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Santee Cooper’s defenders within the South Carolina Senate went on the offensive Thursday, providing a preview of subsequent 12 months’s contentious debate within the Statehouse over whether or not to promote the embattled energy and water utility to Florida-based NextEra Vitality.
A bipartisan pair of senators known as for extra scrutiny of NextEra, one of many nation’s largest energy firms, because it seeks to realize a serious foothold within the Palmetto State by buying Santee Cooper.
In response, a panel of the Senate Judiciary Committee agreed to request a trove of paperwork from NextEra that may element the facility big’s behind-the-scenes efforts to amass South Carolina’s public utility.
“I need to know what I’m voting on, and we will’t get there till these questions are answered,” mentioned state Sen. Dick Harpootlian, D-Columbia.
A NextEra spokesman didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark Thursday.
The push for extra scrutiny of NextEra comes simply earlier than the Common Meeting reconvenes in Columbia in January and returns to a years-long debate about Santee Cooper’s future.
The 86-year-old utility has been on the state’s chopping block since 2017, when the general public realized Santee Cooper misplaced $four billion of its ratepayers’ cash on the failed growth of the V.C. Summer time nuclear energy plant in Fairfield County.
A variety of prime political leaders, together with Gov. Henry McMaster, say promoting the utility to NextEra is one of the best ways to make sure ratepayers don’t must repay that $four billion debt on their energy payments. However Santee Cooper supporters, backed by a state evaluation of the NextEra bid, contend {that a} sale to NextEra would really trigger energy payments to rise.
For the previous three years, many of the debate has targeted on Santee Cooper, highlighting the Moncks Nook-based company’s latest historical past of political mistakes and poor business deals.
However at Thursday’s listening to, supporters of Santee Cooper sought to shift that highlight again onto NextEra, a Fortune 500 firm that has aggressively sought to increase by buying smaller energy firms throughout the USA.
Republican state Sen. Stephen Goldfinch of Murrells Inlet requested the Senate committee to request a bunch of paperwork from NextEra, relationship again to July 2017, that may shed gentle into how the Juno Seashore-based firm has sought to influence South Carolina leaders to promote Santee Cooper.
The paperwork embody communications between NextEra lobbyists and state lawmakers, an inventory of NextEra’s latest political donations in South Carolina and information of any NextEra efforts to construct public assist for the deal by paying political bloggers, enterprise teams and social media influencers.
The committee agreed to request the information and raised the opportunity of formally demanding them with a subpoena if NextEra doesn’t voluntarily comply by Jan. 15.
In the meantime, Harpootlian known as for senators to analyze NextEra’s failed takeover of town of Jacksonville’s electrical utility, an aborted enterprise deal that has been the goal of a number of investigations over the previous 12 months.
In a Dec. 10 letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee that was unveiled Thursday, Harpootlian accused NextEra of failing to adjust to the foundations as S.C. lawmakers sought gives to buy Santee Cooper in 2019.
The ability firm was required to element all of its latest efforts to buy different utilities, Harpootlian mentioned, nevertheless it disregarded its controversial and unsuccessful try and take over the Jacksonville Electrical Authority.
Authorities in Florida are wanting into whether or not NextEra lobbyists had been additionally advising town of Jacksonville throughout the tried privatization, a possible battle of curiosity, Harpootlian mentioned.
The senator mentioned the investigation additionally seeks to find out whether or not the bid course of in Jacksonville was rigged to favor NextEra.
“I believe it’s crucial that we glance very critically at NextEra’s failure to conform,” Harpootlian mentioned.
The senators burdened they have not made up their minds about whether or not Santee Cooper ought to be offered. However the panel included among the most vocal opponents to a sale in earlier Statehouse debates.
Attain Avery Wilks at 803-374-3115. Observe him on Twitter at @AveryGWilks.
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