UCC Weekly Update 1.22.21

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Vaccine Relief Coming; Biden Kicks off 100 Days with Executive Orders

Stat of the week: 4
The number of presidents who served their terms without a vice president (Tyler, Fillmore, Johnson, and Arthur). Vice President Kamala Harris was sworn in as the 49th Vice President this week.
 
Congratulations to President Biden and Vice President Harris on their inaugurations on Wednesday. (“Wear your shoes, ladies, there’s glass on the floor” was one of our favorite non-Bernie memes of the week.) The General Assembly went virtual out of an abundance of caution over Inauguration Day security, with the exception of a short Thursday session by the Senate. Columbia remained peaceful this week, but there were a few important debates…

DHEC Grilled on Vaccine; More Funding Coming

Various House and Senate committees grilled DHEC leaders this week about the distribution of the COVID vaccine. Meanwhile, a House subcommittee approved a new round of more than $200 million for vaccine-related relief. Under the proposed plan, put forward by Rep. Bill Herbkersman (R-Beaufort), DHEC will receive $63 million and the Medical University of South Carolina will get $45 million to ramp up vaccine distribution. An additional $75 million was set aside for hospitals across our state and another $25 million is allocated to other providers who have registered with DHEC to give the COVID vaccine.

The resolution allows spending on “eligible costs of administering the COVID-19 vaccine include, but are not limited to, those vaccination costs associated with staffing, security, traffic control, storage, transportation, mobile health units including the purchase, upfitting, staffing, and operations thereof, and technology that have not been reimbursed by an insurer’s administration fee.”

This spending will come from the state’s contingency funds. Rep. Herbkersman told The State the he hoped the full House could consider the resolution before the end of next week.
 

President Biden Begins Executive Orderpalooza

President Biden kicked off his administration this week with Executive Orderpalooza — working on “Day One” to reverse many of President Trump’s executive orders. His initial orders called for re-entering the Paris Climate Accords, reversing the order to the census about counting non-citizens, and various mask mandates to the limit of the President’s authority (including new requirements on public interstate transportation such as planes and trains).

We were heartened by the order to reverse Trump’s push to close the DACA program, as we continue to call on Congress to allow DACA recipients to stay in this country (and we call on the General Assembly to allow DACA recipients to receive state licenses for employment).

More executive orders are coming, and our standing advice to business leaders has been if you or your industry benefited from a Trump executive order, watch these next few weeks carefully. For the rest of the month, the President told Congress to expect orders on the following issues:

• Today: Economic relief
• Monday: “Buy American” action
• Tuesday: Racial equity
• Jan 27: Climate change
• Jan 28. Health care
• Jan 29: Immigration
• Feb. 1: National Security

Emergency Orders May Change

Governor McMaster has issued 22 15-day states of emergency since the COVID pandemic began last March, which has irked a number of General Assembly Republicans but has been tacitly agreed to by legislative leadership. That said, most at the Statehouse know the process needs to be changed.

A House subcommittee passed a measure this week allowing the Governor to issue 30-day states of emergency that could be altered or ended by the General Assembly. If the General Assembly does not act, the state of emergency may continue, and the Governor may not re-issue the emergency unless there is a substantive change in circumstances (though that is not defined).

The Governor supports amending the state of emergency powers, and similar legislation has also been filed in the Senate.
 

ICYMI: Headlines

SC Attorney tapped to lead Trump impeachment defense
Harrison becomes head of DNC
Fetal heartbeat bill headed to Senate floor
Trump pardons five with SC ties

Thank you for reading this far. We appreciate your support and your support of our 13 local Chambers. Please get involved and check out the meetings on the left…

Best,
Jason