PRESS STATEMENT
Date: March 20, 2019
From: South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce
Subject: Statement regarding Santee Cooper and joint resolution for sale
Contact: Frank Knapp, President/CEO, 803-252-5733 (w), 803-600-6874 (c), fknapp@scsbc.org
Statement regarding Santee Cooper’s 12+% higher rates and joint resolution
The below is a statement by Frank Knapp Jr, president and CEO of the South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce regarding today’s joint resolution filed by Senator Harvey Peeler.
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Yesterday, Santee Cooper executives told a Senate committee that their residential electric rates will increase more than 7% by 2021 on top of the extra 5% their customers are already paying for the utility’s nuclear debt.
These same executives also said that they didn’t know how much higher and for how long rates would need to be increased to pay the utility’s debt.
Compare that to the significant rate relief SCE&G customers received from that utility’s nuclear debt, a 15% rate cut and elimination of $2.7 billion of the debt, when Dominion Energy was approved to buy SCE&G.
So, we congratulate Senator Peeler for introducing a joint resolution today to authorize the sale of Santee Cooper to a private concern. A sale is the only way to protect Santee Cooper’s direct customers and the customers of our state’s 20 electric cooperatives from higher rates to pay Santee Cooper’s $4 billion nuclear debt and over $4 billion in other debt.
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The South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce is a statewide advocacy organization founded in 2000. With over 10,000 small business and entrepreneur supporters, it has successfully worked to make South Carolina more small business friendly in areas such as healthcare, taxation, regulation, worker training, energy/conservation, workers’ compensation and economic development.