At heart, the 50-page S.C. Senate report on the nasty political fight that has embroiled Santee Cooper for nearly two years blames Gov. Mark Sanford for all the turmoil. But if the governor is guilty of anything, it's what teachers of logic call the empathetic fallacy: acting as though emotions don't matter when, in fact, they do. On few subjects pertaining to S.C. public life are folks more emotional than Santee Cooper.

With a huge grant from the federal government, Santee Cooper - the S.C. Public Service Authority - came into being during the depths of the Great Depression. As Santee Cooper has developed into the mega-utility it is today, its residential, commercial and industrial customers have enjoyed low electric rates - and take for granted the rates will remain low. Why shouldn't they? They own it.

In Sanford's conservative rationalist worldview, however, state ownership of Santee Cooper looked like an opportunity to ease pressure on the state's sources of tax money. The turmoil over Santee Cooper began in 2003, when he asked the utility board for $13 million from the sale of excess property and equipment.

This seemed perfectly logical to the governor. After all, South Carolinians elected him in part to make state government more efficient while keeping tax rates from rising.

So, ignoring the mounting protests of legislators, the governor pressured Santee Cooper board members to boost the utility's annual return to the state treasury above the 1 percent of gross revenue that Santee Cooper sends now. And as we all know now, he also pressured board members to see how much money the state could earn from selling the utility into the private market.

He insists he never actually contemplated proposing such a sale. But especially because he initially tried to pretend that the Credit Suisse First Boston top-to-bottom appraisal of the utility and its assets did not originate with him, many South Carolinians did not initially believe him.

As a result, he lost the political high ground on the issue. Over his veto, legislators adopted legislation this year that places board membership under effective legislative control. The good folks who, as Sanford appointees to the board, tried to put his rationalist view of the utility into public policy now are labeled as "rogues" who acted against the best interest of the utility. This seems harsh and unjustified - except perhaps in the case of the board member who interceded directly with Credit Suisse First Boston, in the process trying to leverage some business for his own company. History will determine whether the Senate committee, headed by Sen. Luke Rankin, R-Myrtle Beach, treated these board members fairly.

There remains the question of whether ratepayers in Horry, Georgetown and Berkeley counties benefit from Santee Cooper at the expense of other South Carolinians. Our feeling is that they don't, especially considering that not one dime of S.C. tax money has ever been invested in the utility. Besides, cooperative ratepayers in all 46 counties reap the benefit of Santee Cooper's quaint public ownership structure, as they buy cheap wholesale power from the utility.

In the end, from our Horry County perspective, it's a relief that legislators have placed the utility beyond the reach of private buyers. The county is one of the state's greatest economic engines, and higher rates would inhibit its ability to play that role as effectively as it does.