The S.C. House this week overwhelmingly approved an energy reform bill that backers say is needed to ensure the state can meet its future energy needs.
House Speaker Murrell Smith, R-Sumter, has repeatedly said passage of the measure is critical.
“We are dangerously close to not being able to serve the power needs of South Carolina, both from an industrial standpoint, and a residential standpoint,” Smith said prior to the House beginning debate of the sweeping reform measure.
Utility leaders urged lawmakers to enact the so-called “Energy Security Act” if they are expected to be able to generate enough power for one of the fastest growing states in the country.
The bill calls for the streamlining of the approval process by state regulators for new energy generation. It also encourages utilities to embrace all forms of potential generation as they move away from operating coal-powered facilities.
Specifically, the bill authorizes state-owned utility Santee Cooper to partner with Dominion Energy for the construction of a 2,00-megawatt combined-cycle gas plant at the site of Dominion’s closed coal plant near Canadys in Colleton County.
Energy conservation groups who are opposed to the fast-tracking bill maintain that such a clear legislative directive is reminiscent of the infamous 2007 Base Load Review Act.
The ghost of that now defunct law still haunts energy debates.
Many maintain it allowed the disastrous V. C. Summer nuclear project in Fairfield County to occur.
Santee Cooper and Dominion’s predecessor -SCANA Corp.- partnered in the large- scale nuclear project which failed in 2017 after customers of the utilities had been paying for the costly project for close to a decade.
“This legislation is not the Base Load Review Act all over again,” Rep. Jay West, R-Belton, said during debate.
West said, that authorizing Santee Cooper and Dominion to work together to build one larger plant rather that two smaller plants means ”they can build a larger, more fuel-efficient plant by 25% (less cost) together.”
Critics say the energy bill will once-again give the utilities a blank-check to build such a large-scale plant, and that it could keep them from embracing more cleaner and cheaper energy producing alternatives.
The bill also would reduce the size of the S.C. Public Service Commission from the current seven members to three. It would also authorize Santee Cooper to buy on behalf of the state natural gas allocations that could be available for future or expanded major industrial projects.
The bill passed mostly along party lines.
“At the end of the day we have to come back to are we doing everything we can for the ratepayer, said Rep. Russell Ott, D-Calhoun County who voted no on the bill.
“I think we could have done more,” he added
The bill next goes to the state Senate.
With the current legislative session nearing the half-way point, its chances of being enacted before adjournment in early May are uncertain.
Senate Majority leader Shane Massey, R-Edgefield, recently seemed lukewarm to some of the proposed regulatory changes contained in the bill. He and Sen. Nikki Setzler, D-Lexington, spearheaded reform legislation in the Senate following the V.C. Summer debacle.
“I am suspicious of efforts to roll-back the regulatory protections that were put in-place just a few years ago,” Massey told reporters recently.
