Post and Courier reporters Andrew Brown and Thad Moore have what is possibly the scoop of this whole SCE&G nuclear plant debacle. They have even provided us the audio of a voicemail from early 2016 that alerts Santee Cooper to potential criminal mismanagement of the nuclear construction project by SCE&G executives, mismanagement that has left SCE&G, Santee Cooper and their ratepayers about $9 billion in debt.
This is a must read and listen.
In the past I have been asked if I had had knowledge about the infamous Bechtel Report at the time I intervened in the 2016 SCE&G docket to increase spending on the project to over $830 million, would I have still signed the settlement agreement. I have always maintained that I would have still probably signed because the Base Load Review Act was still in force with its almost guarantee that the Public Service Commission would give SCE&G what it wanted anyway.  The settlement was a way to try to put a cap on any future cost increases to be paid by the ratepayers.
However, this Post and Courier story and voicemail with its revelations is different because it implies criminal activity that led to the 2016 cost increase request. I don’t think there would have been a settlement had this information been know at the time.
So now it’s time to stop SCE&G from collecting most, if not all, of the 18% higher rates it has put into place since 2009 for the nuclear construction project. Then we can work on clawing back the $2 billion already collected by the utility.
Frank Knapp