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Legislative Happenings

Published Tuesday, February 09, 2010 9:38 AM

By Rep. David Umphlett
Berkeley Independent

The House has passed a Senate bill and it has been sent for ratification relating to workers’ compensation coverage for firefighters heart and respiratory diseases.

This bill revises provisions relating to firefighters covered under the South Carolina Workers’ Compensation law and the presumption regarding impairment or injury from heart disease and/or respiratory disease. It also provides that the impairment or injury is considered to have arisen out of and in the course of employment if they have successfully passed a physical exam within the last two years.

The House Education Subcommittee has passed out a bill to ban motorists from texting and using hand-held cell phones. It was sent to the full House Education Committee where it will be taken up at a future meeting

The full House Agriculture Committee met during the past week.

I had several bills sent back to my Wildlife Subcommittee because there were questions and more discussion than I thought should be held at the full committee level. One of the bills is the dog hunting bill.

We will be able to meet on that matter at the Feb. 17 meeting of the subcommittee.

Also returned to subcommittee was a bill about whether or not to close the season for striper fishing from June to the end of September.

The Department of Natural Resources is concerned that under the current law of catch and release, people are putting their hands on the smaller fish to release them, which causes the fish to die. They are very fragile fish and hundreds of them are being killed by these actions. This will apply only to Lakes Marion and Moultrie.

A bill on hunting education will also be brought back up at subcommittee level. The legislation will allow a one-time exemption for hunters to receive points on violations if they take a hunting ethics course.

The House of Representatives will be taking a furlough week next week saving the citizens of South Carolina $50,000. We will be doing this three times during the session due to budgetary conditions.

Please feel free to contact me at my home address, 1145 Highway 402, Moncks Corner, SC 29455, (843) 899-1744; or at my legislative office in Columbia, PO Box 11867, Columbia, SC 29211, (803)734-2946; or through my email address, davidumphlett@scstatehouse.gov.

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