Who are the nuclear fiasco victims? It is us, the ratepayers, not their stockholders. The Public Service Commission made SCANA ratepayers, not stockholders, pay for a $2.2 billion share of the disaster.

After SCANA’s sale to Dominion, each SCANA share was converted to 0.6690 shares of new Dominion common stock. The conversion resulted in a transaction of about $6.8 billion and assumption of about $6.6 billion in existing SCANA debt.

On the last day of 2018, SCANA common stock’s price was $47.78 a share. 2 days later, Dominion common stock was $71.40. For every share of SCANA stock, its shareholders each received .6690 of a share of Dominion stock at $71.40, to equal the closing SCANA stock price on its last day.

Today, Dominion stock is around $75.37 and pays a $2.52 annual dividend. Dominion stock owners are not victims..

In a much greater debacle in 2001, Enron Energy stockholders lost nearly $74 billion.

Enron CEO Kenneth Lay was convicted of fraud. CFO Andrew Fastow pled guilty and spent 5 years in jail. CEO Jeff Skilling got 17.5 years in jail and paid $42 million in restitution. The Arthur Anderson accounting firm was destroyed. But the victims were Enron shareholders, not ratepayers.

The PSC let Dominion to buy them out and escape the nuclear debacle’s cost.

Dominion’s 7.9% rate-increase request is out of order. If it gives them anything, the PSC will again victimize ratepayers. Dominion’s request is a slap in the face” of the ratepayers. The PSC should JUST SAY NO!

On a similar Iissue, lawmakers need to sell Santee Cooper to the next public utility who offers to buy it. The Lexington County Chronicle has published numerous examples of poor management and cronyism. We, the taxpayers, can’t afford this, much less Santee Cooper ratepayer victims.

Sending ex-SCANA executives to prison is not enough. If any financial restitution is declared, it will be inconsequential pennies to us, the victims, the 725,000 ratepayers of which I am one.

Tom Plowden, Edgefield County