The Nerve

By RICK BRUNDRETT Over the years, lawmakers have legally made it easy for themselves to continue making money after leaving office through their connections in the Legislature and elsewhere in state and local government. Under state law, for example, legislators can become lobbyists just a year after leaving office. In recent years, at least four […]

By RICK BRUNDRETT S.C. lawmakers have once again delayed filling a $107,822 seat on the state Public Service Commission, which routinely approved electric rate hikes for the failed V.C. Summer nuclear project. A screening hearing for PSC Seat 2, which was supposed to have been held Monday of this week, was postponed, according to a […]

By RICK BRUNDRETT An incumbent state Public Service Commission member, a past commissioner and an ex-PSC attorney are among six candidates who have applied for a PSC seat in a “do-over” election imposed by lawmakers in May. The former PSC attorney, who dropped out of a May race for another PSC seat, recently moved so […]

By RICK BRUNDRETT Update: The S.C. House on 10/3/18 voted to continue Gov. Henry McMaster’s veto of a state budget proviso authorizing the creation of the “South Carolina Industry, Workforce and Education Data Warehouse,” effectively sustaining the veto. The S.C. House and Senate on the same day overrode vetoes of parts of another proviso authorizing […]

By RICK BRUNDRETT The legislatively controlled committee that nominates candidates for full-time, six-figure seats on the S.C. Public Service Commission, which sets rates for private utility customers, has no written criteria for making its final choices. On paper, qualifying as a candidate for the seven-member PSC – which approved nine electric rate increases and signed […]

By RICK BRUNDRETT On Thursday – the last day of the General Assembly’s regular session and when most state government offices will be closed for a holiday – lawmakers are set to fill three open seats on the S.C. Public Service Commission, the state regulatory agency that routinely approved electric rate hikes for the failed […]

By RICK BRUNDRETT The S.C. Legislature spent more than $70,000 for an outside consulting firm to give it “advice” late last year relating to the V.C. Summer debacle – a financial quagmire that lawmakers played a large role in creating. The Virginia-based firm was paid by the House and Senate without producing a report for […]

  By RICK BRUNDRETT The S.C. Public Service Commission members who approved nine rate hikes for the failed V.C. Summer nuclear project have performed flawlessly in their six-figure jobs – at least in the eyes of the legislative committee that essentially controls them. A review by The Nerve of annual work-performance reviews done by the […]