Taxpayer-owned Santee Cooper has become a failed experiment in government-run enterprises.

That’s the assessment of a local energy industry expert.

“Santee Cooper is actually governed by a small clique of powerful legislators whose ambitions to create a major regional seller of electricity led to the well-known nuclear plant debacle,” said Jim Clarkson, president of Resource Supply Management in Columbia.

Clarkson said the state can ease Santee Cooper’s $4 billion nuclear fiasco debt with SC Electric & Gas.

• Sell 35,000-40,000 acres of Santee Cooper-owned land that is not related to utility operations.

• Separate electricity generating into an independent power producer. An initial public stock offering can gain equity investment in a company regulated by competition, not the Public Service Commission.

• Convert bonds to stock to attract investors.

• Set up separate ownership of the high voltage transmission system. This will create a free market other power sellers can join.

Customers would be able to choose their power supplier through competition as business and home owners do in Texas and other states.

• Form Santee Cooper’s direct served customers into another electricity distributing entity, and exclusive franchise territories would be eliminated.

These reforms are already practiced in other parts of the country.