The highlight of our second week in Columbia was the delivery of the State of the State Address by Gov. Haley, as well as the Democratic Response, delivered by Rep. Bakari Sellers.  

In addition to these speeches, several bills of interest were given their treatment in the South Carolina House of Representatives.

• Fixing Crumbling Sewage Treatment Infrastructure

The House concurred in Senate amendments to H. 3617, which is a bill to provide that a sewage system or its treatment works with three or more spills in a 12-month period must complete a comprehensive review of its operations, and that such system would be required to develop an action plan to address issues discovered during this review.

• Debating the Dredging of the Port of Savannah

A joint resolution, H. 4627, was taken up for debate that would have suspended the authority of DHEC for all decisions after 2007 concerning the dredging of the Port of Savannah. This resolution, if passed, would have the effect of putting decisions concerning dredging of the port into the hands of the Savannah River Maritime Authority.

• Inviting the President to South Carolina

A concurrent resolution, H. 4552 was adopted and sent to the Senate, to invite the President of the United States to Address the General Assembly in Joint Assembly in the House Chamber.

• Helping Veteran Mobility

A bill, H. 4637, was introduced that would improve mobility of veterans in South Carolina by requiring regional transportation authorities to develop and implement programs within their service areas to make public transportation available at no charge for certain qualifying veterans.

• Spending SC Tax Money on Local Businesses First

A bill, H. 4640 was introduced that would help local businesses compete for state contracts under the Consolidated Procurement Code.