S.C. Supreme Court denies appeal of PSC decision

Weekly Update Courtesy of Utility Regulatory News #3969: Finding that the state legislature had designated the South Carolina Public Service Commission (PSC) as the proper agency to administer and enforce the state’s Base Load Review Act (BLRA), and discovering nothing arbitrary or capricious in the commission’s interpretation of that law with respect to an electric utility’s application for authority to construct a new nuclear generating unit, the South Carolina Supreme Court has affirmed the PSC’s conclusion that the nuclear power project could go forward.

The commission’s decision allowing South Carolina Electric & Gas Co. to proceed with a nuclear joint venture with the state-run South Carolina Public Service Authority had been challenged by an environmental group, Friends of the Earth, who alleged that because the proposed nuclear plan represented the first time the PSC had invoked the terms of the BLRA, its decision thereunder should be subject to “heightened scrutiny” by the court. The group also argued that the particular nuclear technology being proposed was beyond the utility’s means and that the utility had failed to fully analyze alternatives, such as enhanced demand-side management programs and power purchased from renewable resources.

After reviewing the record as a whole, however, the court said that there was ample evidence that the utility had adequately considered other alternatives to the nuclear option and also had looked at competing technologies. Accordingly, the court ruled that the appellant had made no showing that the commission’s BLRA analysis had been mistaken or an abuse of discretion. Given the PSC’s expertise in such matters, and the legislature’s clear signal that the commission was to be the lead agency in effectuating the act, the court declared the commission’s decision approving the nuclear project to be “presumptively correct,” and it declined to substitute its judgment for that of the commission’s. For the full story, Subscribe to URN.