GoUpstate.com This is a printer friendly version of an article from www.goupstate.com
To print this article open the file menu and choose Print.


Back
Article published Jun 15, 2003
Filibuster may have cost pharmaceutical recruit

Associated Press

GREENVILLE -- A last-day filibuster in the state Senate may have cost South Carolina's Upstate a pharmaceutical plant that leaders say is potentially as large as BMW's factory.
Mark Kingsbury, a Greenville County Council member, said he didn't know the firm's name or its plans, only that the delay on an incentives package could have lost the plant for the region.
"It was as big on the pharmaceutical side as BMW on the automotive side," Kingsbury said.
The filibustered legislation would have benefited firms investing at least $100 million with a minimum of 200 jobs that are 150 percent above the state's average per capital income, House Speaker David Wilkins, R-Greenville, said.
The state's per capita income was $18,795 in 1999.
Wilkins didn't know how the delay affected the prospect's status. "I do know there was a good prospect that, among others, that bill was designed to attract," he said. "The last I heard, we were still in the running."
Kingsbury said the life sciences bill was "a big part of this and when it didn't pass, it wasn't going to happen. Hopefully, it's not gone; in this economy, they might be willing to wait."
Jerry Howard, president of the Greenville Area Development Corp., would not comment on whether the firm had given up on the Upstate. But he said such companies "are a high priority for recruitment."
The bill had been passed by the state House of Representatives. It was before the Senate in the hours before adjournment June 5. But John Kuhn, a first-year Republican senator from Charleston, took off on a filibuster.
Colleagues urged Kuhn to end the filibuster, but he continued. Kuhn had wanted to add smaller institutions into a bill that would have given the state's three research universities access to tens of millions of dollars.
Wilkins said Gov. Mark Sanford and Commerce Secretary Bob Faith were pushing hard for the bill. Wilkins expected it to pass the Senate when the Legislature returns in January.
Wilkins said he understood that the company was choosing between Greenville and a location outside the state.
He said the bill would enhance the Enterprise Zone Act, which provided eligibility for employees relocation expense reimbursement and job development credits to attract companies to the state.
"It was designed to look at numbers," Wilkins said. "If a company came in here and created X hundreds of jobs, it got some investment credits. This bill changes the focus so that you're not emphasizing just pure numbers, but a major capital investment and high-paying jobs."