Power Play?

Gov. Mark Sanford insists he won't propose selling state-owned Santee Cooper to a private investor. Guerry Green of Pawleys Island, Sanford's pick to be chairman the utility's board after he fired former Chairman Graham Edwards, says ratepayers' concerns about privatization of Santee Cooper are unfounded.

Residential, commercial and industrial customers of the publicly owned utility would love to believe Sanford and Green. But belief won't be possible until someone authoritative in the utility's chain of command answers this question:

Why would the state spend $150,000 to have the accounting arm of global banking and securities firm Credit Suisse First Boston determine Santee Cooper's value if there's no desire to sell it?

Green said this week that Sanford and board members just want an idea of what the utility is worth. They are, he says, akin to a homeowner who orders an appraisal to find out how much his home has appreciated in value, even though he has no intention of selling it.

One hundred fifty thousand dollars for curiosity? Puh-leeze! That "explanation" only boosts the trepidation that Sanford's meddling with the utility has evoked during the past year.

Not that Santee Cooper's former board didn't virtually beg for meddling. The state created the utility in the 1930s to bring electricity to parts of South Carolina that investor-owned private utilities didn't serve. Over the years, Santee Cooper's service area, Horry, Georgetown and Berkeley counties, became more prosperous, transforming the utility into a moneymaker. Enhancing its profitability is its wholesaler relationship with a host of rural electric cooperatives around the state, including Horry Electric Cooperative.

In recent years, the utility board has played Santa Claus with "excess" money from ratepayers, making generous donations to nonprofits in its service area while spending lavishly on advertising and sponsorships. Sanford saw this as an accountability lapse and wants the utility to increase by $15 million its annual in-lieu-of-taxes payment to the state, traditionally pegged at 1 percent of revenue, about $10 million. The governor also strong-armed the utility's former board to sell off excess property and remit the proceeds to the state.

Board members who balked at these changes summarily got replaced, Edwards most recently. Horry County's board member, Vernie Dove, resigned abruptly earlier this month, offering no explanation. The turnover triggered a downgrade in Santee Cooper's credit outlook last week - meaning the utility will have to pay higher interest rates to borrow money until its outlook improves.

If the revamped board knuckles under to this gubernatorial pressure, the reasonable power rates that Santee Cooper's residential, commercial and industrial ratepayers enjoy could go up - chilling the Grand Strand economy and reaching deeper into the pockets of lower-income residents. That's what most sticks in the craw about all this wrangling.

The current arrangement between Santee Cooper and the state works well. The board has made spending adjustments, reining in donations and targeting them more carefully while more quickly paying down debt and investing in economic development. Having made his point on accountability, Sanford should back off - in the bargain offering nervous local residents and business people a credible explanation what the Credit Suisse appraisal is really about.