Southern Legislative Conference

The Southern Office of The Council of State Governments | Serving the South

Southern Legislative Conference | Serving the South
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Featured Publications

Municipal Bonds: Trends in 2011

In December 2010, there was a great deal of speculation that dozens of cities and local governments would default on their municipal bond debt obligations amounting to hundreds of billions of dollars within a year.  According to this line of thinking, this cataclysmic outcome would require states to bail out these municipalities, an outcome that, given the tenuous fiscal position of states, in turn would require the federal government to bail out the states.  This SLC Regional Resource examines how the municipal bond market fared in 2011, if fears expressed by certain experts regarding widespread bond defaults were realized, if investors shed their holdings in municipal bonds and fled to other asset categories and a number of related topics.

Economic Expansion, Energy Independence and Environmental Efficiency: Renewables in the South

This SLC Special Series Report explores efforts initiated by Southern states in recent years to develop the renewable energy sector in the region and an assessment of the economic development, energy and environmental benefits expected to flow from these efforts. The report comprises three parts:

  • Part 1 explores the economic development component of the renewable energy sector with details on how the renewable sector could rejuvenate the nation’s eroding manufacturing sector and job creation trends (direct, indirect and induced) at both the national and state levels related to the renewable energy sector.
  • Part 2 focuses on the energy component and includes details on the status, nationally and regionally, of such renewable components as hydro, solar, wind, biomass and geothermal; renewable portfolio standards and the general move toward renewable sources as a domestic and local source of reliable and sustainable energy; composition of the contemporary energy market; national and regional trends; and, finally, an assessment of the environmental and public health benefits to developing renewable energy.
  • Part 3 delves into the SLC state profiles and relies mostly on the responses provided by states to the SLC surveys with such details as financial incentives proffered for energy efficiency at both the residential and commercial levels; energy savings and environmental impacts; financial incentives for renewable energy provided to both attract and/or retain corporations to the different SLC states; and a sampling of the different renewable energy projects either active or pending in the states.

Food Safety: Building an Integrated System

The U.S. food safety system has developed over a lengthy period, often in response to health concerns or threats. Because of this, the system does not have a coherent, strategic focus, but is a patchwork of legal and regulatory activities that distributes the responsibility for, and information about, food safety across numerous federal, state and local entities.

Establishing a prevention-oriented national food safety system will require investments at all levels, innovative use of existing technology, commitments among partners to share resources and responsibilities across both jurisdictional borders and institutional barriers, and initiatives to boost capacity across the system. Food safety requires an integration of public health, agriculture, the food processing industry, and the research community to achieve a truly seamless system where risks are assessed accurately, mitigated appropriately, monitored thoroughly and outbreaks are responded to effectively.

This SLC Regional Resource examines current practices in regards to food safety, as well as best practices to ensure that foodborne illnesses are reduced to a minimal level.

Amazon and the states: Untapped revenue Streams

On April 27, 2011, the South Carolina House of Representatives, by a vote of 71-47, defeated an amendment that would have provided a five-year sales tax exemption to Amazon.com in exchange for the company building a distribution center in Lexington County, in the central part of the state. While this vote resulted in Amazon canceling to the forefront a burning issue confronting state policymakers: how should states react to the exponential growth in e-commerce transactions that largely occur without the collection of invaluable sales taxes? As states struggle to deal with the sharp drop-off in revenues caused by the Great Recession, the panoply of issues related to collecting sales taxes on e-commerce transactions continues to roil state policymakers across the country.

Beyond the immediacy of grappling with current revenue shortfalls, states also face the continuing challenge of an eroding tax base related to the exponential growth in e-commerce transactions. This is because a 1992 U.S. Supreme Court ruling held that online retailers only are required to collect sales tax on a transaction if they have a physical presence in a the state of the purchasing customer. As a result, states are largely unable to apply sales tax to a burgeoning sector of the economy, i.e., e-commerce transactions, a sector that has experienced stratospheric growth in the last decade. In fact, the University of Tennessee’s Center for Business and Economic Research (CBER) estimates that by 2012 states will lose between $11.4 billion and $12.65 billion from untaxed online sales. This SLC Fiscal Alert reviews the complexities involved in the taxation of these online sales by the SLC states and the fiscal implications of the decisions that must be made.

Previous Featured Publications

Publications Overview

Regional Resources
Issued periodically throughout the year, SLC Regional Resources provide background and status information on a wide array of public policy issues currently being addressed by the Conference's standing committees and by state legislatures across the South. Recent publications have dealt with the resurgence of methamphetamine use in the South; expansion of the Panama Canal and Southern ports' preparations; recycling in the South; and Southern water allocation and management.

Comparative Data Reports (CDRs)
These reports are prepared annually by select SLC states' fiscal research departments.  Because CDRs track a multitude of revenue sources and appropriations levels in Southern states, they provide a useful tool to legislators and legislative staff alike as they determine their own state spending. The reports analyze state tax structures and revenue forecasts, adult correctional systems, K-12 educational systems, state transportation programs and Medicaid spending. Comparative Data Reports are prepared under the auspices of the Conference's Fiscal Affairs & Government Operations Committee.

SLC Special Series Reports
Prepared several times annually, these reports are designed to give in-depth treatment to a key issue or governmental problem with which Southern states are grappling.   Recent reports in this series include The Expansion of the Panama Canal and SLC State Ports; Mortgage Meltdown: The Financial Impact of the Housing Contraction in the Southern Legislative Conference States; and Innovative Programs in Funding State Homeland Security Needs. Earlier SLC Special Series Reports have addressed the economic impact of the arts in the South; infant mortality; Southern public retirement systems; state school finance systems; and the Southern auto industry.

The Southern Legislative Conference (SLC) of The Council of State Governments was established in 1947 and is composed of the presiding officers and key legislators from 15 Southern states. The SLC is a non-partisan, non-profit organization located in Atlanta, Georgia.

Southern Office of The Council of State Governments
phone: (404) 633-1866 | fax: (404) 633-4896 | email: slc@csg.org | P.O. Box 98129, Atlanta, Georgia 30359