SELC statement on introduction of South Carolina energy bill H. 5118  

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Yesterday, South Carolina’s House of Representatives introduced H. 5118. If passed, the bill would rush environmental review processes, authorize Dominion Energy and Santee Cooper to build a massive gas plant on the Edisto River, and make it easier for utilities to influence the Public Service Commission while preventing third-party groups, including community groups and nonprofits, from challenging bad utility plans.  

In response, Kate Mixson, SELC Senior Attorney, released the following statement: 

“This bill is nothing more than a utility wishlist that will leave ratepayers paying up for dirty, expensive, and unreliable fossil fuel projects while neighboring states meet the clean energy needs of their customers, leaving South Carolina in the dust.  

“Notably, the bill authorizes Dominion and Santee Cooper—the same actors responsible for V.C. Summer—to build a massive gas plant on the Edisto River. But it also opens the door for utilities to make more bad investments like V.C. Summer by stripping oversight bodies of any meaningful authority to say whether utilities’ plan is a good idea and hindering environmental review. 

“The legislature should be requiring utilities to replace dirty, unreliable coal with diverse, low risk energy that attracts business and reduces price risk to ratepayers, not handing over the keys to utilities.”