Savannah River Site community payments revived in Senate defense bill

Colin Demarest, Aiken Standard, S.C.
·2 min read

Jul. 26—A defense spending-and-policy bundle approved last week by the Senate Armed Services Committee would restore $5.7 million in payments to communities surrounding the Savannah River Site, after the Biden administration proposed slicing the sum from the federal budget.

The money, also known as payments in lieu of taxes, would be distributed to Aiken, Allendale and Barnwell counties, as has been the case for years. The trio surrounds and makes up the Savannah River Site, a 310-square-mile reservation established during the Cold War.

Broadly, payment-in-lieu-of-tax money, or PILT, represents a deal between the Department of Energy, which manages and uses the land south of Aiken, and neighboring governments, unable to tax the land or develop it. PILT funds for years have supported all-important local services: education, infrastructure and emergency response, among other things.

Barnwell County Council member Ben Kinlaw last month described the purse as "sort of like the sacred cow" — not to be messed with. Barnwell County traditionally receives the lion's share of the South Carolina PILT allocation.

"It's a legacy that's been there for a long time," Citizens for Nuclear Technology Awareness Executive Director Jim Marra has said of the payments, "and certainly the communities have relied on it and used it for very good purposes."

The Senate Armed Services Committee's approval, 23-3, is one of many steps in the annual National Defense Authorization Act process.

The bill — which authorizes $777.9 billion for U.S. defense programs, including $27.7 billion for the Energy Department — now heads to the full Senate for consideration. Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, the committee's ranking member, said he hoped to see the legislation on the floor soon, "where we can continue improving it through an open and robust amendment process."

The House will produce its own draft of the fiscal year 2022 National Defense Authorization Act. Differences need to be reconciled, via conference committee, before a final version is approved and sent to the president for signing.