the back of my mind; it’s always been something I’ve thought about primarily because the approach I have for government is consistent with where I think people in Beaufort County are coming from,” he said. “I think there’s been a loss of focus on what makes us great, which is liberty and the people and their ability to drive the economy.”

 

(…)

 

If he runs, Davis would face Ceips in a June Republican primary for the Senate seat that represents most of Beaufort County. Ceips claimed the seat last year after a hard-fought Republican primary against County Council Chairman Weston Newton. The District 46 seat became vacant in February 2007 when then-Sen. Scott Richardson resigned to become director of the state Department of Insurance.

 

Ceips was elected to three terms in the state House before moving to the Senate.

 

“You’ll never hear me say anything negative about people who want to offer public service,” Ceips said Friday of Davis’ possible candidacy. “And that seat doesn’t belong to me, it belongs to the people.”

We shall see if she keeps to her promise.

Representative Nathan Ballentine wrote a blog entry this past week about the recent approval of South Carolina’s state budget. This wouldn’t be such a big deal except for the fact that Ballentine admits that even though the budget is “debated” after it has been presented by the House Ways and Means committee, nothing ever really changes after it has left the committee room. FITSNews has more on this subject here.

Carol Fowler, the South Carolina Democratic Party chairwoman, announced yesterday that she will be supporting Barack Obama even though her husband, who also is a superdelegate, is supporting Hillary Clinton.

Fowler said she made up her mind last week to back the presidential candidate that “had the best potential for winning in the fall.” She said Obama has demonstrated that ability by turning out new voters and winning in conservative states, including South Carolina.

 

Fowler’s husband also is a superdelegate. Don Fowler has endorsed Hillary Rodham Clinton.

 

“It’s bad judgment on her part,” joked Don Fowler, a former Democratic National Committee national chairman. “I’m starting a movement to repeal the 19th amendment.” The constitutional amendment gave women the right to vote.

There are two House bills currently being pushed by conservation and environmental groups that would restrict the amount of turtle a person could catch in the state of South Carolina. As of right now, there are no laws at all that limit the amount a turtles caught. Therefore, persons from other states are allowed to catch turtles unrestricted in South Carolina and bring them back home.

You might not think that turtle catching would be a problem but the demand for turtle meat to be exported to Asia had risen in recent years. Therefore, people in the US met that demand by exporting turtles caught in the wild. This demand, some claim, is putting to large of a strain on the wild populations of turtles.

That is why the bills H.4392 and H.3275 have been introduced. H.4392 would limit the amount of turtles a person can catch and keep without a permit from the state and H.3275 would make it unlawful to export for commercial purposes live seawater or freshwater turtles caught in the wild.

I don’t know exactly if these two bills are the right way to head off this potential problem, but I do feel it is a good idea to at least introduce some regulation on this topic. I know that in my home state of Missouri we have laws much like H.4392 that cover basically all reptile and amphibian species in the state. As the news articles states, with rising oil prices and Asia getting better at raising turtles themselves, the need for this kind of business is diminishing. Therefore, the likelihood of this law economically affecting to many people will be minimal.

I may be biases but I know one of my favorite things to to back in Missouri when I was younger (and even now to some extent) is to go one of our many spring water stream and see how many turtles and other reptiles I could catch and release in a day. It would be a shame that South Carolina’s future children don’t have the same opportunities I did growing up in Missouri.