Thursday, October 18, 2007

Santee Cooper Sued

Santee Cooper, whose avowed mission is "to provide reliable power at the lowest cost possible" is being sued, according to the Sun News.

An Horry County businessman is leading a lawsuit that was served on Santee Cooper on Thursday, claiming the utility wrongly imposed a rate increase on its residential and commercial customers.

The lawsuit, which is seeking class action status, claims that in 1994 or 1995, Santee Cooper imposed a lawful rate increase to pay off a capital expansion debt.

The increase as approved required the state-owned utility to reduce the rates after the debt was paid, the lawsuit says, but rates were never cut.

The lawsuit asks that the money be returned to customers.

"We believe it involves hundreds of millions of dollars," said Gedney Howe of Charleston, the lead attorney in the case.

And South Carolina is supposed to trust Santee Cooper when it says it needs a coal plant, that this plant is being built for the express purpose of keeping the lights on for the residents of the Grand Strand?

The plaintiffs in this law suit allege that S-C raised rates on its residential and commercial customers in order to subsidize special rates for industry and power sold out of state.



Could it be that the same dynamic is at play with the Pee Dee plant (i.e. cheap power for back-room business deals, not "keeping the lights on"; windfalls for special interests, not low rates and a high quality of life South Carolina's residents and business-owners)?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Another link for you: http://www.charleston.net/news/2007/oct/20/santee_cooper_sets_green_deadline19694/

Looks like a nice plan.

John Mellor said...

Yes. See my October 30th post.