Lynn Teague, September 10: If the nation is to advance responsibly in AI, meaningful regulatory oversight of the industry and a strong safety net are essential. Otherwise it is going to be a terrible time in which far more suffer than benefit. Even a cure for cancer is not much of a counterweight to the scale of the potential harms. Regulatory guardrails and an economic safety net are unlikely to be perfect, but they are essential to mitigate potential harms.

Charleston City Paper/The Statehouse Report

South Carolina’s Public Service Commission (PSC) has given itself six months to review the largest utility merger in U.S. history — the proposed $67-billion deal between Florida power behemoth NextEra and Virginia’s Dominion Energy, which operates in 20 states including S.C.

The company's plans to add 15 gigawatts of power generation to support data center growth caught the attention of S.C. ratepayer advocates. “It’s all about data centers,” S.C. League of Women Voters Vice President Lynn Teague said with a sigh. “That’s what’s making Dominion such an attractive target.”

Data centers — increasingly controversial in S.C. due to their high water and power usage — have emerged as a major issue in the merger,

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Register or check your registration no later than October 4. Compare candidates and make a plan to vote. The League recommends that you vote early, October 19-31, Monday-Saturday, 8:30 a.m. - 6 p.m. at county early voting centers. If voting by absentee ballot, get it postmarked at the Post Office retail counter by November 3.

The State

Despite his overall support for President Donald Trump, S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster has spent much of his tenure taking stances on the environment that are either at odds with the Republican president or not on Trump’s radar.

Lynn Teague, LWVS vice president for issues and action,, said the governor has done well on many issues, but he and other leaders need to take strong positions on controlling the growth of data centers. “We have seen now for several years attempts to get some meaningful regulation of these data centers, which plays into the utility issues, and it hasn’t happened,’’ she said. “We’d like to have seen more leadership from the governor and other leaders.’’

One common misconception about the League of Women Voters is that being nonpartisan means staying silent on important issues. It doesn't.

Supporting free, fair, and accessible elections is not partisan. For more than 100 years, we have worked to empower voters and defend democracy unapologetically. Nonpartisan ≠ Nonpolitical.