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October 2026: Advocacy Updates

Date postedSeptember 29, 2026
Posted By: Jordan Amaker Advocacy Updates, Awareness, Community, General News,

Local-Level Opportunities & Noteworthy Updates

  • Listen up: Four opportunities remain to attend a City of Charleston's State of the City engagement event. Learn more and attend one near you.
  • Heads up: The City of Charleston's permitting and land management system is getting an upgrade! Those online systems and the Customer Self Service portal will be down Oct. 15-16 for the scheduled upgrades. Processing will resume Monday, Oct 19.
  • Speak up: This month brings another in-person (Oct 1) and online (Oct 7) opportunity to learn and respond to the City of North Charleston's Unified Development Ordinance (UDO) project that will shape the city's growth for years to come. Learn more at onenorthcharleston.com.
  • Speak up: Open studios continue this month, providing a great opportunity to learn about and weigh in on the City of Charleston's Peninsula Plan and Tourism Management Plan update. Learn more.

State-Level Issues Worth Following

  • We urge our small businesses to stay informed of the proposed merger between Virginia-based Dominion Energy  and Florida-based NextEra. 
    • "The merger, which would be the fourth-largest corporate consolidation in American history, remains disastrous for ratepayers in Dominion’s service territory. ... There is no “benefits package” on earth that could protect consumers from the financial effects of the market concentration and monopoly power that would result if this deal is approved. If you are in any doubt about who this combination will ultimately benefit, consider the fact that both Amazon and Google, which have significant data center investments in Dominion’s service territory, have jumped into the merger negotiations, stating explicitly that they have a lot of money riding on this corporate marriage, and intend to fight any terms which threaten their financial interests or business models." - Read more from The American Economic Liberties Project
    • What can you do? The South Carolina Public Service Commission (SC PSC) is reviewing the merger proposal and initiating public engagement in the process to hear from South Carolinians. The final decision is set to be made on January 29, 2027. They are currently receiving written feedback from the community and will be hosting a series of live Public Hearings starting in November.
      • There will be one in-person public hearing at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov 17 in North Charleston. Learn more. 

        The PSC notes that, as with all customer public hearings, anyone interested in testifying can only testify at one session and for a maximum of three minutes. To preregister: 

      • At any point, you can send a message to the PSC on how this merger could impact you and your business through this SC Appleseed Legal Justice form.
  • Our partners at South Carolina Department of Commerce are working with the Federal Reserve System on the 2026 Small Business Credit Survey, and they want your input. The survey findings help policymakers, lenders, resource partners, and researchers better understand the challenges and opportunities facing small businesses and inform how they can be better supported.
    The survey is open now through November 13, 2026, and takes approximately 12 minutes to complete: Take the Federal Reserve’s 2026 Small Business Credit Survey

  • Election Update:

    The state's General Election will be held November 3 and nearly every race is contested. All statewide and Congressional seats have opposition from both major parties. Early voting begins October 19. View your sample ballot now.

     

Federal-Level Issues Impacting Your Success

  • Big Business Just Got Called 'Small'

    The Small Business Administration decides who counts as "small." That label controls who gets federal loan guarantees and who gets first shot at government contracts set aside for small businesses — over $200 billion a year. Right now, the SBA is proposing to blow those size limits way up. More than 114,000 additional companies would suddenly qualify as "small." 

    The SBA’s current approach involves examining the structure of each industry, including the distribution of revenue across different sized firms, the level of concentration, and average assets per firm (a proxy for the costs of launching a business). The aim is to determine what constitutes a relatively small business within the context of each industry. 

    The proposed methodology abandons this granular approach. Instead, it focuses on the overall size of each market and sets the threshold to exclude dominant companies. The larger the market, the larger a business can be and still count as small because, the agency notes, “a greater level of scale is required for a firm to be dominant.” In effect, the agency is replacing a measure of smallness with a measure of non-dominance.

    Read more via Institute for Local Self Reliance. The deadline for weighing in with public comment on this issue just got extended to November 20, 2026.  The easiest way to submit your comment is online through regulations.gov on Docket No. SBA-2026-0199 (see the green button “Submit a Public Comment”). You can write your response directly in the fields or upload a document.
  • Calling all independent businesses impacted by Amazon's monopoly power! Amazon goes to trial for antitrust misconduct soon and we need your voice to tell the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the 17 states on the lawsuit how important this is and we do not want to see a settlement. Stacy Mitchell and Danny Caine of the Institute of Local Self Reliance recently broke down the harms, the case, and the opportunity.

Questions? Want to chat? Reach out: Jordan@lowcountrylocalfirst.org

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