Should Scana And Santee Cooper Executives Be Allowed To Walk Away With Millions?”

As you may already know, 2 major events have occurred in the nuclear fiasco saga:

• With the approval of the state’s Public Disservice Commission, Dominion Energy moved swiftly to close its deal to buy Lexington County-based SCANA and send its CEO and other ranking executives off into the sunset with millions of dollars of their investors’ and ratepayers’ money.

• After sitting on its hands for most of 10 years, SCANA’s 43% nuclear partner, taxpayer-owned Santee Cooper, has sued over the lies told and critical information withheld by SCANA executives including retired CEO Kevin Marsh and his successor, Jimmy Addison, who will retire Feb. 1 with an almost $10 million golden parachute.

These 2 and a few of their trusted assistants are bailing out, leaving investors and ratepayers holding the bag for billions they squandered on the abandoned nuclear project.

Frankly we are glad to see Santee Cooper, one of the foxes, suing fellow fox SCANA for what it did in the hen house.

A trio of yet-to-be answered questions are suggested by the Santee Cooper lawsuit:

1. Why don’t plaintiff lawyers go after the personal assets of executives culpable in the cover-up of the failures of Westinghouse, other contractors and SCANA and Santee Cooper board members and executives?

2. What could possibly protect them, their bonuses – paid or promised – and other assets they took from their companies, investors and ratepayers through deception or indifference to the problems they created or permitted?

3. Should retired SCANA executives Marsh and Stephen Byrne and Santee Cooper CEO Lonnie Carter be permitted to walk away with millions of dollars in assets when they should have been fired for cause by their board members?

We have asked our legislative delegation and other public officials for their thoughts on answers to these questions.

We’ll let you know how they respond when and if they do,

- JerryBellune@yahoo.com

Should SCANA and Santee Cooper executives be allowed to walk away with millions?