SC agency argues SCE&G improperly withheld VC Summer documents

S.C. utility regulators are not buying SCE&G’s arguments that it should not be sanctioned — at the cost of $1.5 billion — for withholding the once-secret Bechtel report and other key nuclear-related documents.

The S.C. Office of Regulatory Staff repeated its accusations Thursday that the Cayce-based utility intentionally concealed key documents from the public, which would have illustrated problems with the V.C. Summer nuclear expansion project, under the guise of “privilege.”

Regulatory Staff attorneys said that, at a minimum, the Public Service Commission should disallow any costs related to the failed nuclear project that were incurred after Oct. 22, 2015, in setting SCE&G’s future electric rates, The State newspaper reported Aug. 15. That would cost SCE&G about $1.5 billion.

Earlier this week, SCE&G said the proposed sanctions were unwarranted and “draconian.”

However, attorneys for Regulatory Staff disagreed.

“Why SCE&G insists upon keeping secret under a veil of privilege the very business-related communications, studies and analyses supposedly undergirding its claims ... is dubious,” the Regulatory Staff attorneys wrote in its rebuttal to SCE&G.

SCANA, SCE&G’s parent company, declined to comment Friday.

Earlier this week, the company said it already has released 2.5 million pages of information in response to hundreds of requests for information from Regulatory Staff.

But in its Thursday filing, Regulatory Staff said SCE&G has produced, at most, only seven documents in response to their Bechtel-related requests.

“This cannot be the ‘full account’ of a million-dollar engagement spanning at least seven months that produced draft as well as revised reports and involved at least 5 persons at SCE&G,” Regulatory Staff said.

Regulatory Staff also said it is “aware of numerous Bechtel-related documents that have yet to be produced” by SCE&G.

In May, Regulatory Staff filed a motion to compel SCE&G to produce the Bechtel report and other related documents. Bechtel was hired to write a report on problems at the nuclear site, which SCE&G and its junior partner, the state-owned Santee Cooper utility, abandoned in July 2017.

SCE&G insists documents related to the Bechtel report were kept confidential because the utility was preparing a possible lawsuit against Westinghouse, the project’s lead contractor, and anticipated regulatory proceedings.

“SCE&G did exactly what it said it would do,” the utility’s attorneys wrote. “There is nothing inappropriate, let along sanctionable, about logging documents as privileged in accordance with the explicit directive in the (PSC) order.”

This story was originally published August 17, 2018 at 6:34 PM.