Each January brings a new session of the South Carolina House of Representatives, and legislators returned to Columbia last week.
Amid the pomp of the inauguration of Gov. Mark Sanford, the General Assembly's priorities began to come into focus.
There are four major issues facing legislators this year that will affect the lives of all South Carolinians:
DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION REFORM: Last fall, the Legislative Audit Council found the DOT wasted millions of dollars and contentiously misled the General Assembly in order to get more money.
House Speaker Bobby Harrell appointed a committee to find the best way to reform this troubled agency. I eagerly await its final decisions, because we must make sure there is more oversight into how this agency spends the hundreds of millions of dollars it is trusted with each year.
Everybody realizes many of our state's roads and bridges are in desperate need of repair, but we can't keep pumping money into an agency that has such a brazen disregard for how it is spent.
GOVERNMENT RESTRUCTURING: This is a path the General Assembly has traveled down for the past two years. Among this year's bills are some that would put more constitutional officers under the control of the governor's office.
We will consider the merits of each office.
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT: Many South Carolinians continue to struggle to find work.
The House Republican Caucus believes that making our state attractive to businesses is a major priority. Bills filed by the House Speaker and co-sponsored by numerous Republican members in December.
The first expands the LIFE and Palmetto Fellows scholarship programs for science and engineering majors, which we believe will keep more of our best and brightest students in South Carolina and create a highly educated work force that companies will want.
The second is a bill offering incentives to companies doing research for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles - the next generation of automobiles.
This research is critical for helping wean our nation off of Middle Eastern oil and addressing the national security concerns created by such a dependency.
WORKERS COMPENSATION REFORM: The House initiated comprehensive workers compensation reform last year, and this year we will continue our efforts to make the system work more efficiently.
There is a fine line we must walk on this issue. While we must rein in the out-of-control costs strangling our small-business community, we have to make sure injured workers are eligible for the compensation they deserve.
None of these issues have easy solutions, and we will spend a lot of time working out the details, but we are ready get down to business.
REPUBLICAN STATE REP. J. ROLAND SMITH, DISTRICT 84, IS FROM LANGLEY.
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