State regulators want you to believe they got the best deal for ratepayers.

If $4.9 billion sounds like a good deal, believe it. But that doesn’t count another $2.3 billion in other debt.

Santee Cooper customers face even more – $8 billion.

When the Public Service Commission approved the sale of SC Electric & Gas to Dominion Energy, they saddled 727,000 ratepayers with a $4.9 billion debt for a failed nuclear project.

Ratepayers who had no voice in this – not the shareholders who own the company – will continue to pay high rates despite a 15% cut Dominion promised.

Uncertain is how much of another $2.3 billion ratepayers will be charged.

Mid-Carolina Electric Co-op members in Lexington County and those of 19 other co-operatives face an even bigger debt – $4 billion from the nuclear failure and another $4 billion in Santee Cooper’s other debt.

The state has 4 offers to buy Santee Cooper’s assets and 10 proposals to manage it. But will this relieve co-op members from paying off Santee Cooper’s debt?

Probably not, experts and critics say. The money must come from somewhere.

Customers are the most likely to have to pay.

Add interest of about $1 million a day to Santee Cooper’s $8 billion debt and spread it over 40 years.

What you have is 800,000 co-op accounts or 1.5 million people facing up to $13 billion, or $16,250 each.

In comparison, Dominion’s ratepayers face about $1,600 more in debt.

Mid-Carolina members can end up with a better deal because, former State newspaper reporter Cindi Ross Scoppe learned, state lawmakers are:

• Seeking a way to cut Santee Cooper rates as they did for SCE&G ratepayers.

• Considering selling all or part of Santee Cooper.

A court will hear co-ops’ claims they don’t owe San-tee Cooper another penny.

They say they are owed $600 million Santee Cooper collected from the Toshiba Corp. for failing to deliver on construction promises.

If lawmakers do nothing, that could leave customers to pay billions for reactors that will never produce a kilowatt of electricity.