- Associated Press - Saturday, August 18, 2018

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - South Carolina’s state-owned utility has opted to postpone this month’s meeting amid confusion over its leadership as state leaders continue to grapple with the fallout from a multibillion-dollar nuclear construction debacle.

On Friday, Santee Cooper announced that it wouldn’t be holding a board meeting on Monday as had been planned. Utility officials didn’t say when the meeting would be rescheduled.

The uncertainty comes amid a showdown between South Carolina’s governor and state Senate leaders over leadership of the utility, which has been under fire since the failure of a nuclear construction project in which it was the minority owner. Santee Cooper had invested $4 billion toward the construction of two new reactors at the V.C. Summer Nuclear Station in Fairfield County, with South Carolina Electric & Gas Co. putting in $5 billion.

The utilities walked away from the project in July 2017 following the bankruptcy of lead contractor Westinghouse.

Since the fallout, Gov. Henry McMaster has repeatedly said that he wants to sell Santee Cooper to alleviate its debt related to the failed project. After former board chairman Leighton Lord resigned in December, McMaster tapped Charlie Condon - a political ally who, like McMaster, served as the state’s attorney general for a time - to lead the utility’s board of directors.

State law requires the Senate to approve McMaster’s choice to run the board, but state lawmakers ended their session without voting on the appointment, a move seen by some as an intentional snub. McMaster said he can now use a state law granting him the power to fill vacancies when the Senate is not in session, a position backed up by a bipartisan group of senators in a letter to the Republican governor.

Senate leaders have sued the governor, and it’ll be up to the state Supreme Court to determine if Condon’s appointment stays in place.

In a letter provided to The Associated Press, McMaster wrote to Santee Cooper’s interim president and chief executive, asking they “immediately furnish” any communications related to the scheduled meeting.

“Please note that this directive is continuing in nature and requires further and supplemental disclosures in the event Santee Cooper creates, obtains, or discovers additional responsive records following its initial production,” McMaster wrote.

The board’s meeting postponement came as Moody’s Investor Service also downgraded the rating on the utility’s revenue bonds. In a release, analysts said their move “takes into consideration continued unstable governance with uncertainty about future rate setting as Santee Cooper operates without a board chairman.”

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Reach Kinnard at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP. Read her work at https://apnews.com/search/meg%20kinnard.

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