Date: 2024-08-16 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00019011 | |||||||||
Nuclear Power | |||||||||
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Burgess COMMENTARY Peter Burgess | |||||||||
| Ex-SCE&G executive to plead guilty for defrauding customers over failed $9B nuclear project Nuclear Plant Construction on Track, But at What Cost? (copy) Then-SCE&G Chief Operating Officer Steve Byrne leads a tour of the V.C. Summer nuclear project site on Aug. 7, 2013. Photo by Sean Rayford The former chief operating officer of South Carolina Electric and Gas has agreed to plead guilty to defrauding utility customers who paid billions of dollars in high power bills for a nuclear power plant that was never completed. And more charges are coming after a three-year investigation by the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office Of South Carolina, prosecutors made clear in filings Monday. Steve Byrne, SCE&G’s second-in-command who oversaw the $9 billion V.C. Summer Nuclear Station expansion project before its sudden collapse in July 2017, is pleading guilty to wire and mail fraud, according to court filings. The filings echo accusations that Byrne and other executives hid damaging information and documents about the project’s flaws from investors and the public even as customers’ electric rates soared to pay for it. The charge against Byrne is the first to emerge out of the federal criminal investigation that began shortly after construction on the twin reactors in Fairfield County north of Columbia was canceled by SCE&G and its partner, Santee Cooper. But prosecutors indicated it won’t be the last. “The United States anticipates filing additional criminal charges against other members of the conspiracy,” prosecutors wrote in Monday’s filing. “The criminal investigation is ongoing.” An effort to reach Byrne’s attorney was unsuccessful Monday. In a written statement, U.S. Attorney Peter McCoy declined to comment further on Byrne’s case. “However,” he wrote, “the U.S. Attorney’s Office will continue to protect the citizens of South Carolina from all crimes, be they violent or economic.” The massive V.C. Summer venture was supposed to usher in a renaissance of carbon-free nuclear power amid predictions of greater energy demand in South Carolina. Company leaders in 2007 persuaded S.C. lawmakers to rewrite the regulatory rulebook so they could embark on the project with limited state oversight, win approval for rate hikes as needed and charge customers upfront for the plant, ostensibly saving them money in the long run. The project’s abandonment set off one of the largest economic crises in the history of the state. SCE&G’s 731,000 electric customers had already paid nearly $2 billion in the form of higher monthly power bills and will be charged about $2.3 billion more to pay off the project’s debt over the next two decades. More than 5,000 construction workers were immediately fired. SCE&G’s reputation was tarnished as the stock price of its parent company, SCANA Corp., plummeted. That made the utility — one of South Carolina’s largest homegrown companies — a takeover target. SCANA was bought by Virginia power giant Dominion Energy in 2019. The new owner lowered SCE&G customers’ nuclear-bloated power bills — while still planning to charge customers $2.3 billion more for the project — and renamed the utility Dominion Energy South Carolina. SCANA and former execs sued by SEC for 'fraud' over failed SC nuclear project BUSINESS SCANA and former execs sued by SEC for ‘fraud’ over failed SC nuclear project By Andrew Brown, Thad Moore and Avery G. Wilks abrown@postandcourier.com tmoore@postandcourier.com awilks@postandcourier.com Federal law enforcement continues to monitor SCANA and lawsuits BUSINESS Federal law enforcement continues to monitor SCANA and lawsuits By Andrew Brown abrown@postandcourier.com | |||||||||