Times & Democrat, February 17, 2020
Moultrie News, February 18, 2020
By Frank Knapp Jr.
South Carolina legislators officially now have two paths forward with three options for how to address the $3.6 billion of debt owed by Santee Cooper and electric cooperative ratepayers for the nuclear project debacle in Fairfield County.
The first path is to make the ratepayers pay all that debt that resulted from mismanagement by Santee Cooper executives and Board. Keeping Santee Cooper as a state agency (option No. 1) or letting Dominion Energy take over some management positions of the public utility (option No. 2) doesn’t take the $3.6 billion debt obligation off the backs of the ratepayers.
Only the second path forward (option No. 3) will lift the debt burden off ratepayers by selling Santee Cooper to a large private utility with a proven track record of making sound business decisions that saves their ratepayers money.
NextEra proposes to not only absorb the nuclear debt but an additional $4 billion of Santee Cooper’s other debt. Plus, NextEra offers to pay back ratepayers for the money they already paid for the failed nuclear project.
The South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce supports selling Santee Cooper to provide certainty to South Carolina businesses remove the debt burden from all Santee Cooper ratepayers.
Frank Knapp Jr. is president and CEO of the South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce
https://thetandd.com/opinion/columnist/santee-cooper-sale-is-best/article_14930216-1a17-5633-92ef-d6847bb13499.html
https://www.moultrienews.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/article_b879f322-4dd8-11ea-8823-f331ca627c78.html