SCE&G customers rip utility at House hearing on failed reactor project

Customers of SCE&G blasted the utility Tuesday for charging them nearly $2 billion for a nuclear expansion project the company now says it will not complete.

At an S.C. House hearing in Columbia, ratepayers said they had been taken advantage of by SCE&G.

Some urged legislators to change state law to prevent a similar debacle from happening again. Others said they want their money back. Some said, tearfully, that they were having trouble paying their utility bills.

“SCE&G should refund all money paid,’’ said Wendell Bedenbaugh, a customer who likened the cost of the nuclear project to buying a car on payments and the dealer not delivering it. “We need to make people responsible for their actions.’’

Bedenbaugh’s comments were echoed by David Isenhower, a ratepayer who said he lives on a fixed income of Social Security and some retirement savings. “We are being forced to pay for this plant.”

Doris Fletcher, a ratepayer who relies on an oxygen-flow delivery system to live and has trouble paying for her medications, wept as she told legislators how difficult it has been for her to pay her power bills. She doesn’t run her air conditioning in the summer because it’s too expensive, the 79-year-old West Columbia resident said.

“I don’t know what to do,’’ she said.

Tuesday’s hearing was the latest in a series of legislative meetings focusing on the failed nuclear reactor construction effort at Jenkinsville in Fairfield County. But it was the first to feature public comment. Past sessions have grilled executives of SCE&G and its junior partner, the state-owned Santee Cooper utility, on what went wrong.

SCE&G, a subsidiary of Cayce-based SCANA, and Santee Cooper spent most of a decade planning and building two new reactors northwest of Columbia. Then, on July 31, they said they would shutter the incomplete project in the wake of the bankruptcy of Westinghouse, the project’s chief contractor. All told, the companies had spent more than $9 billion.

Both companies said Westinghouse’s bankruptcy, rising costs and lower-than-expected energy demand contributed to the decision not to complete the project.

That decision left more than 5,000 construction workers and others out of work and ratepayers asking whether they would get back the $2 billion they already had paid for the project. SCE&G and Santee Cooper raised rates 14 times to finance the project, and SCE&G has indicated it might charge ratepayers another $2.2 billion to recover other related costs.

Those who fought the nuclear plant expansion for years said their concerns were realized when the companies walked away from the project. Now, they said, it is time to make changes in state law.

Columbia lawyer Bob Guild, who represents the Sierra Club, said the state needs a consumer advocate to fight for ratepayers, and to encourage both energy efficiency and the use of solar power.

Compared with other utilities, SCE&G has some of the highest rates in the country, he said. But it doesn’t invest enough in programs to encourage energy efficiency that could save money for customers, said Guild and Eddy Moore of the S.C. Coastal Conservation League.

Chris Carnevale, with the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, said the state should dissolve the Public Utilities Review Committee, which he said had broad authority to track the nuclear project but did little to help the public. The committee is composed of a handful of legislators and several other members.

Tuesday’s hearing also included testimony from former state Public Service Commission member Buddy Atkins, who said that regulatory commission often is sympathetic to utilities at the expense of ratepayers. Atkins was among those who questioned the need for two new nuclear reactors during testimony before the PSC in 2008.

Atkins said his own projections showed the power produced by the reactors would not be needed, as the utilities were forecasting. But the PSC approved the project. When SCE&G and Santee Cooper said they would not complete the project, Santee Cooper said it would not have needed the power from the reactors anytime soon because demand was leveling off.

Like others, Atkins said the state needs to reform how utilities are regulated. Among the changes is repealing a law that made it far easier for SCE&G to pay for the upfront costs of the nuclear plant. The law, known as the Base Load Review Act, widely has been criticized as the mechanism that led to the nuclear debacle.

Atkins said the state also needs more qualifications for Public Service Commission members. At the same time, the Office of Regulatory Staff needs reform to ensure it looks out for consumers, he said.

Plant critic John Ruoff said the Base Load Review Act was like investing “in a time bomb, and it went off.’’

State Rep. Peter McCoy, the Charleston Republican who chairs the House committee that held Tuesday’s hearing, said he was disturbed by the secrecy and reticence of the utilities and the Public Service Commission concerning the nuclear project.

“The lack of people wanting to cooperate, the lack of people wanting to admit faults or delay’’ is “mind-blowing,’’ McCoy said.

This story was originally published September 26, 2017 at 1:16 PM with the headline "SCE&G customers rip utility at House hearing on failed reactor project."