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SC Energy Security Act (H.3309) passes the Senate
Long months of debate on this bill culminated in what seemed like an impossible reality. We now have a truly balanced bill that weighs the authorization of Santee Cooper and Dominion working together to build the Canadys natural gas plant with stronger protections for ratepayers and landowners. With unwavering support from citizens, community groups, and our partners, excessive rollbacks to permitting and regulatory oversight were removed while compromises were made to streamline the permitting and appeals process for energy projects.
We even saw an eleventh-hour amendment put guardrails on data centers, ensuring data centers, not residential ratepayers, cover the costs of building electric generation and infrastructure needed to bring data centers online.
To everyone who reached out to your Senator about this bill over the past few weeks — your voice mattered! On topics ranging from landowner protections to data centers to permitting rollbacks — Upstate Senators asked hard-hitting questions and provided incredible leadership in the debate.
As expected, the Electric Rate Stabilization Act (S.446) was tacked on to H.3309 as an amendment, giving utilities the ability to file mini rate cases every year, rather than every five years, to recover costs on capital expenditures like those necessary to build Canadys and other infrastructure facilitated by H.3309. A subsequent amendment sponsored by Senator Russel Ott (District 26 - Calhoun) will require a thorough review of this new process after five years by the Office of Regulatory Staff (ORS) with assistance from an independent third party.
With unanimous support in the Senate, Senator Shane Martin (District 13 - Spartanburg) led the passage of an amendment requiring electric utilities to notify property owners in writing if a proposed energy project could involve the use of eminent domain to acquire or condemn their private land. The notice must be sent at least 60 days before the utility submits any permit applications. It must include the purpose of the project, both preferred and alternative routes or locations, and contact information for the utility and ORS.
The amendment also requires utilities to hold a public meeting to gather feedback from the affected community — a practice many utilities already follow, though with varying levels of transparency and effectiveness. Now, however, utilities must provide notice of the meeting to potentially affected landowners.
There are plenty of other reasons to celebrate, but — as with all legislation — don’t count your chickens before they hatch. The bill, with its changes from the Senate, now heads back over to the House for a final vote to concur on the amendments. If the House concurrence vote fails, the bill then heads to a conference committee to work out the differences between the House and Senate versions. With years of compromise reflected in this bill, although not perfect, we hope the House recognizes the merits of accepting the Senate’s amendments.
We’ll give a full report of the bill — in whatever form reaches the Governor’s desk — when we know for certain that it reflects a truly balanced bill. Until then, thank you again to everyone who engaged in this mammoth effort!
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