Where are the criminal consequences for Santee Cooper?

Something happened in South Carolina this week that you don’t see often: Accountability. A long-awaited plea bargain involving the former executive director of the South Carolina energy utility SCANA finally happened … bringing some extremely necessary justice to the notorious NukeGate scandal.

Some justice, however … not the justice that the situation requires.

“I’m sorry to have reached this point,” former SCANA CEO Kevin Marsh said circuit court judge SC J. Mark Hayes II in public hearing in Spartanburg, SC, this week. “I feel responsible for my actions.”

Marsh should apologize. And he must feel responsible. And he absolutely should go to prison for two years … hell, he probably should have gotten more time.

But, not to forget, Marsh and his fellow SCANA executives were not solely responsible for NukeGate – the sloppy construction of an abandoned pair of nuclear reactors that attracted contributors and contributors from the state of Palmetto in more than $ 10 billion.

Others participated in this deception … and are, in fact, still cheating.

Oh, and still costing taxpayers and taxpayers as they weave their webs of lies to state lawmakers.

So I ask: Where is the responsibility for them?

And where is the responsibility for the hypocritical politicians who still cover them?

My media addressed this ongoing issue in a recent editorial, but people should remember that SCANA joined the NukeGate fiasco by a utility company Santee Cooper. And Santee Cooper, as a result of his collaboration on this failed project, is now up to his neck in debt … which he has absolutely no chance of resolving through so-called “reform”.

Which means higher rates for your consumers … guaranteed.

To recap: The two NukeGate reactors should be operational in 2016 and 2017, respectively. Despite the incursion of huge amounts of government debt – and the socialization of significant private sector investment risk – the project was never completed, and the two concessionaires could not pay the estimated amount $ 10-16 billion price tag needed to finish it.

On July 31, 2017, Santee Cooper shut down the project. Shortly thereafter, it was revealed that executives at both dealerships knew that the reactors had been doomed for years and did not warn the public. Instead, they allegedly hid that critical information from regulators while continuing to raise rates and accumulate additional debt.

Santee Cooper, for example, openly lied about bail documents … and tried to raise his clients’ fees just a week before shutting down the project.

So I ask again … where’s the responsibility for Santee Cooper?

Especially now that all of his promises of “reform” have been exposed as nothing but more falsehoods.

It was certainly not “responsibility” when the concessionaire gave a $ 16 million golden parachute for its former CEO. Nor was it “liability” when it forced taxpayers to pay the criminal defense fund’s bill to its former prosecutors.

Seriously … when the hell is anyone going to blame this anti-competitive albatross for its lead role in NukeGate?

I certainly credit the office of former US prosecutors Sherri Lydon and Peter McCoy – and the SC attorney’s office Alan Wilson – for their work in holding SCANA accountable. I am also encouraged to know that federal and state prosecutors continue to collaborate in expanding this investigation to include Westinghouse – the contractor in the construction of the failed reactors – and his parent company, Toshiba.

That’s why the confession involves Marsh and the former vice president of SCANA Stephen A. Byrne they were so important.

Westinghouse and Toshiba should be called to account … but not to the exclusion of Santee Cooper.

Unfortunately, previous reports from mainstream media have suggested that Santee Cooper believes he is aware of this criminal investigation – and as much as it shocks and pains me to say so, I saw absolutely no evidence to suggest that prosecutors at the state or federal level are actively pursuing charges against this “dishonest agency”.

Some reported the opposite, but I haven’t seen it yet.

“If this is true, so this whole investigation is a scam”, Published my news vehicle two years ago.

In fact.

Allowing Santee Cooper to slip into his multi-billion dollar deception of taxpayers and taxpayers in South Carolina would be an absolutely irritating legal error – one that would erode faith in prosecuting institutions in this state, much worse than the semi-finished ones. ProbeGate, corruption investigation at SC State House.

In fact, the only worst result I could conceive of in this regard would be if the same lawmakers who led South Carolina to the NukeGate disaster were successful in their campaign to keep Santee Cooper under government control.

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