By Associated Press - Sunday, February 23, 2020

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - The complex discussions on whether to sell South Carolina’s state-owned utility will continue all next week in Statehouse budget committees.

The House Ways and Means Committee will enter the discussion Monday with a hearing where they will question state Department of Administration officials and private lawyers who helped evaluate the bids to buy Santee Cooper.

The committee will also meet Tuesday with executives from Florida’s NextEra Energy, which wants to buy Santee Cooper. Wednesday’s Ways and Means Committee meeting will be with Dominion Energy of Virginia, which is offering $1 billion to manage the state utility.

Santee Cooper’s own executives will speak to the committee Thursday about its plans to reform itself and remain public.

Santee Cooper will have a busy week. Their executives meet Tuesday and Wednesday with the Senate Finance Committee.

The Senate committee heard testimony from Dominion and NextEra last week while the House committee was taking up the budget.

Lawmakers passed a bill last year to get bids to sell Santee Cooper. The public utility is more than $4 billion in debt after its minority stake in a pair of nuclear reactors that were never finished.

Both budget committees have a mid-March deadline to make recommendations. The full House and Senate will then debate.

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