SCANA culprits ‘being held accountable for this fraud’ SC lawmakers say of plea deal
Though a former SCANA executive agreed this week to plead guilty to fraud in connection to the failed V.C. Summer nuclear plant project, South Carolina lawmakers say it’s nothing to celebrate.
On Tuesday, former SCANA CEO Kevin Marsh agreed to a plea deal with federal prosecutors after what was SCANA and the state’s public utility Santee Cooper abandoned the $10 billion V.C. Summer nuclear project in Fairfield County in 2017 because of budget overruns and it was behind schedule. Marsh is expected to go to prison for at least 18 months and pay $5 million.
State Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey, R-Edgefield, said Marsh’s plea agreement is nothing to celebrate.
“I think it’s important there is some accountability, and it’s important for the public to see people are being held accountable for this fraud. But there’s really not a whole lot of joy in this, because 700,000 people are still paying for the fraud,” Massey said.
Last year, Dominion Energy acquired SCANA and its debt, which the utility can pass on to ratepayers. In August, Dominion asked state regulators for permission to increase its monthly rates by 7.7.%, a request that has drawn ire from customers and Gov. Henry McMaster for coming during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dominion’s acquisition came after Marsh helped hide SCANA’s financial troubles between 2016 and 2018, as well as the financial trouble over the ongoing Fairfield County nuclear project, court records say.
The cover-up of the problems surrounding the V.C. Summer project allowed Marsh and other top SCANA officials to collect high salaries and bonuses and deceive stockholders, investors and regulators, according to court records
“Yesterday’s news was confirmation of what many of us have known all along: the people of this state were defrauded by SCANA executives at disastrous cost,” House Speaker Jay Lucas, R-Darlington, said in a statement. “For too long, the truth was kept from state regulators, the General Assembly and the public. This plea is the cost for those lies, and a much delayed yet welcomed step towards justice.”
The Office of Regulatory Staff, which helped shine a light on the issues surrounding SCANA after the project was abandoned in 2017, declined to comment on the criminal matter.
Earlier this year, fellow SCANA executive Stephen Byrne pleaded guilty to criminal conspiracy fraud charges related to the nuclear project. Court documents and case evidence suggest that cooperation from Byrne and Marsh could help prosecutors with their ongoing investigation into others connected to the failed V.C. Summer project.
Bob Guild, a lawyer with the environmental organization Sierra Club who argued before the Public Service Commission against rate hikes that allowed the project to move forward and called for refunds, said Tuesday’s plea deal reinforces the need for more oversight.
Dominion did mail refunds to customers who paid toward the project, though checks were for less than $1.
“The real telling lesson to me is the reinforcement of the need for aggressive,independent, regulatory oversight of monopoly utilities,” Guild said.
Guild continued, “These guys knew they could lead the Public Service Commission around by the nose. We as conservation interveners, who challenged the wisdom of the project, couldn’t possibly peel back the onion to see what we now know to be the truth behind the scenes of a rogue utility that was defrauding its ratepayers and lying about the economics of this project.”
This story was originally published November 25, 2020 at 4:36 PM with the headline "SCANA culprits ‘being held accountable for this fraud’ SC lawmakers say of plea deal."
