Some SC lawmakers wanted out of owning an electric utility. That’s off the table

South Carolina will no longer explore selling the state’s public utility Santee Cooper after state House and Senate leaders reached a compromise Tuesday on a reform package to be voted on by the General Assembly when it returns next week.

The reform deal, details of which were agreed to Tuesday by six of the Legislature’s top Democratic and Republican leaders, addresses changes to board membership and adds regulatory oversight over how Santee Cooper sets its power rates and plans to build new electricity generation. It also adds legislative oversight over the utility’s ability to issue debt.

It does not, however, include a sale — an avenue House leaders wanted but Senate leaders said was a dead end.

Santee Cooper’s future has been up in the air since it partnered in the failed V.C. Summer nuclear project in Fairfield County that left the utility billions of dollars in debt, which ratepayers will eventually have to cover. Since 2017, state lawmakers have tried to reach a resolution and worked toward a reform package last year. But the legislative process came to a halt because of COVID-19.

At the center of the debate, the House and Senate disagreed over whether a reform deal should include an option to explore a sale.

In the House’s plan, lawmakers included a measure to create a committee of three House members and three senators that would meet over the course of a decade to consider offers for all or parts of Santee Cooper if and when they came in. However, that idea was overwhelmingly voted down in the Senate, leaving the possibility of a sale slim and ultimately forcing the joint conference committee to pull it from the bill.

Outside of those negotiations, lawmakers last year created a year-long oversight committee over the utility whose membership includes the governor, the Senate president, the House speaker and the chairmen of the House and Senate budget-writing committees. All five will be responsible for giving their blessings over long-term contracts with the utility through the end of the year. Lawmakers also empowered the Joint Bond Review Committee, which includes legislators from both chambers, to oversee the utility’s ability to issue long-term debt.

“We’re putting collars on them here. We’re putting collars on the oversight,” said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Luke Rankin, R-Horry, a defender of reforming Santee Cooper. “This is the ... best option going forward to make this a better, more responsive, more accountable (utility) and improve the efficiencies that we have.”

Currently, the state has no interested buyer in Santee Cooper.

Florida-based energy giant NextEra, chosen as the preferred buyer last year, formally withdrew its purchase offer in April and recouped its $25 million deposit.

While removing the sale option helped move the reform package to the floor, House leaders still were not thrilled the deal lacked an option if a company wanted to buy.

“I think it’s a tremendous mistake on our part not to have a procedure set up to deal with Santee Cooper,” House Speaker Jay Lucas, R-Darlington, said Tuesday. “I want these reforms to work. This is a really good bill. If there are issues that don’t come up that these reforms can’t solve, we’re going to be back here dealing with this.”

Rankin attempted to offer House leaders some hope.

Should the Legislature decide in the future to sell, he said, “it will be a hell of a lot more valuable to the people of South Carolina.”