State regulators have much to prove to restore public trust in them.

To the public, the Public Service Commission’s name has been a misnomer.

They say it should have been named the Public Disservice Commission.

The commissioners open what promises to be several days of hearings into cutting SC Electric & Gas rates and its proposed sale to Dominion Energy of Virginia.

It’s been more than 15 months since SCE&G and its partner Santee Cooper abandoned their reported $9 billion investment in a failed nuclear project.

Utility lawyers and those for groups suing the utilities will argue over who will pay the cost of the nuclear fiasco – the utilities, their owners and shareholders or ratepayers who have already been socked for $2 billion in high rates.

Bankruptcy argument

SCE&G lawyers will argue that a ruling against them and for ratepayers will force the Lexington-based company and its owners into bankruptcy.

Whatever the PSC rules is expected to be appealed to the SC Supreme Court.

SCE&G lawyers are expected to try to shift the blame for the project failure to its contractors.

The opposition is expected to blame shoddy SCE&G management and greed in letting costs pile up as they profited from every rate increase the PSC approved.

In an election year, state officials want to convince voters in the Nov. 6 general election next week that they will protect 727,000 SCE&G ratepayers from being stuck with continuing costs of the shut down.

What lawmakers did

The same 7 commissioners who rubber stamped 9 rate increases will be asked to undo what they did.

Lawmakers earlier:

• Fired 3 commissioners and replaced them.

• Changed state law to free the Office of Regulatory Staff from having to work in the utilities’ interests and serve as a watchdog for the ratepayers.

• Gave the PSC new definitions for the words “prudent” and “imprudent” to make it harder for SCE&G and its owners at SCANA to charge ratepayers for billions more in cost.

SCE&G must prove it was prudent in its actions to be able to charge ratepayers.

Its critics say that will be impossible to prove.

What ultimately is at stake is the jobs of the PSC members who are paid $104,000 a year and the political futures of the lawmakers who elect them.