Archie Parnell | Blogspot: Needed Legislation for Improved Dams in South Carolina

Tuesday, October 15, 2019

Needed Legislation for Improved Dams in South Carolina

Photo by American Public Power Association on Unsplash

Tax policy commentator Archie Parnell ran for a seat in the South Carolina 5th Congressional District in 2018. A part of Archie Parnell’s platform focused on improving South Carolina’s aging infrastructure, as the state earned a D on the 2017 Infrastructure Report Card.

One of the major hazards mentioned in the report was the condition of the state’s dams. Currently, almost 80 of South Carolina’s dams have failed due to the impact of hurricanes Matthew and Florence. In 2015, a flood caused more than 50 dams to fail, which then resulted in millions of property losses and a swarm of lawsuits. Even with these failures, though, very little has been done to remedy this situation.

Conversely, bills have been introduced that would reduce safety regulations and state oversight. SB 81 and SB 107 would potentially remove state oversight from over 1,700 dams in the state. The bills would also remove regulations for low-hazard dams and could be catastrophic for residents impacted by dam failures.

Dams with high-hazard potential are ones classified as having the likelihood for failure or having the likelihood for causing loss of life and significant property damage. Of the 2,300 dams in the state, only 178 of them are rated as high-hazard, and just under 90 percent of state dams have emergency action plans (EAPs). However, increasingly frequent and severe natural disasters, combined with aging or weakening structures, mandate that safety regulations and efforts are made to improve dam infrastructure.

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A tax attorney and public policy commentator on tax issues in the United States and Asia, Archie Parnell has focused his professional life on tax policy matters around the globe. Outside America, Archie Parnell served as the head of Goldman Sachs’ tax department in Asia being promoted to managing director. During this time, he lived in Tokyo for four years and in Hong Kong for 17 years.

Before Goldman, Parnell was a partner of the international law firm Coudert Brothers where he practiced tax law in Hong Kong. Before that, he served in various senior tax positions at Exxon Mobil. Starting off as a tax attorney for the energy company, he ascended to senior positions in Hong Kong and Brussels.

Back home in the United States, Archie Parnell began his career as a tax attorney in the US Department of Justice Tax Division, appointed under the Attorney General’s Program for Honor Law Graduates. Afterward, he served as a senior staff counsel for the Ways and Means Committee of the US House of Representatives in Washington, focusing on preparing reports for the Oversight Subcommittee.

Leveraging his international business acumen, Parnell has served as an adjunct professor, teaching international business structures at the University of South Carolina School of Law. He is now a public policy commentator on US and Asia tax issues. He has written a number of tax articles over the years published in various law school journals and professional publications. These include: Tax Reform in China: the New Foreign Corporate Income Tax Law (3 CCH Journal of Asian Pacific Taxation 4, 1991), Congressional Interference in Agency Enforcement: The IRS Experience (89 Yale Law Journal 1360, 1980), The Internal Revenue Manual: Its Utility and Legal Effect (32 Tax Lawyer 687, 1979), Constitutional Considerations of Federal Control Over the Sovereign Taxing Authority of the States, 28 Cath. U. L. Rev. 227 (1979), The Right to Privacy and the Administration of the Federal Tax Laws (31 Tax Lawyer 113, 1977), and Sale of Contracts: When Capital Gains Treatment is Available to the Seller (43 Journal of Taxation 200, 1975). He also co-authored A Loss of Investor Privileges with Owen Nee in the China Business Review (July-Aug. 1996).

He has spoken to a number of groups on tax issues, most recently in Hong Kong at the International Fiscal Association, on the topic “The History of International Taxation in the United States since the 16th Amendment: Where We Are Now and Implications for the Future.”

Archie was the Chair of the Tax Committee of the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong (1992, 1993 and 1998) and Chair of the Capital Markets Tax Committee of Asia (1994, 1995 and 1997). He was a member of the Business and Investment Advisory Committee (“BIAC”) to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (the “OECD”) from 2010 to 2016 and Vice Chair of BIAC’s Tax Committee to the OECD from 2013 to 2016.