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Article published Mar 14, 2003
SLED chief: S.C. getting prepared to fight terror

Associated Press

COLUMBIA -- South Carolina's new homeland security chief met with leaders from police, emergency and other agencies for the first time in public Thursday to assess how the state is doing in the fight on terrorism.
State Law Enforcement Division Chief Robert Stewart, whose agency got handed the responsibility of fighting terror by Gov. Mark Sanford earlier this year, said the state has done a good job in the past 18 months.
"We want the public to be reassured we're doing everything we possibly can do," Stewart said. "But on the other hand, we do not want to alarm people."
Stewart was meeting Thursday with his Counterterrorism Coordinating Council. The group includes leaders from police, like the FBI and state Public Safety Department; emergency departments, like the Emergency Management Division; and other agencies, like the Department of Health and Environmental Control.
Stewart told the group they need to be aggressive in their pursuit of federal grants. They also need to be willing to share any equipment they get, he said.
"Everybody can't have everything," Stewart said. "And a lot of these grant programs are geared toward what can be mutual aid, or shared."
Agencies also need to see how much of their planning for other disasters can fit into planning for a terrorist attack.
For example, the Highway Patrol has used its experience in evacuating the coast for hurricanes to create plans on how to evacuate inland major metropolitan areas, Stewart said.
The state has been working on a plan to combat terrorism since 1999, Emergency Management Division Director Ronald Osborne said.
The agency has sent 22,000 field guides on dealing with a terror attack to first responders across the state, Osborne said.
Stewart also asked the council to help divide the state into four regions, each with its own task force and rapid-response team. Those smaller task forces would include local sheriffs and police chiefs as well as county emergency management directors.
"What we do may very well determine if another event happens, or if it does, how many lives can be saved," Stewart said.
By AMY GEIER EDGAR
Associated Press
COLUMBIA -- A Senate bill that would reduce the legal limit for a driver's blood-alcohol level doesn't go far enough to combat drunken driving, critics of the legislation say.
The bill reduces to 0.08 percent from 0.10 percent the blood-alcohol level at which a driver is presumed drunk.
But a provision requiring the state to revoke a suspected drunken-driver's license immediately was not included in the bill that the Senate began debating Thursday.
Sen. Larry Martin, R-Pickens, said he had to compromise on the license revocation to get senators to agree to a lower blood-alcohol limit.
"I would never get this bill through the Senate if the Administrative License Revocation stays in," Martin said.
Currently, licenses are immediately revoked for 30 days drivers whose blood-alcohol level is 0.15 percent. But that provision would be eliminated by the Senate's bill.
Martin said the federal government is requiring states to reduce the allowable blood-alcohol level to 0.08 percent. Also, states that revoke licenses of suspected drunken-drivers immediately, must lower the standard for that to 0.08 percent.
However, Martin said there was no way his colleagues would lower the limit for revoking licenses, so his version of the bill eliminates that provision altogether.
The federal government is pushing the lower level by threatening to take away $60 million in highway funds from South Carolina.
The state already has lost $1.8 million in incentives by not going along with new federal drunken driving standards.
Donna Carter, incoming president of the Darlington County chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, said the Senate bill is unacceptable.
"It's a watered down bill that MADD doesn't want," she said.
The Administrative License Revocation is a valuable deterrent to drunken driving, said Harold Watson, director of programs and development for the National Commission Against Drunk Driving.
Forty states have provisions that immediately revoke licenses of drivers who have a blood-alcohol level of 0.08 percent or 0.10 percent.
Alcohol-related traffic fatalities in those states have decreased as much as 9 percent, Watson said.
The lower blood-alcohol limit is more effective when coupled with the automatic license revocation, said Betsy Lewis, executive director of the MADD South Carolina branch.
"Is the Senate bill what I want? No," she said. "Is it something? Yes. But I hope it's not what we end up with."
Lewis supports a stronger version of the bill, which includes license revocation, that is being considered in the House.
Martin said he's pleased to get the legislation in the Senate, where the bill has many opponents. Several senators have criticized the federal stance on withholding highway money from states that don't meet the new standards.
Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell said the federal government should pass its own drunken-driving law rather than forcing states to do it.
Martin said he also thinks the federal government is being "heavy-handed" but supports the lower blood-alcohol limit.
"I happen to agree that 0.08 (percent) is a very appropriate standard for the enforcement of our DUI laws," he said.