Senators reject Gov. McMaster’s pick to lead Santee Cooper board after VC Summer
Gov. Henry McMaster’s nomination for Santee Cooper’s next board chairman is all but doomed after a Senate screening panel voted 19-4 on Tuesday to reject former S.C. Attorney General Charlie Condon, citing the longtime McMaster ally’s lack of experience in the utility industry.
Condon told reporters after the hour-long hearing he will consider withdrawing his nomination for the job, knowing he faces a final thumbs down by the full Senate.
“Why waste anybody’s time?” Condon said after an hour-long hearing in which he pitched himself as a change agent who has fought for transparency and accountability at the state-owned utility since becoming its interim board chairman last December.
Condon’s dismissal again throws Santee Cooper’s leadership into limbo as the utility searches for a path forward after wasting $4 billion before abandoning the failed V.C. Summer nuclear power plant expansion project.
The Tuesday vote also is sure to inflame tensions between the Senate and the governor, who fought for months last year over McMaster’s unilateral appointment of Condon as Santee Cooper’s interim board chairman.
“Gov. McMaster believes Charlie Condon has been the best chairman Santee Cooper has ever had,” McMaster spokesman Brian Symmes wrote in a statement after the vote. “Transparency and accountability for ratepayers suffered a setback today — it has become abundantly clear that this vote was decided on Nov. 28, the day the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in the governor’s favor on Chairman Condon’s original appointment. While the status quo for Santee Cooper has been preserved for the time being, Gov. McMaster will keep fighting for the ratepayers.”
The Senate has the power to screen and confirm or deny a governor’s appointments to state agencies, but it rarely rejects nominees.
That relationship is salient this week as the Senate debates a McMaster-backed proposal to work toward a possible sale of Santee Cooper.
The governor has said a sale is the only way to pay off Santee Cooper’s V.C. Summer debt and ensure it isn’t passed along to two million South Carolinians who buy the utility’s power, either directly or through an electric cooperative. Some senators were wary McMaster wanted an ally in Condon on the board to help push toward a sale.
Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey, an Edgefield Republican and sometimes critic of McMaster, led the charge to deny Condon the chairman’s seat. Massey said the V.C. Summer debacle proved that the board and its future chairman need experience in the utility or energy sectors.
“The board that served throughout this debacle was not very engaged in the process,” Massey said. “They were not acting as an entity that would hold leadership accountable. They were not asking questions. They were not engaged in the process.”
On Condon, Massey said: “I do not think he is qualified to serve as chairman of the board of a major utility. I do not mean that to be a negative to him on a personal level. I’m not qualified either.”
Not all senators agreed. State Sen. Mike Fanning, D-Fairfield, said he prefers Condon to a utility executive — noting utility executives led the V.C. Summer debacle and concealed the problems with the costly venture until well after it collapsed.
“I don’t want a career utility executive running (the board of) Santee Cooper,” Fanning said. “Career utility executives lied to me.”
The Senate Judiciary Committee’s vote against Condon Tuesday opens up a few possibilities for the utility’s future leadership.
If Condon withdraws his nomination or is voted down by the full Senate, he likely will lose his position as Santee Cooper’s acting board chairman. The board’s first vice chairman, Dan Ray — a Georgetown investment banking executive who has sparred with Condon during board debates — would then fill in as acting chairman.
But if Condon refuses to withdraw and the Senate fails to vote on his confirmation, he could feasibly keep his seat until the Senate reconvenes in January to replace him. That is a possibility, since there are just four working days left in the 2019 legislative calendar, and the Senate has a host of tough issues to tackle before then.
McMaster is encouraging Condon not to withdraw, Symmes told The State. He said the governor wants an up-or-down vote on Condon’s confirmation in the Senate so voters can see where senators stand on a nominee who would bring transparency and accountability to the agency.
This story was originally published April 30, 2019 at 1:50 PM.
