More secrecy at SCE&G? Utility won’t give up V.C. Summer records, state agency says, The State, BY SAMMY FRETWELL, sfretwell@thestate.com, May 17, 2018
A state agency says SCE&G is refusing to give up records that could be used to justify rolling back monthly power bills the utility charges customers for the failed V.C. Summer nuclear construction project.
The state Office of Regulatory Staff says it needs the records to better understand what went wrong with the failed effort to build two reactors in Fairfield County, northwest of Columbia.
According to Regulatory Staff, the information being withheld by SCE&G includes:
Summaries of auditors’ reports.
A 2016 estimate of the cost to complete the nuclear construction project.
Records given to the FBI and other law enforcement agencies, investigating possible criminal fraud in the construction project.
Meeting notes about the Bechtel report, a study that outlined massive problems with the project at least two years before SCE&G publicly revealed them.
“Many responses do not appear to comply in good faith’’ with laws requiring SCE&G to give up records, Regulatory Staff lawyer Jenny R. Pittman wrote in a May 9 letter obtained Thursday by The State.
Regulatory Staff is seeking the documents as part of its legal effort to roll back the $27-a-month charge that SCE&G continues to charge its residential customers for the bungled nuclear plant. The state Public Service Commission is expected to hold hearings on that issue late this year as well as Dominion Energy’s proposed buyout of SCE&G’s parent, SCANA.
………SCE&G’s refusal to release records to Regulatory Staff is the latest skirmish in a growing battle over documents that regulators and lawyers say they need to review. Attorneys for Friends of the Earth and the Sierra Club, which have cases before the PSC seeking to roll back SCE&G’s rates, also have been rebuffed by the utility in their requests for records.
Bob Guild, a lawyer for the two environmental groups, said Thursday that SCE&G’s reluctance to work with the Office of Regulatory Staff isn’t surprising. The utility doesn’t want regulators, or the public, to see potentially damning information, he said……..http://www.thestate.com/news/local/article211324814.html
