SCE&G’s nuclear fiasco

By SANDrA WRIGHT

Special to the Chronicle

The Charleston Post and Courier had a recent article about a SCANA accountant who says she was told to change the facts.

It’s clear that SCANA has manipulated the facts throughout this entire debacle.

Why did regulators take SCANA’s word from the start of this fiasco? This issue reaches as far back as the Base Load Review Act. The act was created by a SCANA law firm, and was devised to shift the blame.

They have been notorious for bringing in different law firms to stand behind the “lawyer/client privilege” on every shady thing connected with this.

The ones responsible for pushing this fiasco knew no financial budget was fixed nor any schedule made before this started.

They are the same one planning to get millions of dollars when it failed as they knew it would. Why else would they guarantee bonuses and retirement packages? Why else would SCANA make sure the BLRA had a clause guaranteeing they get all the money even if the project failed?

Before it began, they knew it wouldn’t succeed, It couldn’t without a fixed budget, schedules or deadlines.

They needed followers to push the Base Load Review Act and they got them. Even Rep. Bill Sandifer pronounced he was well aware of what the BLRA was. That he had read every word and understood it. We don’t hear much from him now, do we?

What hurts the most is those who were supposed to be watching out for our state simply passed the bill in 21 days. Can you imagine that? Who knows how much longer it will take to do away with that law?

The Public Service Commission is at fault, too. They gave “hints” to the public at the rate increase hearings that “none had proven imprudence” in the construction.

We are not lawyers. We tried to tell you to look into this because you should have seen, as we did, that the costs were becoming insurmountable. You let them put those costs on the ratepayers’ backs.

All the commissioners had to do was tell SCANA “at this time these increases would not be prudent” to the first rate increase SCANA came begging to receive.

Even that early, they had no fixed schedule nor fixed costs. Even that early, SCANA was not made to curb their free spending. But no, the commissioners accepted that the costs were “prudent” and they were supposed to keep SCANA solvent.

No one but me is responsible to keep my business going. I am responsible for my spending and doing business.

The commissioners had no investigation done. Oh, they had an audit, using the information SCANA gave them.

I requested the Office of Regulatory Staff conduct an independent construction investigation in 2014 but ORS Director Dukes Scott lied to me. He told me they had one going on. I waited and the one they had going was that $30,000 waste of tax money audit. No investigation was done.

At least Judge Michelle Childs has denied SCANA’s plea to stop the temporary reductions. I still believe the rate increases were 34%, not 18%. but, for now, I am willing to take a 15% reduction until the lawsuits prove my numbers correct.

Reader Sandra Wright of Irmo has been a close ob-