SCANA CEO admits he’s choosing not to look at the Bechtel Report during PSC Hearing
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COLUMBIA, S.C. (WOLO)– SCANA’s CEO Jimmy Addison sat in front of the Public Service Commission for day two of questioning. The PSC’s multi-week investigation is to determine what rates should be set to for SCE&G’s 7-thousand customers.
Commissioners were getting frustrated with a lack of real answers Addison was able to provide. A big part of the problem is he has yet to lay eyes on a 2015 report that said the project was going to fail— even though he’s been CEO for almost a year now, and he was CFO during the whole nuclear plant debacle.
“You have still, never the less, refused to read the Bechtel report,” Scott Elliott, an Attorney for SC Energy Users Committee asked.
“I didn’t refuse to, I chose not to,” Addison replied.
Addison’s willing decision not to look at the report resulted in a lot of unanswered questions throughout the hearing.
“I find it extremely hard to believe that you’re a CFO and I’ve heard so many ‘I don’t know’s’ out of you,” Commissioner Butch Howard said.
The commissioners say they are trying to understand why SCANA operated the way they did, even after spending a million dollars on a Bechtel report which highlighted the fatal flaws in the plans. SCE&G continued to raise rates months after the report, and are accused of keeping that report confidential, which caused tension during the hearing.
Ratepayers are probably the most frustrated since it was their money going into the $9 billion failed project. Especially after an attorney asked a very critical question of where their money is going now.
“How about the very capable lawyers seated over here at the table? Who’s paying for those lawyers?” Elliott asked.
“The company is,” Addison said.
“When you say the company, you mean the ratepayers or the shareholders?” Elliott said.
Addison’s response to that question was ‘he didn’t know the answer’, but his expectation is the shareholder’s pay.
SCE&G isn’t just covering the cost of CEO Addison’s attorneys, but also the legal fees for former CEO Kevin Marsh and President Stephen Byrne.
