Letter: Repay ratepayers

Charleston Post and Courier
January 30, 2018

While our elected officials in Columbia are scrambling to repeal SCANA’s ability to continue to charge its ratepayers $37 million a month for its failed nuclear projects, the state Chamber of Commerce is busy lobbying lawmakers to throw the rest of us under the bus.

They oppose making SCANA and its stockholders eat its losses, instead preferring that we continue to pay for its inept management for the next 50 years on the basis that repeal “might hurt the state’s economy.” Never mind the refund we are due from Toshiba’s sale of Westinghouse because of its contract failures. The chamber thinks that belongs to SCANA, not the ratepayers.

This is one more example why voters have recently become more suspicious of big business. These are the same folks who have been outsourcing American jobs overseas for higher profits.

Fortunately, there is a more reasonable business voice in this debate, that of the Small Business Chamber that supports the repeal of the enabling Base Load Review Act. They not only support repeal, they support repayment of “every penny SCE&G ratepayers have paid since 2009.”

Let’s hope our elected officials listen to all of us who have had our wallets emptied by these inept utility officials.

Peter Gorman
S. Magnolia Street
Summerville

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