South Carolina utility exec resigns after fighting firing

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press


Jeffrey Collins, Associated Press
Updated 2:28 pm, Friday, December 29, 2017

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The executive who led South Carolina's state-owned utility during a scuttled multibillion-dollar project to build two nuclear reactors is stepping down after fighting the governor's efforts to fire him for three weeks.

Santee Cooper board chairman Leighton Lord sued Gov. Henry McMaster to try to stop his firing and suggested it was politically motivated because Lord supports one of McMaster's rivals in the 2018 gubernatorial primary.

. . .

Santee Cooper partnered with private company SCANA Corp. and they both spent around $9 billion on the failed project to build two nuclear reactors at the V.C. Summer plant. Nearly $2 billion of that was directly charged to ratepayers under a state law that allowed the utilities to collect money for the project before the reactors generated a single watt of power.

. . .

Lord's letter did not mention his support of Republican businesswoman Catherine Templeton, one of at least three GOP candidates planning to take on McMaster in the 2018 primary in June.

Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/us/article/South-Carolina-utility-exec-resigns-after-12462007.php

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Leighton Lord

[Sneederbunk]

1. Sounds like a 1% name.