Editorials from across South Carolina: roads bill, Commission on Higher Education, utility rates
Roads hocus-pocus
The deal, if it can really be called one, that was cut late Tuesday night was not magical, but certainly more like a magic act. Increase the gas tax, cut income taxes, give tuition credits and let state residents get another tax break based on their spending at the pump (provided they keep receipts).
Money infused into fixing roads is coupled with money taken out of other coffers.
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Senate roads bill not nearly as bad as it looks
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Sen. Shane Massey, R-Edgefield, called the deal “horrendous” and “God-awful.” His fellow senator from Charleston, Sandy Senn, disagreed, saying senators brokered a deal. Democrat Darrell Jackson, from Columbia, said he was embarrassed. “We ought to have a straight-up vote on roads. None of us should take victory laps. We know it’s a hoax.”
Massey ultimately and reluctantly did throw his support behind the bill, as did Sens. Floyd Nicholson and Mike Gambrell.
Don’t call it a roads bill. Call it a hocus pocus bill. And see how far down the road it goes this week.
That said, we have to agree with the bipartisan responses issued by Massey and Jackson. Indeed, the bipartisan so-called deal struck in the last hours of the legislative session is a hoax.
Don’t call it a roads bill. Call it a hocus pocus bill. And see how far down the road it goes this week.
The college watchdog
The state Commission on Higher Education has made significant progress toward providing an essential level of oversight for college building projects. But under a last-minute legislative budget proviso, the commission could be stripped of that authority, at least for the coming year. The proviso should be kicked out of the state budget in conference committee.
The proviso would suspend the CHE’s authority for vetting “higher education auxiliary, athletic, maintenance and renovation permanent improvement projects.” Instead, those projects would be reviewed by the legislative Joint Bond Review Committee and the State Fiscal Accountability Authority, formerly known as the Budget and Control Board.
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Neither would be expected to provide the level of scrutiny of the CHE. And that is certainly the reason why the proviso was inserted. …
If legislators and college officials don’t really want the heightened level of fiscal oversight that the CHE is attempting to provide, you can bet that the taxpayers do. And so should the students who are going into debt to pay rising college costs.
Progress on rates
State lawmakers were wise to advance a bill this week that includes important reforms to policies and procedures utilities must follow when looking to build new nuclear or coal facilities or to increase rates to cover any cost overruns.
That’s been at the crux of the problems relating to the V.C. Summer Nuclear Facility in Fairfield County, where the installation of two AP1000 reactors is more than $2 billion over budget and years behind schedule. Ratepayers have been billed for the overages in the form of nine rate increases since 2008.
House Bill 4022 aims to remedy that. The bill reforms the Base Load Review Act, or BLRA, which allows utilities to seek rate increases during construction instead of afterwards. It places the onus on utilities to justify any proposed rate increases. It also gives the state’s Office of Regulatory Staff, or ORS, greater enforcement powers.
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These are needed reforms because, according to bill supporters, there’s a perception that the S.C. Public Service Commission rubber stamps rate increase requests. True or not, increasing accountability can never be a bad thing, especially when dealing with nuclear facilities with budgets in the billions.
It was also revealing during Tuesday’s hearing that rate increases falling to SCANA customers are being applied to interest owed on the utility’s loans relating to V.C. Summer.
This means ratepayers will be paying down this interest for years, decades even. It’ll be that long before a customer sees any reduction on their bill, if any. Maybe we’re missing something, but the BLRA’s benefit to ratepayers continues to elude us.
This story was originally published May 1, 2017 at 5:38 PM with the headline "Editorials from across South Carolina: roads bill, Commission on Higher Education, utility rates."