This $115 Million Settlement Is Going To Look To The Public Like A $23 Million Sellout.”

As some might have us believe, Christmas didn’t come early this year for 727,000 SC Electric & Gas ratepayers.

The so called $2 billion lawsuit settlement is at best a sham and a shame. SCE&G’s ratepayers will get little if anything from the settlement the Attorney General’s office and other lawyers worked out.

According to Ron Aiken of the ratepayers’ watchdog Office of Regulatory Staff, SCANA executives will not lose their $115M golden parachutes, as we were led to believe. The $115M will come from SCANA - but is not parachute money. That $115 million is in their contracts.

Our bet is that the $115 million will be hidden in rate increases Dominion or SCANA – whichever is running SCE&G at that time – asks the Public Service Commission to give them.

The ratepayers will not get a dime of it in compensation or cuts in already high rates.

In fact, they will be charged $500 million over 20 years.

The $2 billion in the settlement has nothing to do with the $2 billion ratepayers have already been charged.

It is simply a promise that Dominion or SCANA will not pass $2 billion in shutdown and remaining nuclear construction costs to the ratepayers.

It does not exempt ratepayers from untold billions more in costs yet to come. And they are not going to get any of their money back – ever.

Here are our questions for the attorney general and the other lawyers in the settlement:

1. Why is this not a bad deal? There appears to be no compensation for ratepayers in it.

2. Did the attorneys involved in the negotiation fail to realize that SCANA and SCE&G executives have been lying to the PSC, the ORS, the legislature and the public for years and that this settlement is at best a ruse?

3. It is our understanding that the attorneys involved will get 20% of the settlement money, not the standard 35% contingency fee. That’s a tidy $23 million for them. This is going to look to the public like a lawyer sellout for $23 million.

- JerryBellune@yahoo.com

This $115 million settlement is going to look to the public like a $23 million sellout.