Five elected representatives from the Aiken, S.C., area said this week they planned to carry on a fight in the state legislature for a bigger share of federal settlement money related to weapon-usable plutonium at the Savannah River Site.
With Rep. Bart Blackwell (R-Aiken County) acting as spokesman Monday, the state house members from the Aiken area said they wanted a 75% share of the roughly $575 million that remains from a 2020 settlement paid out of the U.S. Judgment Fund to compensate South Carolina for the Department of Energy’s failure to begin removing plutonium from the state in 2022.
The fight, however, must wait until the state House and Senate begin bicameral conference negotiations about the state budget. The five lawmakers — state Reps. William Clyburn (D-Aiken, Edgefield & Saluda Counties), William Hixon (R-Aiken & Edgefield Counties), Melissa Oremus (R-Aiken County) and Bill Taylor (R-Aiken County) were the others — withdrew five amendments that would have changed the House’s statewide budget to shift more of the settlement money to Aiken and the surrounding locales.
The last time the South Carolina Senate weighed in about divvying up the settlement, it recommended a 65% share for the Aiken area.
Blackwell and his colleagues spoke late Monday, toward the end of debate on the state House’s version of South Carolina’s 2022-2023 appropriations bill. It totalled $14 billion, by the time the full House approved it 108-7, with six non-voters. The budget must now clear the state Senate, which had not scheduled debate as of Wednesday morning.
