Editorials from across South Carolina: Heritage Act, flood cars, nuclear audit

Let communities decide on statues

(S)tate law prohibits any action to move or alter the prominent statue of a Confederate soldier, which is accompanied by engraved words that paint a sympathetic portrait of the South’s fight against the Union. Adding the plaque would not violate the law, White said.…

(I)t’s easy to see why people who believe these monuments have no place in today’s society feel as passionately as they do that the symbols are divisive and uphold values that run counter to their beliefs. Two years ago, after nine parishioners were shot to death during a Bible study at a historic African-American church in Charleston, then South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley led an effort that resulted in removal of the Confederate flag from Statehouse grounds. The flag has been viewed throughout history as a symbol of hatred and violence, in part because it is used by hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan.

Many proponents of Confederate monuments and the flag say these are merely symbols of their heritage. One wonders, however, if those same proponents would be willing to lend financial support to the construction of monuments to anti-slavery icons, such as Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass.… Ultimately, the decision about what to do with statues and institutions named for Confederate war heroes must reside with local residents. They are the ones who live and work around these monuments. They are the people who will have to explain to their children and grandchildren why these monuments matter.

Beware flood cars

Nearly 20 percent of the consumer complaints fielded by the South Carolina Department of Consumer Affairs from Jan. 1 through June 30 were related to vehicles. The most common complaints were in reference to used cars, repairs and credit sales.

The Consumer Federation of America’s 2016 Consumer Complaint Survey Report, which includes data from 39 agencies in 23 states, also lists vehicles as the national top complaint category in 2016.

Unfortunately, things are likely to get worse. And Hurricane Harvey is to blame.

Scenes of submerged vehicles by the hundreds have been shown in photos and across TV screens worldwide. And early estimates, according to a report by USA Today, are that Harvey and its flooding likely destroyed more vehicles than any other natural disaster in U.S. history.…

Unfortunately, there are people willing to get these vehicles, do what it takes to get them operating, take them to other states and sell them without the purchaser knowing the story of the “good deal.”

Nuclear audit

It took a threat to fire Santee Cooper’s executive board, but Gov. Henry McMaster was finally able to extract a February 2016 audit of the now-failed nuclear reactor project in Fairfield County. And then he made it public. Good for the governor.…

(T)he audit findings strengthen the argument that the public shouldn’t have to pay for the disastrous project, the costs for which rose from $9 billion to a projected $25 billion. Ratepayers could be responsible for a staggering $2.2 billion.

The 2007 Base Load Review Act, approved with virtually no legislative opposition, put the public on the hook for project costs — and shortfalls. Meanwhile, SCANA has been allowed to add 10 percent to project expenses to ensure continuing profits for its shareholders. Perhaps that helps explain why contractors for the project weren’t “commercially motivated” to finish it, as the audit put it.

The audit supplements much of what is known about this sorry project, and provides a new perspective on the continuing expectation of SCANA to make the ratepaying public pay for the debacle for decades into the future. That shouldn’t be allowed to happen, and the Bechtel audit offers more reasons why.