A Watershed Approach to Managing the Natural Resources in South Carolina

Environmental degradation from point and non-point source pollution in the past ten years has made it increasingly clear that threats to aquatic resources cannot adequately be addressed without a more integrated watershed approach to the management. Through comprehensive, qualitative interviews of experts in the watershed approach in South Carolina, recommendations will be made to improve this holistic process. Conducting interviews to compile institutional knowledge on the incentives and barriers from professionals working within the watershed approach will show how managing the natural resources in South Carolina could be more effective and efficient. By gathering experiences of lessons learned, best approach techniques, and suggestions for future watershed planning, several recommendations were made to further the use of the watershed approach in South Carolina.

Setting Congress Up to Fail

In Shelby County v. Holder the Supreme Court invalidated key provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 based on Congress’s failure to justify the formula used to determine which jurisdictions would be subject to the Act’s pre-clearance requirement of submitting all changes to voting procedures to the Justice Department for prior approval. This short essay explores one problematic feature of the Court’s analysis: its refusal to consider the legislative record as adequate because it was created to justify the coverage formula after the fact, rather than to facilitate deliberation on the coverage formula before a decision had been made. This reasoning essentially imports from administrative law a rule called the Chenery principle, and as this essay explains, it does so without justification. The differences between administrative and legislative decision making processes compel different treatment by the courts, and treating legislative records like administrative ones, in essence, asks of Congress something it is institutionally ill-equipped to perform. It sets Congress up to fail.