01-05-2025
SC Senate confirms governor's pick to lead environmental agency
Myra Reece was confirmed Wednesday, April 30, 2025, as the director of the state's environmental agency. (Provided by the S.C. Governor's Office)
COLUMBIA — The state Senate confirmed the governor's choice for the first director of the state's newly formed environmental agency Wednesday.
Myra Reece has been interim director of the 1,000-employee Department of Environmental Services since its formation last year, when legislators split the department overseeing public health and environmental regulations into two.
With the Senate's vote of 29-9 to confirm her, she will take over leadership of the agency permanently. All 'no' votes came from Republicans.
'There is no one more qualified or better positioned to continue leading the Department of Environmental Services forward and into the future than Myra Reece,' Gov. Henry McMaster said in a statement.
Reece's confirmation faced pushback from some legislators over what Sen. Wes Climer described as a 'relatively dim view of private property rights.'
Climer, R-Rock Hill, repeated criticisms leveled against her by activist Rom Reddy, who has opposed Reece's nomination since the environmental agency fined him for a seawall he built on his oceanfront property on the Isle of Palms.
SC governor taps interim director to lead environmental agency
While other senators praised Reece during her confirmation hearings for helping constituents solve problems that had otherwise hit a wall, Climer said the need for legislators to get involved at all showed problems in the department.
'Those are evidences of a breakdown of the execution of the agency,' Climer said. 'That is evidence of failure in a lot of cases.'
Reece previously spent nine years as director of environmental affairs for the combined Department of Health and Environmental Control. Before that, she was chief of the department's air quality bureau and a regional office division director.
Her annual salary is $179,925.
'As a born and raised South Carolinian, I couldn't be prouder to assume this critical public service position that helps safeguard our irreplaceable natural environment while supporting our state's unprecedented economic growth,' Reece said in a statement Thursday.
Reece fared much better than her counterpart in the newly formed Department of Public Health.
A separate panel of senators declined to advance the nomination of Dr. Edward Simmer, who led DHEC for three years, primarily over concerns about the agency's response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
