ShareSouth Carolina editorial roundup
The Associated PressRecent editorials from South Carolina newspapers:
Jan. 26
The Index-Journal of Greenwood on the state GOP primary:
They came, one conquered, they went.
South Carolina's GOP primary election is complete. There are unconfirmed reports recycling bins were filled to near-record levels _ filled with the endless stream of oversized political postcards people had pouring into, and possibly out of, their mailboxes in the days leading to the vote.
And there were unconfirmed reports water usage went up throughout the state as residents had some strange urge to shower more.
When all was tallied at the end of the night _ uh, Iowa, would you like to know how little ole South Carolina conducts its elections? _ Mitt Romney was dealt a significant knockdown punch by Newt Gingrich as the former House speaker captured 40 percent of the state's primary votes.
Pundits are weighing in not only on what this means for Romney's chances heading into the Jan. 31 Florida primary, but also what it means for our state's governor, Nikki Haley, who threw her support behind Romney.
That's what pundits do. Who knows who is right? But while Rick Santorum and Ron Paul don't appear ready to acquiesce just yet, the majority of pundits and voters alike agree the GOP nominee comes down to a choice between Gingrich and Romney. Maybe the winner will give a nod to Santorum and invite him to be on the ticket as a vice presidential nominee. But he'll probably have to lose the "Rick Santorum" sweater vest. ...
But back to Haley and her endorsement of Romney. What does it mean, if anything, for the governor and her chances at a re-election bid down the road?
It's hard not to believe South Carolina's primary results are not a reflection of what weight her endorsement carries among Palmetto State voters. Or maybe South Carolina voters are beginning to ignore such gubernatorial endorsements and reach their own conclusions. If so, it would seem one conclusion they reached was that of the two, Romney and Gingrich, they believe Gingrich stands the better chance of going head to head with President Barack Obama heading into November's election.
Online:
http://www.indexjournal.com
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Jan. 30
The Aiken Standard on nuclear waste storage:
For two years, the federally appointed commission charged with recommending a plan for dealing with the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle has been meeting and studying and talking. It released its 180-page report detailing what we already knew: Something has to be done about the tons of nuclear waste lingering in temporary storage across the country.
So, this commission spent two years traveling around the country talking to people about the issue and spending who knows how much taxpayer money, and this is the best it could do?
One of the recommendations in the report was to create a new organization that would oversee licensing, building and operation of facilities for the consolidated storage and disposal of spent fuel and high-level nuclear waste and would arrange for the transport of waste and spent fuel. Well, duh!
Shouldn't that group have been formed two years ago when the Obama administration slammed the door on Yucca Mountain and suddenly the United States had no long-term storage site for this waste? And, that was after spending about $15 billion of taxpayer money to build, but never complete, what was supposed to be the answer to the storage for the tens of thousands of tons of spent fuel at nuclear sites around the country, including at the Savannah River Site.
To be fair, the commission didn't have the ability to do much more than it did. It couldn't take a stand on whether or not Yucca Mountain should be closed. And, it couldn't specifically recommend other sites.
So now, two years after shutting down Yucca Mountain, we're no closer to a solution for the tons of waste languishing at SRS than we were when this mess started.
One interesting recommendation in the report was encouraging communities to volunteer to be considered to host a new nuclear waste management facility. Nevada didn't want the Yucca Mountain repository and, eventually, the state had the political clout to stop it. If a suitable community wanted such a facility it could avoid problems like we have now.
So, now that we've wasted two years coming up with an alternative to Yucca Mountain, we hope the Department of Energy and Congress can step up the pace and find a solution.
Online:
http://www.aikenstandard.com
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Jan. 27
The Post and Courier of Charleston on General or "Government" Motors:
Some House Republicans say the Obama administration cut General Motors self-serving slack on a safety hazard. Officials at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration deny it. But even if the agency didn't shirk its regulatory duty on the Chevrolet Volt, with the federal government now owning more than a quarter of GM, the suspicion of a conflict of interest is inevitable.
President Barack Obama proudly pointed out in his State of the Union speech that while "on the day I took office, our auto industry was on the verge of collapse," GM is now "back on top as the world's No. 1 automaker." He also hailed Chrysler for growing "faster in the U.S. than any other car company" and Ford for "investing billions in U.S. plants and factories."
The president left out the fact that Ford, unlike GM and Chrysler, took no help from a federal bailout that began under President George W. Bush. ...
Nor did Obama mention those electric-powered Volt battery fires, which weren't revealed by the NHTSA until two months ago. ...
Agency administrator David Strickland told a House oversight committee that his agency "pulled no punches" on the Volt, adding that he would feel safe driving one with his "mom, wife and baby sister" as passengers.
GM Chairman Daniel F. Akerson offered the panel this bitter lament: "Although we loaded the Volt with state-of-the-art safety features, we did not engineer the Volt to be a political punching bag."
Maybe Akerson and Strickland are right, and the Volt doesn't represent a higher fire-safety risk that gas-run cars. But the NHTSA's five-month delay in making those test fires public does represent, at the least, troubling timing. ...
And beyond the auto-safety issue, when big government owns a big chunk of a big business, there's a heightened risk of Washington playing marketplace favorites _ particularly in an election year.
Online:
http://www.postandcourier.com