Connection During These Times
With the South Carolina legislature on hold and as we enter week 3 of social distancing, we understand that a lot of folks have many questions: Will our state lawmakers finish this Year’s legislative session? What will happen to the budget that the House passed just before the Coronavirus crisis? When will the state revisit their discussions about the future of Santee Cooper?
These are all questions that so many of us share. But, the truth is that we’re just in a period of time when the answers to these questions are unknown. In fact, our state leaders have said that they’re just making decisions day by day and week by week.
In a recent article in The State Newspaper, Senate Minority Leader Nikki Setzler says, “It all depends day to day how much better it gets, how worse it gets, and we’ll judge it at that point,”. He continues by saying, “The General Assembly will do what it needs to do in the best interest of the people of South Carolina.”
You can read more about how our state legislature will be moving forward in the State newspaper here.
The good news through all of this is that CVSC is here to make sure the environmental issues you care about don’t get lost or forgotten in the shuffle. We need a healthy environment more than ever during these hard times. Particularly, as our congressmen and women continue to debate their response to COVID-19, it’s a good time to tune back into a few issues at the Federal level. Please join us in asking Congress to consider proactive measures to continue protecting our health and our environment during this time: take action today.
As lawmakers discuss how to rebuild our state and our nation, we want to thank them for their past leadership on conservation issues; but, we also want to ask them to consider ways to advance a clean and sustainable economy in the weeks and months ahead. This could include extending clean energy tax incentives, ensuring people have access to nature, lowering power bills for consumers, bolstering outdoor recreation, advancing environmental justice in low-wealth communities and communities of color that are already disproportionately impacted by pollution, and supporting industries that are transitioning to or advancing clean energy, like electric vehicles.
Last week, with our partners in the SC Conservation Coalition, we shared the first episode of Conversations with Conservationists. If you missed this discussion about offshore drilling (with special guest Rep. Joe Cunningham!), you can watch it online here.
On Tuesday, March 31st at noon, join us again for episode two of our webinar series, Conversations with Conservationists, as we discuss Santee Cooper and what its clean energy future means for the state of South Carolina. You’ll hear from our very own Deputy Director, Rebecca Haynes, as well as Alan Hancock from Coastal Conservation League and Julia Dietz from Audubon SC. Click here to register. To follow the schedule of webinars and access the recordings, please visit our website.
As we move forward, we hope you’ll remain active and engaged in environmental issues from home. We know that we could not do what we do if it were not for your advocacy. We are grateful for your voice, and we hope that you remember that we’re all in this together.