Democratic challenger questions SC Rep. Finlay’s contract with Santee Cooper bidder
Democrat Rhodes Bailey, a Columbia attorney who’s challenging Republican state Rep. Kirkman Finlay for State House in November, says his opponent’s business deal with a company interested in buying Santee Cooper — South Carolina’s debt-ridden public utility — raises ethical questions.
The assertion is part of a new $80,000 TV ad buy from Bailey, who is challenging Finlay for the northeast Columbia district, which includes parts of Forest Acres, Fort Jackson and Garners Ferry Road. The ad will start airing Saturday in Columbia.
In the ad, shared with The State, the narrator’s voice says that “Kirkman Finlay is putting himself first at the State House,” including that Finlay was paid by a “Florida company lobbying the Legislature.”
In response, Finlay called Bailey’s logic “flawed,” saying it shows that his opponent is “desperate.”
Finlay, through his Frank Hampton Farm LLC, entered into a three-year option agreement with Florida-based energy giant NextEra on Oct. 9, 2017, to lease out his property off White House Road in Richland County for a solar farm. The contract gives NextEra the option to lease the property for 30 years.
Finlay says he’s been paid about $14,000 to $15,000 a year from NextEra for the company to have the option to lease his property, but that NextEra has not built a solar farm yet. The contract between the LLC and NextEra expires this month, but Finlay said there is an option to renew it.
The agreement was signed about two months after state-owned Santee Cooper and the now-defunct Cayce-based SCANA abandoned a plan to build two nuclear reactors in Fairfield County, saddling ratepayers with billions of dollars in debt and setting off a debate about whether the state should sell Santee Cooper. Gov. Henry McMaster expressed support for exploring a sale early on.
NextEra made moves in the state, registering lobbyists to represent the company in November 2017. The company wasn’t alone. By early 2018, several companies with interest in the future of Santee Cooper had teams of lobbyists, and by February 2019, four serious bidders reportedly had interest in buying the utility.
In May 2019, legislators passed and the governor signed a law directing the Department of Administration to work with a third-party consultant to take and evaluate competitive bids for buying or managing the utility. The law also told the DOA to evaluate whether the utility should remain state-owned. Earlier this year, DOA reported that NextEra had emerged as the winning bid for buying Santee Cooper outright.
Senators rejected the sale option, opting for reforms instead. But the House Ways and Means Committee, which Finlay serves on, chose two paths forward: to push NextEra for a better deal and keep open the option of reforming the state-owned utility.
Finlay was among 19 budget members to vote yes.
Bailey, who works at the Richland County Public Defender’s Office but says he took leave after Labor Day until the campaign is over, says his opponent’s relationship with the power company is problematic.
“Kirkman Finlay’s financial ties to NextEra and this undisclosed conflict of interest are hazardous to South Carolina and compromise any potential sale of Santee Cooper,” Bailey told The State. “Whether or not you’re in favor of a sale, you can’t trust him to get 100% on the dollar from NextEra if he’s in their pocket at the same time.”
But Finlay told The State he sees no conflict of interest in the agreement he entered, referring The State to his state ethics disclosures. In those ethics disclosures, called statements of economic interest, candidates and elected officials list details about their income, both private and public, and identify potential conflicts of interest.
His 2019 and 2020 disclosures say he owns land “with (an) interest value of $100,000” (the threshold for reporting), and that he has leased — or has granted options to lease — land to private solar companies.
Neither of the disclosures mention NextEra specifically. His 2018 disclosure does not mention solar at all.
Finlay told The State he’s entered into eight or 10 options with companies over the last several years and, like many rural and big land owners across the state, is regularly approached.
“I’m sure NextEra was running around everywhere,” he said. “They’ve got hundreds of agreements around as the state as I understand.”
Asked Friday to elaborate on the option agreement, Debbie Larsson, a spokesperson for NextEra, said, “We have nothing to offer.”
Headquartered in Florida, NextEra bills itself as “the world’s largest utility company” and a world leader in wind and solar energy generation. The company’s pitch for buying Santee Cooper included an aggressive expansion of solar power in its portfolio.
The company does not have any holdings in South Carolina, but it is not unusual for power companies to get options on land for expanding solar power.
The option contract between NextEra and Finlay’s LLC says nothing about the purchase of Santee Cooper.
Finlay says the fact that he supported making NextEra come back with a better deal is proof he’s looking out for power customers and not the company.
“Isn’t that the discharge of my duty? The argument is by making them pay more, I’m helping them?” Finlay said. “My opponent’s logic is flawed. What we are doing is attempting to get the best price and deal for the ratepayer.”
Finlay also said his option contract with NextEra has had “zero” impact on his decision-making as a lawmaker, adding that in 2018 he recused himself from a vote on a large solar bill because of his option contract with the utility.
Finlay has also been critical of Santee Cooper’s board and management. In an April op-ed on the political website FITSNews, Finlay wrote, “All options should be on the table for Santee Cooper: sale, partial sale, reform, or all of the above.”
But that perspective is far from unique in the Legislature, where many lawmakers are critics of the utility.
Finlay said Bailey’s argument “shows he is desperate.”
“I would think that he would be in favor of renewable resources, and I would think he would be in favor of local generation of power,” Finlay said. “Do I think this is politics at its worst? Yes. This is taking energy policy and trying to make an issue out of it.”
Bailey disagrees.
“I don’t think this disclosure is going to change Kirkman’s mind, because he doesn’t see any problem with it,” Bailey said. “If he did, he wouldn’t have done it in the first place. It is shocking that he would not recognize that there’s a clear conflict of interest here.”
Reporter Joseph Bustos contributed to this report.
This story was originally published October 3, 2020 at 12:00 AM.
