SCANA: Judge asks for orders calling BLRA unconstitutional

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SCANA Corp. confirmed in a statement that an S.C. circuit court judge assigned to a class action lawsuit has instructed attorneys involved in the case to draft orders including statements that the Base Load Review Act violates the state’s constitution.

Circuit Judge John Hayes is expected to issue a final order in the coming days.

“The proposed orders have been submitted to the judge” by attorneys for the plaintiffs and the state, SCANA said Monday. “SCANA intends to provide the judge with comments to various portions of the proposed orders by Monday, Oct. 29.”

The SCANA statement also said that Hayes “has indicated to the attorneys for the parties that no final decision has been reached at this time.”

The BLRA is a 2007 state law that allowed SCANA, parent company of S.C. Electric & Gas, to ask for and receive nine rate increases during the decade-long construction of twin nuclear reactors at the V.C. Summer Nuclear Power Station in Fairfield County. The reactors, co-owned by state utility Santee Cooper, were abandoned in July 2017 after a series of rising costs and mounting delays and in the wake of contractor Westinghouse’s April 2017 bankruptcy declaration.

The companies poured $9 billion into the project.

Hayes’ ruling would be part of a trial in which SCE&G’s 730,000 ratepayers are trying to stop the utility from charging them for the failed project and to force it to refund the more than $2 billion they have already paid toward the reactors’ construction.

“SCANA is aware that last week the circuit court judge assigned to the customer class action in South Carolina provided instructions to counsel for the plaintiffs and the state that requested them to submit proposed orders to him,” SCANA said in Monday’s statement. “Those instructions directed the attorneys to include language in the proposed orders stating, among other things, that the Base Load Review Act violates the procedural due process provisions of the South Carolina Constitution.”

A ruling that scraps the BLRA could wreak financial havoc for SCE&G and torpedo a proposed $14.6 billion merger between SCANA and Virginia-based Dominion Energy. Dominion, while pushing a plan that it says will permanently lower SCE&G ratepayers’ electric bills by 7%, has said that it must be allowed to recoup costs V.C. Summer-related costs from those ratepayers.

Action taken by the S.C. Legislature and the S.C. Public Service Commission in June temporarily reduced SCE&G customers’ bills by 15%. The Cayce-based utility attributed a $113 million drop in second-quarter earnings to those reductions.

SCANA’s stock plummeted by almost 11% on Monday, closing at $36.40 per share after opening at $40.91.