3 weeks Ago
COLUMBIA — Gov. Henry McMaster's choice to lead the South Carolina Department of Environmental Services advanced to the Senate floor despite pushback from a multimillionaire donor and a powerful state legislator who intensely questioned her belief in man-made climate change. With just one vote against her, interim Department of Environmental Services Director Myra Reece sailed through her confirmation hearing before the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Natural Resources April 15, setting her up for what will likely be a rubberstamp vote on the floor later this spring to keep the same job she's essentially held since January 2016.
But the path was not as smooth as the vote made it seem. Over a little more than a half hour of questioning April 15, York Republican Sen. Wes Climer grilled Reece over her record leading the department since she was appointed to oversee the environmental affairs division of the defunct Department on Health and Environmental Conservation nearly nine years ago.
She faced multiple inquiries over what Climer characterized as her department's slow rollout of internal regulations in response to the 2018 Beachfront Management Act. She also faced heavy questioning from Climer about her beliefs on humanity's role in climate change, and was accused of evading questions about whether she believed South Carolina government had a role in addressing it. Reece eventually concluded the state did not, and that she believed climate change was a global problem before pivoting to her own efforts to fight back against an effort by former President Joe Biden's Environmental Protection Agency to impose environmental standards that would have threatened fossil fuel plants powering South Carolina's energy grid.
"A lot of that came down to the leadership of South Carolina," she said. When it came time to vote, four Republican members of the committee — Everett Stubbs, Roger Nutt, Stephen Goldfinch and Josh Kimbrell — ultimately withheld their votes, letting Reece through without a 'yes' or 'no' on her confirmation, allowing her to proceed to the floor with seven out of the 13 members present in-favor. Climer, the committee chairman, was the only one to vote against her.
There were some questions about how Reece would fare, particularly after another Senate committee voted not to advance McMaster's pick to lead the newly formed Department of Public Health — former DHEC head Edward Simmer — in a contentious vote earlier this month . Some, like Charleston Democratic Sen. Ed Sutton, took issue with the line of questioning around climate change, inviting everyone on the committee to visit his district in-person to see the impacts of sea level rise firsthand before denying the problem's existence.
"You can't solve a problem without looking at the cause of a problem," Sutton said. Speaking to reporters after the vote, Climer said that he believed Reece deserved a fair hearing, saying that if he wanted to kill her nomination, the committee "wouldn't have brought it up at all." But he still had concerns.
He criticized her "evasiveness" under questioning, saying she did a "delightful" job of "telling people what they want to hear" without actually following through. He cited concerns about her regulatory regime, though he did not name any specific regulations enacted by her agency that went egregiously beyond regulations already put in place by the federal EPA. Climer also criticized her department's balance of conservation with the rights of property owners — a concern shared by multimillionaire activist Rom Reddy, who has vocally opposed Reece's nomination after her agency fined him nearly $300,000 last fall for an illegal seawall he built on his property.
Reddy has already sought to impose his weight on statehouse discussions this year, pledging $2.5 million to primary state lawmakers who oppose his agenda. He sought to influence the vote on Reece as well.
In a statement posted to social media one week prior to her confirmation, Reddy urged lawmakers to vote against Reece, describing her as a "very dangerous person" for her agency's efforts around shoreline regulations. "Those who know her and have dealt with her, who are not her superiors, know better," Reddy wrote in the post. It’s interesting how all the “good” Senators don’t question 30-year bureaucrat Myra Reece on her tenure.
She manages upward relationships wonderfully, which makes her a very dangerous person. Those who know her and have dealt with her, who are not her superiors, know better.A.
.. But Reece, who held leadership positions at the former DHEC for more than 30 years before McMaster nominated her for the role, defended how her agency handled coastal conservation policies, though eventually admitted they took a lengthy time to implement.
"I think we could have done better and been more timely on that," Reece said under questioning. Climer wasn't convinced. "Is it important or is it not important?" Climer asked Reece, questioning why it took her division until 2024 to adopt internal policies to match a state law passed in 2018.
"It is," Reece responded. "Six years important?" he responded..
