Why rush the NextEra-Dominion merger? Quick legislative action needed.

When multi-state utility giants assemble at the negotiating table, South Carolina small businesses and everyday customers usually wind up with the short end of the stick.

That is precisely why the push by Dominion Energy and NextEra Energy to jam their proposed merger through our SC Public Service Commission on an expedited timeline should raise red flags across the state.

Why is South Carolina rushing this process? The plain answer is that the six-month clock approved by the commission, now with only five months remaining until the Jan. 29 deadline, serves only the interests of NextEra and Dominion’s business deal by reducing time for examination/negotiations and all but eliminating legislative input.

There is no benefit for ratepayers.

Either I or the South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce has intervened in every electric rate case before state regulators since 2002. I have seen firsthand how these proceedings play out.

Routine rate cases — like the recent ones for Duke Energy — can comfortably wrap up in six months because the issues are standard and well-understood by commissioners and other parties.

A multibillion-dollar utility merger is anything but routine.

Look back at 2018 when Dominion sought approval to acquire South Carolina Electric & Gas and its parent company SCANA Corp. That docket was complex, contentious, and required 11 full months of rigorous review before the commission reached a directive.

Of the commission’s current seven members, only Swain Whitfield and Chair Justin Williams were on the bench for that case. They took the time required to do the job right, and this new merger proposal deserves the exact same careful scrutiny.

We also cannot ignore where South Carolina sits in the grand scheme of this deal that also requires regulatory bodies in Virginia and North Carolina to approve the merger that will create the largest regulated electric utility monopoly in the country.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission also must approve of the merger. Ironically, Dominion ratepayers have not approved the merger yet.

Compared to Virginia, our state is small potatoes. Virginia is where the hard battel will be fought, especially now that the state’s governor will be intervening in their regulatory process.

“I am deeply skeptical about whether selling our primary, state-regulated utility to an out-of-state company is good for the commonwealth,” she wrote in an op-ed for The Washington Post. “I have serious questions about what this deal would mean for us.”

Yes, our state’s speaker of the House and president of the Senate have taken the rare action of intervening in our process. However, the first input from these legislative leaders was to give their approval to NextEra and Dominion’s six-month timeline request, which was opposed by numerous consumer groups.

The South Carolina consumer groups intervening in this commission’s docket have extensive experience representing residential and small businesses ratepayers.

The advocate in the state Department of Consumer Affairs will also be asking meaningful questions of NextEra and Dominion witnesses. But the agency needs more time to do the job right in this critical process. But the agency and the other consumer-oriented intervenors need more time to do the job right in this critical process.

We should be letting Virginia and North Carolina hold their regulatory processes first. We would greatly benefit from their efforts to discover and address important merger issues. We would also be able to see what ratepayer-concessions those states achieve and use those as the starting points for getting more for our ratepayers.

For example, NextEra has proposed a monthly bill credit for ratepayers if the merger is approved.

The offer would average $10 a month per customer for two years. But what if our Public Service Commission agrees with that merger stipulation, and then Virginia and North Carolina consumers are given a $30 a month bill credit? Our consumers would simply get a worse deal.

As it stands, South Carolina’s approval process largely aligns with Virginia’s, where a decision is due Jan. 11. Our intervenors and Public Service Commissioners need to know the Virginia ruling before our hearing begins, not while the commissioners’ final decision is being proofread.

If we don’t wait on the Virginia outcome, we could lose out on other concessions that the other state ratepayers receive.

We simply should not be one of the first in this process.

Our state Legislature should follow the lead of two Virginia Republican state lawmakers who have called for legislative action to extend the time for their regulatory review process.

We get only one shot to get a decision that provides the most benefit to South Carolina ratepayers.

There is no do-over.

Giving this process more time enables state regulators to get it right.