‘Stop the Blank Check’ Coalition forms to oppose SCE&G rate hikes
South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce President Frank Knapp announces his organization is joining a group of environmental and social work organizations to oppose a rate increase by South Carolina Electric & Gas to pay for cost overruns on two new nuclear plants. The nuclear plants are $4 billion over budget and years behind schedule. Jeffrey Collins AP

BY RODDIE BURRIS
COLUMBIA, SC

A statewide coalition has formed to fight SCE&G’s ability to raise electric rates in South Carolina for nuclear construction when a project goes over budget and falls years behind schedule.

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Stop The Blank Check is a coalition of organizations that want the South Carolina Public Service Commission to deny SCE&G’s pending request to increase the cost of the two reactors by $846 million and to raise electric rates by 3 percent.

“This coalition has come together to oppose both of those (requests),” said Frank Knapp, president and CEO of the South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce and a coalition organizer. “We ask, if they are going to have a rate hike, let it be smaller. If they are going to have an increase in costs, which they will, that it be smaller.”

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The total projected cost of the nuclear construction at V.C. Summer has risen by $2.46 billion since 2009, Boomhower noted, rising from $11.4 billion to $13.8 billion currently, a 21.6 percent increase. The Unit 2 reactor completion date has slid from 2017 to 2019 and the Unit 3 reactor completion has fallen from 2018 to 2020....