State regulators did as they were told this week.

The seven regulators cut SC Electric & Gas rates 15% as ordered by the state lawmakers who elect them.

A new law gave the Public Service Commission 5 days to lower SCE&G rates to save ratepayers about $22 a month – $264 a year.

“It was short and sweet,” said SC Small Business Chamber CEO Frank Knapp.

The vote was unanimous on Commissioner Elliott Elam’s motion to order SCE&G to cut rates 15%.

The Legislature had acted after SCE&G and Santee Cooper abandoned their two unfinished, $9 billion nuclear reactor project.

SCE&G’s 700,000 ratepayers pressured lawmakers to end the 18% nuclear surcharge that has already cost them more than $2 billion without a penny in savings SCE&G promised in 2007.

SCE&G’s owners, SCANA Corp., filed a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of lawmakers “significantly reducing company revenues.”

SCANA asks the court to stop regulators from making rate cuts as lawmakers want.

Under a since-rescinded state law, the Base Load Review Act, regulators have allowed SCE&G to raise rates 9 times in 9 years.

Its 45% partner, the taxpayer-owned Santee Cooper power company, has charged its 2 million ratepayers more than $530 million for the failed project.

Those home and business owners are members of Mid-Carolina Electric Cooperative in Lexington County and 19 others in the state.

SCE&G ratepayers and investors, many of them employees or retired employees, may have to pay billions of dollars more for the Lexington County-based company’s debt while company officials retired with millions of dollars.

The PSC will have to rule on that in December.

If SCE&G loses an expected lawsuit, ratepayers will pay only 3% more through Dec. 31 – a $260 million saving and company loss.

Critics argue that ratepayers should not have to pay for the failed management decisions of SCE&G and Westinghouse Electric, its bankrupt reactor contractor.