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Environmental groups to take legal action about South Carolina nuclear decision

Environmental groups challenge SC nuclear decision, setting stage for Supreme Court appeal https://www.postandcourier.com/business/environmental-groups-challenge-sc-nuclear-decision-setting-stage-for-supreme/article_53ded6a2-079e-11e9-bd1e-67572a7e9c93.html By Thad Moore tmoore@postandcourier.com Dec 24, 2018
A pair of environmental groups will challenge state regulators’ decision to let Dominion Energy buy South Carolina Electric & Gas and charge ratepayers for its failed nuclear project.

The legal challenge means that regulators on the state’s Public Service Commission will have to formally reconsider their decision, which would leave SCE&G customers to pay $2.3 billion over the next two decades for a pair of abandoned nuclear reactors.

The process was set in motion Monday by Friends of the Earth and the Sierra Club, a pair of environmental groups that faced off against SCE&G throughout the decade-long nuclear project. They filed their protest with the commission — the same regulators who made the decision.

The environmental groups say the PSC should have officially made a determination about whether SCE&G handled the nuclear project appropriately. Attorneys opposing the power company argued SCE&G failed to tell regulators about studies that questioned the project’s viability.

The PSC chided SCE&G this month, saying it had damaged the public’s trust. But regulators stopped short of formally saying they had been misled

The environmental groups went further. They argued Monday that “SCE&G fraudulently lied, misled and withheld material information” about the problems that sank its $9 billion plan to build a pair of reactors at V.C. Summer Nuclear Station, north of Columbia.

SCE&G and Dominion, a Virginia-based utility giant that has offered to buy it, couldn’t immediately be reached for comment Monday.

December 28, 2018 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | legal, USA