Small business chamber calls for separate PSC hearings

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Members of the S.C. Small Business Chamber of Commerce and the Coastal Conservation League called for the S.C. Public Service Commission to hold multiple hearings on a potential permanent reduction of S.C. Electric & Gas rates and Dominion Energy’s proposed acquisition of parent company SCANA.

The PSC has scheduled a November hearing to deal with both issues, with a final decision on who should pay for rate increases related to the failed V.C. Summer nuclear project and how those fees will be recouped due by December.

At a press conference Tuesday, Eddie Moore, energy and climate program director for the Coastal Conservation League, said ratepayers deserve a clear account of past nuclear mismanagement costs before the PSC decides on the Dominion deal.

Virginia-based Dominion has said the proposed $14.6 billion deal would include a permanent 7% rate cut, a three-year rate freeze and refunds that could average around $1,000 per residential customer. The refunds would be based on usage.

Frank Knapp, president of the Small Business Chamber of Commerce, called Dominion’s offer to SCE&G a bad deal for ratepayers and an effort to influence the PSC decision.

“Dominion has spent millions in advertising trying to influence the upcoming decision,” Knapp said Tuesday. “On the surface it looks like a generous offer, but it has not been analyzed.”

Knapp also said that not all customers will get a $1,000 refund and that current SCE&G customers who did not have an account in 2016 will not receive a check. He also said the 7% cut is less than half of the temporary 15% rate cut passed by the Legislature and ordered by the PSC.

“The ratepayers deserve the undivided and Dominion-free attention of the PSC when it rules on SCE&G rates,” Knapp said. “Bifurcating the hearing will be a good step to achieving this goal.”

SCE&G sued after the new legislation was passed in a specially called General Assembly session in late June, saying the rate cut represents an unconstitutional taking of rates collected under a state law, the Base Load Review Act. That law allowed SCANA to ask for and receive nine rate increases during the 10-year construction of the twin reactors at the V.C. Summer nuclear station, abandoned last July after a series of delays and cost overruns.

SCE&G and project co-owner Santee Cooper sank $9 billion into the projection, and SCE&G customers’ bills have gone up an average of $27 a month because of project-related costs.

A federal court has twice denied the utility’s request for an injunction to halt the cut, which is to begin with August’s first billing cycle. SCE&G is appealing a decision handed down Monday.