The Statehouse Report

A controversial bill that promises to meet South Carolina’s growing energy needs by ramping up in-state power production is headed to the S.C. House floor next week with bipartisan support, despite fierce opposition from many of the state’s leading consumer and environmental groups. “We absolutely understand there’s a need for more energy generation,” S.C. League of Women Voters President Lynn Teague told Statehouse Report. “But the General Assembly should not be intruding on the decisions that are supposed to be made by state regulatory agencies.” Of particular concern, she said, were a provision allowing utilities to meet with regulators behind closed doors, and the decision to put economic interests, rather than the concerns of ratepayers, at the heart of the regulatory process. “When government grants a monopoly to utilities, it’s giving them a very big asset,” Teague said. “And it’s the state’s absolute responsibility to protect the public from abuse of that asset.”

South Carolina Daily Gazette

A controversial energy bill is heading to the House floor over the continued opposition of consumer and environmental advocates, who say changes fell far short of addressing concerns over fast-tracking a new power plant in South Carolina. Lynn Teague, a lobbyist for the League of Women Voters, said the new language is better in that it does not so flagrantly overstep regulators. “However, the message is still there that the General Assembly has already made its decision and wants it to be rubber-stamped,” Teague said.

South Carolina Daily Gazette

Advocates for abortion rights are launching a petition in hopes of showing the Legislature’s ruling Republicans that South Carolinians support repealing the six-week abortion ban signed into law last year. Groups backing the effort, announced Tuesday outside the Statehouse, include the League of Women Voters, the American Civil Liberties Union of South Carolina, the Palmetto State Abortion Fund, Columbia NOW and Planned Parenthood.