Lexington County-based SCANA Corporation made a huge mistake by trying to build 2 nuclear plants.

That’s the contention of Jim Clarkson, CEO of Resource Supply Management and an advisor to businesses on controlling costs.

SCANA’s customers should not have been burdened by the utility’s mismanagement of the failed $9 billion project, Clarkson said.

Without state regulation, $2 billion of the cost could not have been charged to 725,000 ratepayers.

Those charges in PSC approved rate increases was made possible by state law.

Lawmakers who voted for the law have since said SCANA executives and lobbyists mislead them before they made it law.

In seeking approval to collect in advance for construction of their nuclear project from ratepayers, SCANA executives said they would go bankrupt if they could not pass on the cost, he said.

“The PSC should have denied recovery of any cost for the failed nuclear project and let nature take its course. Bankruptcy would have been a better choice.”

Clarkson also said:

• The Public Service Commission was never needed.

The PSC does not regulate electric cooperatives such as Mid-Carolina Electric in Lexington County.

Nor does it regulate San-tee Cooper, the power supplier to most of the state’s electric cooperatives.

Santee Cooper was SCANA’s 45% partner in the failed project. Yet it did not charge its customers the way SCANA, now owned by Dominion Energy, did.

• Some argue that utilities should not undergo bankruptcy like other businesses.

They argue that default on utility debt would place restrictions on future borrowing and stock sales, he said.

“That would be a good thing if the proper parties had to bear the risk,” he said. “Since regulators can’t stop bad investments by utilities, perhaps lenders and equity holders will enforce some market conditions on utility investments.

“The market is a cruel regulator and severely punishes bad business decisions,” he said. “Let’s do away with this bastion of cronyism.”