nuclear-news

Excessive pay given to executives at failed nuclear utilities in USA

Big failure doesn’t merit big payouts The Times and Democrat  10 Sept 17 “…… there are stories within the nuclear story that make South Carolinians angry. One is the eye-popping sums of money doled out to executives at the two utilities while ratepayers are being asked to pay for failure.

The two companies were warned about serious problems plaguing the nuclear project, an independent analysis by Bechtel Corp. shows. Santee Cooper and SCE&G (whose parent company is Scana) were advised to hire someone to enforce contractor accountability.

In the report dated February 2016, Bechtel wrote the project suffers from “major project management issues that must be resolved for project success.”

But there was no resolution – even as executives with Scana were reaping rewards for their roles in the project.

Filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission show Scana paid executives more than $21 million in performance bonuses over the past decade, including money for work on the nuclear project. The filings do not say exactly how much of the $21 million was based on the failed project.

Last year, Scana’s top five executives received $3.3 million in performance-based pay, according to the federal filings examined by The State newspaper of Columbia.

Nearly half of last year’s performance pay went to Scana chief executive Kevin Marsh and represents about a quarter of his $6 million in total compensation.

Meanwhile, Santee Cooper President Lonnie Carter became the first utility executive to depart after the nuclear project was abandoned. He won’t suffer in retirement for doing so, with his severance package being more lucrative than the $540,929 paid to him annually as a state employee.

The Bamberg County native will get $1 million in the first year of retirement, $800,000 annually for the next two decades and then $345,000 yearly for the rest of his life. He is 58.

No matter how the world of big finance works, don’t ask a South Carolinian to understand this…… In the world of the S.C. nuclear project and the two utilities, it appears those at the top are being paid in excess – even when the end result is failure.

September 11, 2017 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, USA