(Published by the Office of Research of the House of Representatives)
HOUSE WEEK IN REVIEW
February 1, 2013
The House of Representatives amended, approved, and sent the Senate H.3290 , the “BUSINESS FREEDOM TO CHOOSE ACT”, legislation addressing county flow control ordinances which require waste haulers to deliver the garbage and other solid waste they collect to specific facilities for disposal, processing, and recycling rather than allowing waste haulers to determine which facilities they will use. Under the legislation, an ordinance that requires disposal of waste at one or more designated solid waste management facilities or that requires recovered materials to be processed or recycled at one or more designated facilities is considered inconsistent with the provisions of the South Carolina Solid Waste Policy and Management Act. To the extent that a county ordinance imposes these restrictions on the disposal, processing, or recycling of solid waste, the ordinance is void.
The House approved and sent the Senate H.3021 , the “IRAN DIVESTMENT ACT OF 2013”. With limited exceptions, this legislation prohibits persons from signing or renewing contracts with the state of South Carolina or its political subdivisions if they provide goods, services or credit worth $20 million or more to Iran’s energy sector. The Budget and Control Board must develop or contract to develop, using credible information available to the public, a list of persons engaged in these investments activities in Iran and post the list online. With limited exceptions, the legislation further prohibits the Retirement System Investment Commission and the State Treasurer from investing funds with a person that is identified on the list as providing goods, services or credit worth $20 million or more to Iran’s energy sector.
The House and Senate adopted S.166 , a concurrent resolution COMMENDING THE NATION OF ISRAEL for its relations with the United States of America and with the state of South Carolina.
The House approved and sent the Senate H.3429 , a bill revising statutory language concerning the General Assembly’s LEGISLATIVE ETHICS COMMITTEES to provide consistency with the Senate’s practices and the recent rules changes adopted in the House of Representatives that alter the composition of the body’s ethics committee. The legislation removes current references to six-member House and Senate legislative ethics committees and provides instead that such committees are to be composed of ten members, unless otherwise provided by the rules of the respective bodies. The legislation also specifies that the officers of the ethics committee of each house and their selection must be as provided for in the rules of that house.