COLUMBIA, S.C. (WIS) – From road problems to childcare to energy resilience, South Carolina’s military installations face a variety of challenges.
Their top brass gathered in Columbia on Thursday to bring those issues to state leaders, including their concerns over what some call an emerging threat nationwide.
The annual Commanders’ Brief to the Governor brings together the commanders of South Carolina’s military installations, state agency heads, and leaders at the State House.
“What you are doing is vital not only to the economy of South Carolina but to the ultimate picture, and that is the security of this nation,” Gov. Henry McMaster told them.
One emerging security concern for military commanders, and one they said they deal with routinely, is drones.
Even people flying drones for innocent recreation in military installation airspace can create a hazard to aircraft, and when the military doesn’t know if the drone has a more nefarious purpose, it becomes a major security issue.
The federal government controls property inside the fence line around bases and has jurisdiction there.
But drones can quickly leave that airspace, so some base commanders told state leaders they would like to see legislation enacted to crack down on this.
“It’s probably too early to identify solutions, per se, but I think the issue is, how do you develop collaboration and look at all the stakeholders? Because you have local, you have state, you have federal, you’ve got private sector entities that are operating these things, and of course you’ve got the Federal Aviation Administration that may in fact — some of this may be in their bailiwick as well,” South Carolina Department of Veterans’ Affairs Secretary Todd McCaffrey told reporters. “So these are complex issues, and as you well know, this is technology that has very quickly outpaced, in some cases, the ability to manage the policies that go with that, so we’re all looking at this.”
While representatives from all bases typically attend the event every year, about half were absent this year because of the federal government shutdown.
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