Hilton Head Audubon’s Interview with John Tynan, Executive Director, Conservation Voters of South Carolina

Vote Green: Join Conservation Voters of South Carolina

To learn more about CVSC’s work and discuss how their efforts support and complement Audubon’s mission, we interviewed their Executive Director, John Tynan.

At Audubon South Carolina., we know that to survive and flourish, migrating and resident birds are dependent on the continued protection of our coastal marshes, beaches, maritime forests and other habitats.

Conservation Voters of South Carolina (CVSC) is the political voice of the Palmetto State’s conservation community, fighting for S.C.’s air, land, and water through bipartisan, pragmatic political action. Their mission is to make conservation and environmental issues a top priority among South Carolina’s elected leaders, political candidates, and voters.

Q: What issues are at the forefront of CVSC’s focus?

As a leader in environmental advocacy, Conservation Voters of South Carolina is in a unique position to build bipartisan support in the General Assembly and advance pro-conservation policies that advance clean energy and protect the air, land, and water we love in South Carolina. In short, we fight to pass good conservation policies and to stop harmful environmental rollbacks.

CVSC believes that the most durable and effective way to protect South Carolina’s environment is to build bipartisan coalitions in the General Assembly, allowing conservation as an issue to survive the pendulum swings of partisan politics. We know that South Carolinians, regardless of party affiliation, care deeply about our environment and the impact environmental policies have on the Palmetto State. We often say that protecting the environment is not a value of just Democrats or Republicans – it is a value shared by all South Carolinians. 

To this end, our work in the 2022 legislative session has focused on the following topics:

• The creation and resourcing of an emerging contaminants remediation fund that will keep communities from drinking water contaminated with PFAS – a class of toxic forever chemicals.
• Efforts to protect an additional 3 million  acres of land and water across South Carolina, with an initial focus of increasing agency funding for this work and providing counties the ability to generate local funds for greenspace protection.
• Advancing clean energy policies that close dirty and expensive coal plants, that hold energy regulators accountable for the impacts of their decisions on ratepayers and the environment, and that push the state to identify the benefits of investing in wind, solar, and other clean energy sources in South Carolina

Q: CVSC has an impressive track record with bipartisan policy work. How do you measure CVSC’s success?

We fight to protect the environment in order to make it cleaner and healthier for people. Our ultimate measure of success is driving change that makes peoples’ lives better – even if this is small and incremental over time. But measuring the direct impact on the lives of South Carolinians can be hard – so we often look at the bills we pass, the elections we win, and the performance of lawmakers as other success metrics.

As I mentioned, we believe that the most effective and durable way to protect our environment is through bipartisan efforts to change policy. We have advanced numerous bills in the General Assembly – from the founding and funding of the Conservation Bank for land protection, to the Surface Water Withdrawal and Permitting Act for management of water resources, to the Energy Freedom Act for clean energy growth, to the Shoreline Management Act for protection of our coastal resources.

We must continue to support and elect leaders who value our environment

But in order to continue to succeed in passing policy with bipartisan support, we must continue to support and elect leaders who value our environment. Since 2016, CVSC has invested over $500,000 in electoral programs and made over 3.1m voter contacts. We have endorsed 142 candidates for office, with this number split nearly 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats. Of our 142 endorsements, we have seen an 86% success rate in these elections.

Finally, one additional tool that we use to measure our legislative success - and to hold elected officials accountable - is CVSC’s Legislative Scorecard. Each two-year legislative session, we look at who voted for (and against) South Carolina conservation issues. The Scorecard is an incredibly valuable tool for voters researching candidates and constituents learning how their Representative or Senator works for (or against) our environment – but it also allows us to track progress over time.

Over time, we’ve seen consistent increases in Scorecard scores from lawmakers in both parties and from all regions of the state.

When we first released our Conservation Scorecard in 2004, only 8 lawmakers (all Democrats) had a score of 100%. Through a combination of strategic messaging, thoughtful and intentional relationship building, and targeted political investments, CVSC consistently sees nearly double that number of perfect scores with both Republicans and Democrats scoring at 100% or more. Our 2018 Scorecard, for example, had 16 Representatives score 100% and our 2020 scorecard (which included a number of very contentious votes) had 15 Representatives score 100%, including 8 Republicans and 7 Democrats.

As you can see, there is variation from year to year, but what is clear is that we have increased bipartisan support for conservation and consistently have conservation champions in both parties fighting for the air, land, and water we love in South Carolina.

Q: What are CVSC’s most pressing upcoming priorities and challenges?

The biggest challenge that South Carolina faces is not unique to our state – it is the hyperpolarization of politics across the country. The saying used to be that “all politics is local”, but in recent years it appears to have shifted to “all politics is national.” Where we used to see South Carolina voters support state and local candidates of one party and national candidates of another party, we’re beginning to see a shift to a consistent single-party trend for many voters, defined by their national preferences and dominated by activists farther to the fringes of either party. And with conservation and environmental issues being a more partisan topic on the national stage, South Carolina runs the risk of losing the bipartisan support for conservation that has come to define us.

Simply put, if our General Assembly is allowed to tilt farther to the extremes – where lawmakers simply refuse to lead and, instead, govern by tweets and radical wedge issues – conservation in South Carolina will go nowhere fast. In fact, the entire General Assembly will come to a screeching halt.

There is hope

But there is hope. South Carolina is at a crossroads. Nearly 20% of the Republican Caucus in the South Carolina House will turn over in 2022 due to a flood of retirements. With these new faces, we have the opportunity to determine if radical ideals or pragmatic values will prevail. By electing pragmatic and thoughtful leaders to the General Assembly, we can continue to build the bipartisan consensus that has allowed conservation policy to thrive in the General Assembly in recent years.

As for policy priorities, CVSC has identified 4 core areas where we will continue to focus our work:

1. Moving our state towards a 100% clean energy economy as rapidly as possible by removing barriers to clean energy growth and transportation electrification
2. Pressing for the doubling of the amount of protected land and water in South Carolina – another 3m acres – by providing tools and funding that allow state agencies and other nonprofit partners to preserve what makes our state unique.
3. Advocating for every community to drink clean water and ensuring they have the tools and resources to both remove and prevent contamination.
4. Fighting to ensure that every South Carolinians voice may be heard in the decisions that affect the environment and public health by creating a more inclusive and equitable public engagement and permitting process for environmental decisions

In 2023 we anticipate a number of bills will focus on these issues – from restoring dedicated funding to the SC Conservation Bank, to investing heavily in electric vehicle infrastructure, to additional funding to remove PFAS and other toxic chemicals from drinking water, to requiring financial assurances and cumulative impact assessments before polluting industries can build new facilities in communities already facing a high burden of pollution.

Q: What state or other governmental agencies have the most impact on issues that concern Hilton Head and Bluffton residents: clean water, marshland protection and climate change?

Obviously CVSC has a bias towards state policy, so we are always quick to point out that South Carolina is a legislatively-controlled state, meaning the Governor, executive branch, and state agencies have little power and authority when compared to the General Assembly. Many appointments to boards and commissions are controlled by the General Assembly or require their approval and state regulations are both authorized and reviewed by the General Assembly – with regulatory changes being dictated by lawmakers on more than one occasion. For this reason, the work that CVSC does in the General Assembly – both to elect pro-conservation lawmakers but also educate them and advocate for pro-conservation policies is critical.

That said, the key state natural resource agencies that have the most impact on Hilton Head and Bluffton residents are the Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) and the Department of Natural Resources (DNR). While there are some unique nuances about what each agency oversees, it is easiest to think of DHEC as the permitting agency and DNR as the science and management agency with respect to natural resources. When a new industry seeks permits for air emissions, solid waste management, agricultural issues, or water discharges, they go to DHEC. When the state needs to look at establishing science-based guidelines around wildlife management or natural resource management, they look to DNR.

Engaging actively with both of these agencies is a good one-two punch for influencing environmental decision-making at the state level…

…Because they work hand-in-hand on a wide range of issues. When looking at issuing permits for water withdrawals, for example, DHEC relies on data collected by DNR about water use, water supply, and potential water supply conflicts. In addition, DNR has the ability to comment on behalf of wildlife and other users of the national resources as an official intervener in the DHEC decision-making process, providing a check-and-balance.

Finally, city and county governments both have a significant influence on quality of life and environmental protection. These local governments (and their appointed boards and commissions) have significant influence on local land use decisions like grading and development, local economic development and incentive packages, local water and sewer infrastructure investments, road and stormwater infrastructure decisions that affect flooding and traffic impacts (and emissions), and much more. In addition, because local governments are smaller, meet more regularly, and are in closer contact with local residents; they are a unique venue for identifying and developing creative solutions to local environmental challenges. For example, when Lowcountry residents sought to address plastic pollution that was dirtying beaches and choking sea turtles, intense work at the city and county levels led to local bans on plastic bags and other plastic materials that met the needs of both environmental activists and the restaurants and grocery stores. Add to this that local elected officials often seek higher office, and you can see why instilling a strong conservation and environmental ethic with them from the beginning is critical.

Q: How can the Hilton Head/Bluffton communities support CVSC, and how do you rate us for our contributions to a green S.C.?

The best metric for evaluating how ‘green’ a community’s contributions are is by looking at the lawmakers they send to Columbia and how they perform on the environment. If conservation and environmental issues are a core value of a community, lawmakers have no choice but to faithfully reflect those values in how they vote and how they lead.

With that in mind, I often say that the Beaufort delegation is consistently one of South Carolina’s highest scoring delegations, regardless of party affiliation. CVSC has awarded 5 of the 9 members of the legislative delegation with our Green Tie award for conservation leadership and the delegation’s 2020 scorecard score averaged at 83% between the House and Senate. You all have clearly let your lawmakers know that a clean and healthy environment is something you value, and their leadership and service reflects those values.

As to your question on how to support CVSC, you can subscribe to our e-mail list (www.cvsc.org/signup) to stay up to date with what’s happening at the Statehouse and learn when and how to take action on environmental policies. You can also contribute to our education, advocacy, or electoral efforts on our website at cvsc.org/support.