Tomorrow, I’ll chair my first House Agriculture Regulations Subcommittee.
Two of the regulations (aka “regs”) before us are proposing fee increases for DHEC.
One I found very interesting and wanted your thoughts. It begs the question: are ALL fee increases “bad”?
You can go to this link to see the full regulation but the ending sums the situation up quite well and I’d like to know your thoughts.
Statement of Rationale
The fee increases will allow the Department to collect enough fees to cover the program, as required by the statute, while keeping the license fees at 50% of the U.S. NRC’s fees for an identical license. If the Department does not collect and retain enough fees to adequately fund the program, South Carolina is at risk of losing its Agreement State status with the NRC. If this occurs, licensing fees will automatically be assessed on the NRC’s fee schedule, which is 100% more than the fee increases addressed in these amendments. Therefore, these fees are needed and reasonable.
So, in essence, do we keep funding a program with a fee increase OR, if we do not (based on information present by DHEC) the result would be we then have the federal government regulating these areas and apparently charging double what the state agency has proposed for those services.
I’d like to get you opinion if you’re willing to post it here or by sending directly to me by using the contact button above.
NO! All fee increases are not bad. Sometimes (a lot of times), fee increases are great. Without “fees” (or taxes!), we don’t have much.
I don’t see all fees as bad, especially regulatory fees but I find that there is an increasing use of “fees” to offset tax cuts or the lack of tax revenue. As an example increase in entrance fees for state parks.
On this particular regulation, by a vote of 4-1, the subcommittee sent it to full committee with a recommendation to disapprove (NOTE: all regs will be submitted to full committee with either approval or disapproval recommendation from subcommittee).
Testimony before the subcommittee showed that this fee increase of approximately $300,000 represents half of one percent (.5%) of the entire DHEC budget. Should DHEC not decide to fund this program (by choosing other priorites instead) and should the “feds” (NRC begin the process of revoking SC’s agreement status, imposing hiring fees, etc), I’m sure my colleagues will decide to assist…at that time.
Nathan
I work at a nuclear power plant and do not see why one type of plant should be singled out for “fees” and made more expensive/less competitive as a result when, say, coal plants do not pay equivalent fees.
P.S. this post was as clear as mud about exactly what is going on and the link did not work. I read Nuclear News (American Nuclear Society) and several others and have not seen anything about NRC threats along this line. I thought the “agreement states” referred to agreements to pool resources for low-level radioactive waste. On that issue, we should definitely reopen Barnwell to waste from other states; we can make them pay through the nose to send relatively tiny volumes of rather safe material here, and preserve a lot of SC jobs packaging and burying it (low level waste is essentially radioactive dirt that stays where you bury it and is harmless after it has decayed away for a few “half-lives”).
Since I was not present at the sub-committee hearing, it would be difficult to comment on the vote. When I served on the 3-M Committee, DHEC presented many regulations for us to approve and some had fees attached. The General Assembly had established the legislation and required DHEC to establish regulations and carryout the mandate of the legislation without providing funds. Many times fees were approved in order allow them to provide the services.
Very good topic for sure and I can tell you that nuclear regulated fees will be passed on to the consumer through their electric bill. I spent 10 years in the Nuclear Waste business shipping materials to Barnwell from all over the United States. The permit fees, burial fees and even fuel surcharges would all be passed on to the utility. I see this as the cost for doing business and considering we are a very active state in the nuclear field we will need to adjust as these fees increase. We also have the issues of the medical industry which will also be able to pass these on to the consumers through their medical bills.
I understand people not wanting increases in anything but when it comes to nuclear energy for some reason nobody wants any costs even though oil, coal, and other forms of energy increase constantly. Just my two cents.
Thanks for the great topic.