Santee Cooper accounts set for hearing in South Carolina Senate

A South Carolina Senate panel chaired by the main proponent of a besieged and indebted utility company Santee Cooper will hold a hearing on a couple of bills related to its future this afternoon – including a privatization proposal that was approved by the SC Chamber of Deputies last month.

This legislation – H. 3194 – “authorizes the sale of (Santee Cooper) assets and the assumption or extinction of its liabilities”.

For more than thirteen years, the founding editor of this medium Will Folks drafted a reform plan for the state of Palmetto, which included the transfer of Santee Cooper to the private sector. At the time, the concessionaire would have raised billions for taxpayers.

Today? Santee Cooper is buried under a mountain of debt, thanks to his ill-fated involvement in NukeGate – the sloppy construction of a pair of abandoned nuclear reactors in Jenkinsville, SC. In fact, his financial situation is getting worse by the day as a result of this fiasco – which was facilitated by legislative leaders.

In addition to $ 10 billion that was thrown down the drain in the project, public faith was also lost. Documents discovered after the reactors were abandoned revealed that Santee Cooper executives knew the project was doomed – but continued to raise rates for consumers anyway.

In fact, Santee Cooper announced a proposed fee increase related to the project only Eight days before sinking. The concessionaire also misled investors about the status of the reactors.

The other bill under discussion this week is S. 464 – a “reform” bill called Santee Cooper that is being presented by the committee chairman, state senator Luke Rankin.

There are layers and layers of irony in Rankin’s leadership in an effort to “reform” Santee Cooper – including his continued involvement with his current crop of “leaders” (here and here). But the real irony is that Rankin was one of the architects of the NukeGate disaster.

More practically, all the assumptions associated with Santee Cooper’s so-called “reform” have long since evaporated – making that path unviable, even though Rankin was an honest broker.

That he is not …

Readers should remember that Rankin is involved in a vendetta against Florida NextEra Energy – the largest energy company in the country. Last February, NextEra introduced Santee Cooper’s main purchase offer – and paid off its mountain of debts related to the failed NukeGate project (and related mismanagement). Rankin believes NextEra was involved in its contentious primary election last spring – and is determined to close the dealership $ 9.6 billion offer to Santee Cooper as part of his revenge.

In other words, don’t expect it to be a fair audience …

In the last few weeks, Rankin had the help of the Senator from SC Dick Harpootlian in his jihad – although, as we reported last week, that alliance may not be entirely fair. We are also told that Rankin is allegedly arming lawmakers with his influence in the oncoming redistricting process – which will redraw the political boundaries in South Carolina.

Other senators reported similar threats allegedly made by Rankin in connection with Santee Cooper’s bills.

One such project – an attempt to summon NextEra for a treasure trove of documents – passed the Rankin panel last week, due to objections from several Republican lawmakers.

“I never saw anything like this coming out of the SC General Assembly,” majority leader in the SC Senate Shane Massey said. “Is this going to be the practice going forward?”

“This is the biggest fishing expedition I have ever seen”, senator Richard Cash he said, accusing Rankin of favoring Santee Cooper over NextEra.

Both Massey and Cash also expressed concerns that Rankin’s draft summons could have a negative effect on economic development in the state of Palmetto.

Stay tuned … we hope that the Rankin committee will sanction its “reform” project and reject the proposal that was passed in the House, but we will keep our eyes on today’s proceedings.

Hopefully, more GOP lawmakers will begin to face Rankin’s threats instead of bowing to them …

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-FITSNews

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Flag: Travis Bell, Columbia SC photographers