By admin 
Despite his overall support for President Donald Trump, S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster has spent much of his tenure taking stances on the environment that are either at odds with the Republican president or not on Trump’s radar.
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Since he became governor nine years ago, McMaster has pushed a major initiative to save land from unchecked growth and development, at the same time Trump has sought to reduce protected areas.
McMaster has opposed drilling for oil off the South Carolina coast in the face of efforts by Trump to crank up drilling in the South Atlantic.
McMaster has supported development of clean-burning electric vehicles at a new manufacturing plant in South Carolina, even as Trump has worked against the electric vehicle industry.
And the governor has acknowledged the threat of climate change, forming a floodwater commission and developing a resilience plan as Trump has sought to undo federal climate regulations while fighting against wind and solar initiatives.
McMaster’s environmental legacy is drawing praise as he prepares to leave office and as South Carolina prepares to elect a new governor whose conservation goals may be different. Republican candidate Alan Wilson, the current attorney general, and Democrat Jermaine Johnson haven’t said much about the environment during the campaign to replace McMaster.
But whatever positions shake out from the two governor’s office hopefuls, environmentalists don’t want McMaster to leave office without recognizing his work.
The Conservation Voters of South Carolina will honor McMaster on Sept. 16 for his contributions to environmental protection. The conservation group’s annual “Green Tie’’ awards luncheon recognizes political leaders who support environmental legislation and causes.
Earlier this year, the S.C. Land Trust Network gave him its first conservation leadership award. He also was bestowed with a similar award by the Audubon Society in South Carolina last year.
McMaster hasn’t agreed with conservation groups on everything – notably on development of new power plants – but he’s done enough to warrant praise, they say.
During a session with reporters in August, McMaster said his support for protecting the environment is meant to preserve South Carolina’s beauty and way of life.
Some development interests are beginning to ruin ‘’the state, just like they’ve ruined other places,’’ McMaster said. He said there is significant pressure to build on more of the landscape, which is why the state needs to set aside special areas before it’s too late.
McMaster said he remembers flying over Marco Island, Fla., once and being struck by how much concrete had replaced the natural tropical landscape. Everywhere he looked, he saw densely developed neighborhoods and hotels.
It’s a vision that he can’t get out of his head.
“That’s what’s going to happen to us’’ if the state isn’t careful, he said. “We don’t need that.”
Republican McMaster’s environmental legacy won’t be forgotten, say some conservationists and Democrats who disagree with the governor on a host of other issues.
Nat Mund, who tracks legislative issues for the Southern Environmental Law Center in Washington, said McMaster’s stance against oil-drilling may have helped persuade Trump not to pursue the search for oil off the South Atlantic coast. The Trump administration proposed drilling, but never followed through as opposition mounted in states along the Atlantic coast.
“His opposition was important,’’ Mund said. “It demonstrated bi-partisan opposition that folks in the southeast coast didn’t want drilling. For McMaster, he reflected that voice to the administration.’’
Frank Holleman, a Democrat and environmental attorney from Greenville, said McMaster’s differences with Trump aren’t necessarily surprising.
Some of South Carolina’s governors and U.S. senators have in the past worked in almost two realms: one supporting the national platforms, but another governing more independently on matters close to home. That’s reflected in McMaster’s stances on the environment, Holleman said.
“He’s speaking from a place of someone whose entire life is in South Carolina, and he has an appreciation for the landscape, the culture, the beauty and the nature of the state,’’ Holleman said.
Some past governors have also been generally supportive of the environment, including Republican Mark Sanford and Democratic Jim Hodges. Republican Gov. David Beasley was instrumental in protecting the Jocassee Gorges, a mountain preserve, in the late 1990s.
McMaster has operated, however, during a political era dominated by Trump in two separate terms, which critics say has been more difficult. As president, Trump has taken 500 actions that threaten public health, environmental protections, the integrity of scientific research and related issues, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council, a conservation group.
“It’s easier maybe for people like me and others in the conservation movement to tell the Trump administration ‘You’re full of it,’ ‘’ conservationist Dana Beach said. “But it’s not as easy when you’re in office.
“The context Henry has been operating in is extremely difficult for Republicans.’’
Efforts to reach a Trump administration spokesperson were unsuccessful..
Asked how he squares support he’s receiving from environmental groups when conservationists are criticizing Trump, McMaster was matter-of-fact in his response.
“What’s to square?’’ the governor asked. “Everybody doesn’t agree on everything.’’
McMaster, South Carolina’s longest serving governor, was among the first politicians to endorse Trump for president and has steadfastly supported him. He has backed the president on an array of non-environmental issues.
Holleman said the next governor of South Carolina will be hard-pressed to follow McMaster’s environmental legacy, most notably on land conservation.
“He has really set a tremendous tone on that, and it’s going to be a big challenge for the next governor to live up to that example,’’ Holleman said.
The other side of green
While McMaster draws praise for his stances on many environmental issues, it’s not a record without criticism from environmentalists. He has supported some of Trump’s environmental policies.
McMaster, for instance, has been in lockstep with Trump on the need to expand nuclear power. The governor supports reviving the failed V.C. Summer atomic energy project. He also supported establishing a nuclear campus to develop an array of atomic energy projects. The Trump administration is moving to loosen rules for atomic power nationally, an effort nuclear safety watchdogs say presents a risk to the public.
Environmentalist Tom Clements said he suspects it’s hard for McMaster to stand up to Trump on nuclear issues because the president is so supportive of atomic energy.
“It seems to me that lower ranking politicians are given some leeway to take a different stance than Trump,’’ Clements said. “But there are some things they are not going to have a different opinion on, and one is nuclear. It is 100 percent ‘Fall in line.’ ’’
McMaster also signed a major 2025 energy bill that was intended to encourage new energy projects by streamlining environmental reviews. The idea was to cut down on what some say were unnecessary delays in permitting energy projects.
The new law was pushed as the state moved to approve a major natural gas plant project that has sparked opposition from people whose property is along the route of a pipeline to serve the plant. Many landowners are furious and have sued the pipeline company, seeking to prevent access to their property.
One of McMaster’s major shortcomings on the environment has been the SC Department of Environmental Services, critics say,
The agency and the department it replaced have had a reputation – which they have strongly disputed – of tepid responses to environmental protection.
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The Department of Environmental Services was created two years ago with the intent of becoming more efficient and focused. It formerly was part of the old Department of Health and Environmental Control, which combined health and environment into one agency.
Instead of choosing an outsider to run environmental services, McMaster picked longtime DHEC regulator Myra Reece for the job.
Under Reece, the agency has been criticized for not aggressively addressing toxic forever chemicals in sewer sludge that was spread on South Carolina farm fields for decades as a fertilizer. Thousands of acres of farmland are potentially polluted in Darlington and surrounding counties with the cancer-causing compounds. The agency has no specific rules against forever chemicals in sewer sludge, even though critics say it has authority to more tightly regulate sludge spreading.
The department also has been criticized for failing to stop pollution from nurdles, tiny plastic beads that have leaked from industrial operations into Charleston Harbor and the Congaree River below Columbia.
“The Department of Environmental Services continues to be weak on protecting our people and our water systems from these very concerning emerging contaminants,’’ Holleman said.
In addition, McMaster has been criticized for not taking an aggressive stance against data centers, the large energy sucking businesses that are drawing strong opposition in many communities that see them as intrusive.
Lynn Teague, a vice president with League of Women Voters of South Carolina, said the governor has done well on many issues, but he and other leaders need to take strong positions on controlling the growth of data centers.
“We have seen now for several years attempts to get some meaningful regulation of these data centers, which plays into the utility issues, and it hasn’t happened,’’ she said. “We’d like to have seen more leadership from the governor and other leaders.’’
In some cases, McMaster has supported the recruitment of industries that have later polluted the environment, including the China Jushi plant in Columbia. After coming to South Carolina seven years ago, the factory discharged heavy metals into Columbia’s sewer system and repeatedly broke air pollution laws, The State reported in 2024.
Overall good marks
Even though he has drawn some criticism, the overall picture is that McMaster has done a sound job on environmental policy and protection, some of the state’s leading conservationists say.
“His heart is really in it,’’ Beach said of McMaster. “He seems to really believe in the legacy of the environment and the cultural legacy of the landscape. He has a willingness to tell a different story than is coming out of the national arena.’’
Congaree Riverkeeper Bill Stangler said McMaster’s interest in ridding the river of toxic coal tar was instrumental in the eventual cleanup. The tar, which had leaked from utility property, had been the subject of cleanup efforts for more than a decade. It was finally removed from the Congaree River near the Gervais Street bridge in 2023 after the governor got involved.
“He called me personally,’’ Stangler said. “He said ‘What can we do about this and can it get cleaned up and what do you need?’ ’’
McMaster has also been credited with focusing on the cleanup of the USS Yorktown, an old ship that threatened to leak toxins in Charleston.
Perhaps McMaster’s most lasting legacy is that of his commitment to preserving land across South Carolina.
In collaboration with conservation groups, McMaster has set a goal of protecting seven more million acres in South Carolina, bringing to 10 million the acreage that would be saved from development. The state has a total of about 19 million acres of land.
During his time, the state brokered a deal to protect some 62,000 acres in eastern South Carolina from future development, an agreement believed to be one of the largest landscape protection initiatives in state history.
Overall, the state has saved some 400,000 acres of historic and environmentally significant land during the governor’s time in office, he said in his final state-of-the-state speech last January. It also has established a new state park on the Black River near Georgetown and it has expanded the Congaree Creek Heritage Preserve in Cayce, just across the river from Columbia.
McMaster’s push to protect land comes amid increasing popularity in the Legislature of preserving significant natural areas before they can be developed in high-growth South Carolina.
In some cases, the property has been protected through easements that allow the landowners to continue to live on the property, as well as to harvest timber. In others, the state has purchased land for public use, including the recent acquisition of the historic, wildlife-rich Goodwill Plantation on the Wateree River between Columbia and Sumter.
This effort has occurred as the Trump administration has sought to shrink the size of some protected lands, while opening the door for potentially more development in national forests like those in South Carolina.
Just recently, environmental groups sued the Trump administration for reducing the size of two national monuments: Bear Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante in southern Utah. The administration redrew the boundaries, which cut the size of the protected areas by 90 percent, environmentalists say.
Trump also has sought to eliminate the roadless rule, a 25-year-old restriction on logging in the most sensitive parts of national forests, including about 7,500 acres in South Carolina’s mountains and Lowcountry. Recently, the Trump administration was accused of trying to give away part of Yosemite National Park, one of the nation’s flagship national parks, to a private developer. During Trump’s time in office, his administration also has moved to limit protection of wetlands, which harbor wildlife and help limit flooding. Wetlands are abundant in places like South Carolina.
McMaster’s legacy isn’t just on land protection.
His administration lured the Scout electric vehicle plant to South Carolina, where the plant is expected to produce more than 4,000 jobs. The project has generated complaints because it stripped the land and allowed water to runoff and push silt into creeks.
But the goal of producing non-polluting electric vehicles remains, even though the federal government has eliminated financial incentives for people to buy the vehicles.
Meanwhile, the governor’s floodwater commission produced a lengthy report in 2019 that provided ideas on how to protect beaches and control floods that are increasingly an issue as South Carolina’s climate changes and sea level rises.
The report initially drew criticism because it focused more on the response to climate change, instead of ways to stop contributing greenhouse gases that heat up the planet. But ultimately, the commission’s work was praised – and it preceded the creation of the state Office of Resilience.
The South Carolina Office of Resilience was formed to improve response to disasters, such as hurricanes and floods. The goal is to reduce long-term risks to people and property. The office has developed a resilience plan that helps guide that response.
One of McMaster’s highest profile environmental appointments has been Tom Mullikin, a former hazardous waste industry lawyer.
He was chosen to run the Department of Natural Resources, the agency that oversees hunting and fishing, tracks climate issues and operates a major marine resources division. Mullikin has transformed himself into a conservationist, leading walks across the state, launching a radio program and increasing visibility of the agency.
One of the governor’s toughest stances on environmental protection is along South Carolina’s beachfront. While Trump has had little to say about intense oceanfront construction, McMaster has continued to support the state’s policy of protecting public beaches.
Among other things, he has refused to help wealthy beachfront property owners fortify their homes with seawalls that could erode the public seashore. In 2019, McMaster ordered then-Department of Natural Resources board chairman Norman Pulliam to stop lobbying the Legislature to give oceanfront landowners a break on seawall rules.
Another of the governor’s most recent efforts to support coastal conservation involved protection of Pritchards Island, a strip of sand once used for research that had been largely abandoned by University of South Carolina researchers.
After The State and Island Packet reported that Pritchards Island could fall into the hands of the University of Georgia, McMaster pushed for funds to resurrect Pritchards as a research site. Today, research efforts have returned to the island.
McMaster’s support for environmental protection as governor follows similar stances he made while serving as state attorney general from 2002 to 2006.
During that time, he issued rulings supporting public ownership of environmentally sensitive marsh islands, sued North Carolina to protect the Catawba River from overuse, pushed to make environmental crimes part of the state grand jury’s duties, and blasted the Department of Health and Environmental Control over the lack of information about pollution from a nuclear waste dump.
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