COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - Senators reviewing practices on the board of one of the nation's largest public power utilities say Gov. Mark Sanford should fire appointees who they say secretly worked to downgrade the utility's credit rating or improperly talked about business deals.

At least two Santee Cooper board members should be removed, said Sen. Luke Rankin, a Myrtle Beach Republican heading the review committee.

Rankin said interim board chairman Guerry Green and Keith Munson independently met "with credit agencies and the tenor of the contact is alarm and soliciting a downgrade of the credit outlook," Rankin said.

That conduct "suggests that the best interests of Santee Cooper are not being addressed," Rankin said.

Green already is on the way out. Sanford said Tuesday he has pulled Green's nomination because he could not win Senate confirmation.

Sen. Bill Mescher, R-Pinopolis, and a retired Santee Cooper executive director serving on Rankin's committee, said Sanford should remove up to five board members "who have created all of the problems."

Sanford has appointed people to the board who would "watch out for the bottom line the way they'd watch out for their own bottom line," Sanford spokesman Will Folks said.

The governor's office is taking a dim view of the proceedings,

"Clearly, that approach has rubbed some people the wrong way and these Army-McCarthy hearings are an offshoot of that," Folks said.

But Rankin says the process is driven by a growing record that shows problems on the board.

Mescher's ties to the company and Senate demands for records have yielded reams of e-mail and documents. The documents include notes swapped through board members' Blackberries - small, portable e-mail devices - that they thought were private, but were handled by Santee Cooper's computer system, Mescher said.

"This is not a witch hunt where you've got he-said, she said," Rankin said. "This is document driven," Rankin said.

The growing paper record has added to a bitter week that started with Sanford telling Carl Falk that he was pulling his nomination for the board. Falk told the Senate panel Wednesday that he still wants the job.

Also on Wednesday, the Legislature gave final approval to a bill that would bar governors from easily removing Santee Cooper board members. Folks said the governor will veto that legislation.

Testimony on Tuesday and Wednesday raised questions about board member Richard Coen setting up a February 2004 meeting with two companies that wanted to provide fuel for Santee Cooper. And a Charleston-based shipping concern, Maybank Shipping, contacted Coen to talk about setting up deliveries of South American coal.

Senate Judiciary committee lawyer Nancy Coombs told the committee the meetings suggested Coen was getting involved in day-to-day operations of the utility. "I don't believe that they knew the gravity of what they were involved in," Coombs said.

Coen says Santee Cooper management wanted the meeting set up. He and Green say there was nothing improper about those meetings.

There's a "bright line" that board members should not cross into managing day-to-day affairs, former Santee Cooper Chairman John Rainey said Wednesday during his testimony. And that line was crossed, said Rainey, who was ousted by former Gov. Jim Hodges and a 2000 state Supreme Court decision. Rainey is one of Sanford's top allies and campaign contributors.

"I'm concerned by the whole atmosphere," Rainey said.

It is hard to understand what the board members' goals were, Rainey said. "I can't find a thread here that takes me to any logical conclusion," he said. "Sometimes I think that we're, you know, we're off in Oz somewhere."