The General Assembly reached sine die adjournment on Thursday, the last day of the regular legislative session.
All bills not enrolled for ratification or assigned to a conference committee by 5 p.m. on Thursday are stalled until the General Assembly reconvenes in January. The General Assembly will return on Tuesday, May 23 to take up conference committee reports, including the budget conference report, and any vetoes by the governor.
Also, the House and Senate overrode the governor’s veto this week on H. 3516, commonly called the roads bill. As adopted, the bill increases the motor fuel user fee 12 cents over the next six years and raises various other fees to generate more than $600 million when fully implemented.
Bills passed by the Senate this week include:
Third Reading:
H. 3817 - Provides for more expansive law enforcement controlled substance take-back programs by allowing pharmacies and other entities to register as collection centers for unused prescription drugs.
H. 3927 – Changes the entity that must approve bonds issued by the Jobs-Economic Development Authority, or JEDA, from the State Fiscal Accountability Authority to the Coordinating Council for Economic Development.
H. 3289 – Revises provisions specifying the distance that must be maintained between vehicles traveling along a highway.
H. 3647 - Establishes new requirements that govern resale vacation timeshare services.
H. 3488 - Makes provisions for electronic insurance documents, including authorization for insurers to deliver, store or present evidence of insurance coverage by electronic means and provisions that afford consumers the option of receiving notices or documents electronically.
H. 3969 - Revises school performance ratings by establishing a single public education accountability system that meets both state and federal requirements.
H. 3132 - Revises the licensure and oversight of hospice programs that offer certain supportive medical care for terminally ill patients and their families.
H. 3824 – Establishes requirements for healthcare practitioners to review a patient’s controlled substance prescription history.
H. 3649 – Creates various revisions in law to allow for greater conformity between the Architecture and Engineering Practice Acts.
H. 3406 – Allows the workers’ compensation maintenance tax imposed on self-insurers to continue to be in effect as the original enactment had provided.
H. 3864 - Updates age, weight, size and position requirements for lawfully securing infants and children in approved motor vehicle child safety seats.
H. 3256 – Makes provisions for the Department of Motor Vehicles to issue multiple special license plates.
H. 3429 – Provides for additional exemptions in bankruptcy proceedings.
H. 3601 - Revises bear hunting guidelines in Game Zone 4.
H. 3789 - Allows criminal record expungements for successful, eligible graduates of the Youth Challenge Academy and South Carolina Jobs Challenge Program.
H. 3823 - Requires certain health care professionals to report the exposure of infants to alcohol or drugs.
H. 3176 – Provides for more expansive IRA exemptions from attachment in bankruptcy proceedings.
H. 3665 – Revises fishing limits for flounder.
H. 3719 - Expands the state forester’s authority to prohibit open burning in the interest of protecting the public from potentially devastating wildfires.
H. 3742 – Provides authorization for the employment of offender supervision specialists at the Department of Probation, Parole and Pardon Services to oversee the supervision of standard and low-risk offenders.
H. 4033 – Establishes the offense of endangering a highway worker while driving in a highway work zone and failing to obey traffic control devices or traveling in undesignated lanes.
H. 3898 - Allows adoption agencies to release certain information about adoptees to biological siblings and biological grandparents, in addition to adoptive parents and biological parents as set out in current law.
H. 3215 – Create the offense of impersonating a lawyer and provides for graduated penalties.
H. 3352 - Aims to strengthen the state’s Freedom of Information Act through several provisions, including imposing stronger deadlines for when public agencies must turn over requested records.
H. 3041 - Expands criminal background check requirements for Real Estate Commission licensure.
H. 3137 – Revises provisions governing authorized tastings conducted by micro-distilleries.
Second reading:
H. 3867 – Revises an affordable housing property tax exemption to exempt all property devoted to housing low income residents if the property is owned by an instrumentality of a nonprofit housing corporation.
H. 3442 - Provides for circumstances in which a nonresident may adopt a child and provides for the right to file a petition for adoption.
Compiled by South Carolina Senate Pro Tempore Communications Director Michael Ulmer.
