South Carolina leaders want to make it easier to build power plants by putting a limit on how long state agencies have to investigate whether the new plants will hurt the environment.
The effort is intended to prevent lengthy delays in boosting energy supplies, but those tracking the plan say it has potentially unintended consequences for South Carolina’s air, land and water.
In the Legislature’s rush to address the state’s future energy needs, lawmakers could make it easier to pollute the landscape by setting a six-month deadline for agencies to approve permits for power plants, environmentalists say.
A general concern about the deadline is that state regulators won’t have enough time to fully evaluate applications for permits before approving them, meaning they could miss key problems that might arise after a power plant is built.
And if state agencies don’t make a decision by the deadline, the permit is automatically approved, according to the legislation.
“It essentially could be a recipe for disaster in our permitting environment to have inadequate timelines,’’ said John Brooker, who is tracking the legislation for the Conservation Voters of South Carolina.
The deadline is part of a sweeping energy bill under consideration by the state Legislature. The House of Representatives is expected to take up the bill the week of Feb. 10.
The legislation says any agency considering a permit for an energy project “shall issue a decision on the application no later than six months after the date the application is received by the agency. If the agency fails to take final action within six months of receipt of the application, the application shall be deemed approved.’’
It would apply to multiple agencies, but could be most felt at the state Department of Environmental Services.
Boosters of the legislation say the deadline is not an attempt to let projects go through without proper environmental review, but to make sure plans for badly needed energy plants and facilities that serve them, such as pipelines, don’t get bogged down in bureaucracy.
The state, they say, is facing a potential crisis if it does not expand its ability to provide more power.
Response times on permit requests often depend on the type of permit an industry is seeking.
More complicated and time consuming permit requests include those to discharge hazardous pollution to the air and to release treated sewage to state rivers, according to the Department of Environmental Services.
All told, the DES issued more than 50,000 environmental permits and similar types of licenses last year, the agency said.
The department, South Carolina’s chief environmental regulatory agency, did not provide an average time to issue permits in response to questions from The State. But a DES spokeswoman said in an email that most can be issued in less than six months.
A major potential pitfall with the deadline called for in the legislation centers on whether a utility can get a permit without submitting a complete application.
Conservationists warn that a utility could file an incomplete application and simply wait out the six
months without answering important questions about the environmental impact. Then, the permit would be approved, they say.
“Our concern is that the language passed by the House does not put in place any parameters to make sure an application is complete, before it is submitted,’’ said Kate Mixson, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center in Charleston.
Some environmental permits already have deadlines for action but businesses that apply must answer completely. If not, that pushes back the deadline until a business applying for a permit provides complete information about the effects on the environment.
State Rep. Roger Kirby, a bill supporter who has generally drawn high marks from environmentalists, said the bill is not intended to rubber stamp energy projects.
Kirby, D-Florence, said recent amendments to the bill – part of multiple changes that were supposed to address problems – were intended to examine concerns about utilities filing incomplete applications and then waiting until the six-month time period runs out so their projects would be approved.
“The intent was, not to have it time out just because somebody was dragging their feet,’’ Kirby said.
Still, the latest version of the legislation does not prevent that from happening, Brooker said. The six months can only be extended for further environmental review if the power company seeking a permit agrees to that, he said.
The legislation, approved this past week by a House committee, says a state agency “shall not stop, stay or otherwise alter the review period without such written agreement with the applicant.’’
The energy bill, H. 3309, is an extensive piece of legislation that supporters say will help South Carolina ensure it has adequate power supplies as the state grows.
New industries and businesses – most notably data centers with high energy demands – are increasingly finding it difficult to get the amount of power they need to operate.
The legislation includes, among other things, provisions allowing state-owned Santee Cooper to work with investor-owned Dominion Energy on a new natural gas plant in Colleton County. It also promotes the expansion of nuclear power in the state, possibly to help supply energy for data centers.
Gov. Henry McMaster has championed the need to add more natural gas and nuclear, and in his recent state-of-the state speech, he advocated for “a hard 90-day deadline’’ for permit decisions to be made.
“I believe you should be able to mark your calendar – to circle that date with a bright red marker – and know when a decision will be made,’’ McMaster said in last month’s speech.
Natural gas and nuclear are ways to provide large amounts of energy that many say the state needs. But both carry environmental hazards.
Natural gas, while cleaner than coal-fired power, still releases greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming. Pipelines that serve proposed sites also are expected to cross sensitive wetland areas.
Nuclear plants, which are more complicated and expensive to build than natural gas plants, create highly toxic waste that must be carefully managed to avoid exposure to the environment and the public.
Part of the legislation says existing rules and regulations need changing to accommodate energy expansion. The legislation has multiple references to making such changes, which has raised other concerns, such as whether it would limit legal appeals to questionable projects.
Kirby, who has an 85 percent environmental approval rating from the Conservation Voters organization, said some energy projects need jump starting.
In one case, a Dominion Energy natural gas pipeline was appealed and is tied up in the state Court of Appeals.
Because the eastern South Carolina pipeline is not available, utility officials have curtailed service at times for some of the area’s large industries, he said. That has caused the industries to use diesel – a more polluting energy source – to keep their plants running, he said.
“It’s really a critical situation,’’ Kirby said.
The energy bill, if it becomes law, would move that case to the state Supreme Court in an attempt to get a decision on whether the pipeline can begin flowing.