Lawmakers admit to not reading massive energy bill. Advance it to Senate, anyway.

A massive energy bill sailed its way out of a Senate committee as efforts to better understand the measure or allow for more public input and transparency were voted down.

During a Senate Judiciary Committee discussion Tuesday, Sen. Wes Climer, R-York, fought to recommit the ‘South Carolina Energy Security Act’ back to a subcommittee, where policymakers could have more time to ask questions and develop a more comprehensive understanding of the bill’s contents. His effort, however, failed as the committee voted to advance the measure to the Senate floor by a vote of 12-4.

“There are 23 members on the (Senate) judiciary committee,” Climer said. “Not a single member on that committee knows what they voted on today. The people of South Carolina deserve more scrutiny on this issue than they got in the judiciary committee today.”

While all committee members are likely familiar with a part of the bill involving a joint natural gas plant between Dominion Energy and Santee Cooper, Climer said, 70 other pages in the measure include many other elements his colleagues are ignorant of.

“We’re talking about a haphazard process on a bill that is ultimately going to touch, I would suspect, tens of billions of dollars in private investment and all five and half million South Carolinians,” Climer said.

It was clear from early in Tuesday’s meeting that Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Luke Rankin, R-Horry, had every intention of moving the bill forward. As such, he and state Sen. Gerald Malloy, D-Darlington, heavily opposed Climer’s position. Malloy was unabashedly adamant about advancing the bill even while admitting he hadn’t read it.

“I think nobody has read this bill, nobody,” Malloy said. To which Climer responded, “That’s a pretty good reason to give it fair consideration before we vote on it, right?”

Malloy argued the best approach in handling the complex measure was to advance it, even if a member opposes it, and then use Senate rules to stop it, if necessary.

“If you don’t like (the bill) you object to it, you can move to carry over, continue, recommit or table it,” Malloy said. “You have many opportunities in the process to stop or delay a bill, so unless we’re trying to kill (the bill) you don’t put it back in committee without having a pathway forward.”

That path, however, creates a lack of transparency because once a bill advances out of a committee, it cannot hold additional hearings on the matter before the public, according to Sen. Tom Davis, R-Beaufort.

“There will be no further public hearings,” Davis said. “If the bill has moved out of the Judiciary Committee, it has no jurisdiction over it. It couldn’t hold committee or subcommittee meetings if it wanted to. The only way there could be further public debate is when the bill is taken up and amendments are offered (on the Senate floor).”

Rankin said he wasn’t rushing the bill, but said it was important his committee advance it in light of the state’s growing energy needs.

“If we languish in this ongoing debate at the peril of folks who want generation and solar, we’re doing a disservice to our ratepayers,” Rankin said.

Still, Climer maintains it was the wrong move.

“I don’t understand it but apparently there is a desire by some to move all of these conversations (related to H. 5118) behind closed doors, and I think that’s a mistake,” Climer said.

Other committee members voiced concerns about a lack of public input.

“I think it’s very important that we do hear from stakeholders, and I know written testimony is on the record, but there are questions from people who would like to be heard, who, quite frankly, were not heard during the subcommittee meetings,” said state Sen. Tameika Devine, D-Richland.

The committee on Tuesday approved an amendment, given to the members just before the meeting from the subcommittee, which included keeping the number of PSC commissioners at seven as opposed to the three proposed in the House bill. It also removed exclusive jurisdiction from the Supreme Court over regulatory appeals. Now, appeals from PSC determinations will first go to administrative court so as to create a record by which the Supreme Court can review.

‘Tension points’

Davis, who is not a member of the judiciary committee, but sat in on a portion of the meeting and shared with members several “tension points” existing within the bill.

Those points included certain legislative findings of facts by the House, which Davis says are too specific. Specifically, Davis advised determining what sort of gas generation plant is need and its site are overreaching, and should be left to the Public Service Commission to decide.

Another point involved proposals to transition from coal to cleaner energy generation. Davis said moving to cleaner energy sources should occur if a replacement source is already available.

He also mentioned the importance of the PSC receiving enough funding so as to hire their own utility experts, rather than relying on ones offered up to the PSC by utilities.

What’s next for SC Energy Security Act

Now, that the ‘South Carolina Energy Security Act’ has cleared the judiciary committee, it will head to the Senate floor for debate. In the meantime, Rankin suggested forming a “working group” to afford members more opportunity to seek clarity on the bill.

In addition, Davis said he’ll be working with a group of energy stakeholders, including utilities, energy cooperatives, independent power producers, environmentalists and rate payers to iron out portions of the bill that relate to their respective interests.

Neither Rankin’s working group or Davis’ meetings with stakeholders will be held publicly, however.

With roughly four weeks of the legislative session remaining, and the need for the Senate to approve the House budget first, Rankin said the bill won’t be touched for at least the next six days. Other members said it could take approximately three weeks before the Senate could take up the bill in light of the Upper Chamber’s calendar.

Davis, who sponsored a companion energy bill, S. 909, said he’s reworking that measure to serve as an amendment to the House’ version. He added that while he wanted to raise amendments to H. 5118 during committee, he was asked by Rankin to save those amendments for the Senate floor.

“If there is not a consensus or an agreement among the stake holder groups that advances the important objectives of all those groups then I’m not going to be for this bill moving forward.”

Davis said he anticipates an argument for passing a “skinny” bill that just authorizes the construction of a gas plant. “That isn’t going to work,” he said.

“I’m not going to be okay with the bill taking a rifle shot at one or two things that maybe one of the stakeholder groups want,” Davis said.