- BIG STORY: Data centers raise stakes on proposed utility merger
- ROUNDUP: S.C. public health officials encourage vaccination
- LOWCOUNTRY, Ariail: A Flock of cameras?
- BRACK: S.C. race for U.S. Senate seat is oddest in decades
- MY TURN, Zhuang: Tell EPA to keep toxic PFAS out of food, water
- MYSTERY PHOTO: Tan and brick
- FEEDBACK: Send us your thoughts
Data centers raise stakes on proposed utility merger
News analysis by Jack O’Toole | “Six months,” Tom Cruise’s fast-talking Navy lawyer famously tells his client in A Few Good Men, pushing him to take a plea deal. “It’s nothing. It’s a hockey season.”
It’s also the amount of time South Carolina’s Public Service Commission (PSC) has given itself 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.
By contrast, the PSC took just over 11 months to approve the Dominion-SCANA merger in 2018.
“The only thing a quick decision serves is the interest of NextEra and Dominion,” S.C. Small Business Chamber of Commerce President Frank Knapp told the City Paper this week. “It’s not in the interest of ratepayers — and it’s not in the interest of getting the best deal for all our consumers, including residential and small business.”
Knapp is part of a growing coalition of S.C. ratepayers, business leaders, environmentalists and Dominion shareholders who are asking the PSC to slow down the process, despite what they call open pressure from state legislative leaders to accept the companies’ six-month deadline.
In late July, S.C. House Speaker Murrell Smith, R-Sumter, and Senate President Thomas Alexander, R-Oconee, formally moved to intervene in the PSC case, telling commissioners they agree with the expedited timeline. The move followed a Smith-sponsored 2025 energy bill that streamlined the PSC approval process for new power plant approvals.
Merger critics contrast that with the approach of Virginia political leaders like Gov. Abigail Spanberger, who this week announced her intention to intervene on behalf of ratepayers.
“I remain skeptical of the benefits this merger would deliver to Virginia — particularly if those benefits come at the expense of affordability, existing jobs, or meeting our homegrown clean energy goals,” Spanberger said in an Aug. 17 release. “Virginians deserve to know that their long-term interests, not simply those of the companies involved, are being put first.”
What’s more, critics argue, given Virginia’s six-month statutory deadline, S.C. should tap the brakes while commonwealth leaders use their outsized leverage as Dominion’s home state to work out the best deal possible for consumers.
“Suppose Virginia negotiates a $20-a-month average bill reduction for their customers instead of the $10 we’re being offered,” Knapp said. “Aren’t we going to look silly?”
More of the same corporate rhetoric?
For their part, officials with the companies are focusing on the merger’s upside, arguing that consumers will benefit from a larger company that “can buy, build, finance and operate energy infrastructure projects more efficiently.”
“Together, we will be better positioned to partner with states and communities to attract new investment, support new jobs and invest in the all-of-the-above energy infrastructure customers need,” NextEra CEO John Ketchum said last month.
But it was Ketchum’s earlier announcement to shareholders that the company plans to add 15 gigawatts of power generation to support data center growth that 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.”
To understand why data centers — increasingly controversial in S.C. due to their high water and power usage — have emerged as a major issue in the merger, experts say it helps to know four facts:
- About one-third of all U.S. power demand growth is currently being driven by data centers, according to NextEra’s Ketchum in a recent interview.
- Virginia is the largest data center hub in the world, with more than 35% of all known hyperscale data centers worldwide, per the Virginia Economic Development Project.
- South Carolina’s data center market is unregulated and growing fast, with more than 32 known hyperscale projects already built or planned, according to market intelligence firm Cleanview.
- As S.C. residents learned in 2017 when the $9 billion planned nuclear project at V.C. Summer failed, tax- and ratepayers can be forced to pick up the tab when private power projects go belly up — a live possibility in the still-speculative data center industry.
Facts like those have led environmental and ratepayer groups to join in the S.C. case, including the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.
Or as SACE energy analyst Eddy Moore put it: “We thought it was important to intervene in the merger case because having the largest utility company in the world fund power plants in the Lowcountry to serve new data centers could negatively affect both our electric bills and our landscape.”
More regulation?
Beaufort Republican Sen. Tom Davis, who considers himself a supporter of data centers and expanded home-state power generation, told the City Paper he understands and, to a significant degree, shares those concerns.
“I get the apprehension,” Davis said. “Especially to the extent the legislature doesn’t act.”
In fact, Davis argues it was “irresponsible” of lawmakers to adjourn for the year in May without passing his bill to establish a strong regulatory framework for data centers.
“You could see all this coming a year ago,” he said. “The need to lay down these benchmarks was critical. And we just didn’t do it.”
Specifically, Davis said he believes the legislature needs to act on two fronts before new capital flows into the state for additional data centers.
First, the hyperscalers must be required to use environmental best practices, including water-saving technologies and responsible siting policies that keep data centers away from sensitive locations like the A.C.E. Basin.
And second, utilities must be obligated to demand long-term proof of financial stability from their hyperscaler customers before building new capacity to serve them, ensuring that ratepayers don’t get stuck with the bill for companies that fail.
But with a timetable that would have the merger fully approved just as the legislature is coming back into session next January, Davis worries that it will only be harder to legislate with a massive new utility potentially lobbying against it.
“Frankly, if you’re a utility coming into this space with certain expectations, aren’t you going to oppose those benchmarks?” Davis asked. “After 18 years, I know how hard it is to pass legislation, especially when you have stakeholders with real financial and economic interests fighting you.”
Nevertheless, Davis said he thinks his bill will get through the legislature next year because “it has to.”
“I like the idea of having a utility with capital capacity because we have real power generation needs, but this laissez faire environment regarding data centers is an area where the legislature has to, and I believe will, act,” Davis said. “And any utility coming into the state needs to do so with their eyes wide open to that reality.”
Jack O’Toole is Statehouse bureau chief for Statehouse Report and the Charleston City Paper. Have a comment? Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com
S.C. public health officials encourage vaccinations
By Jack O’Toole, Statehouse Bureau | With new national data showing a sharp rise in the number of U.S. students receiving exemptions from state vaccination requirements, the S.C. Department of Public Health is encouraging parents to talk with their doctors about the very real risks of opting out.
“Without high immunization levels, communities are at risk for vaccine-preventable diseases and outbreaks, which lead to not only sickness and suffering but also to school and work time lost,” Acting DPH Director Dr. Brannon Traxler said in an Aug. 20 release. “We highly encourage people to talk regularly with your physician and maintain your regular schedule of check-ups where these conversations can be had.”
The recommendation comes on the heels of an Upstate measles outbreak that sickened almost 1,000 S.C. residents before it was brought under control in late April of this year.
At the same time, the agency is urging adults to stay up-to-date on their own vaccines as well.
“Access to immunizations is a critical element of preventive health care,” S.C. Immunization Coalition board member Melanie Slan said. “We encourage individuals and families to stay informed and take advantage of available vaccination opportunities.”
- For more on required and recommended vaccinations, visit dph.sc.gov.
Trump visit highlights importance of U.S. Senate runoff
A Friday visit by President Trump to South Carolina’s Grand Strand is highlighting the importance of the Aug. 25 GOP runoff for Republicans seeking a candidate on the November ballot to replace the late U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham.
On Tuesday, voters will pick between the new incumbent, Graham’s sister Darline, and U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman, who placed third in June’s gubernatorial primary. Some say the election is also a test of Trump’s pull at the ballot box. He has endorsed Darline Graham.
York County’s Norman is questioning Darline Graham’s credentials, noting that his experience in Congress and business make him a better candidate. Graham has said Norman tried to clean the swamp in Washington and failed, only to come home to S.C. to try – and now wants to go back to Washington.
Other issues that have emerged in the Senate runoff:
- Darline Graham’s knowledge of foreign affairs. Some say she flubbed a question about Taiwan’s importance to the U.S. during a televised debate. She has acknowledged that she’s not a professional politician.
- Immigration, the national debt and taxes
- The power of dark money in the race
Trump’s rally is scheduled to start at 7 p.m. Friday at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center, 2101 N. Oak Street, Myrtle Beach. Doors open at 3 p.m. You can register for up to two tickets through the GOP. Horry County residents should expect traffic delays.
- Conventional campaign logic scrambled in Senate runoff
- Why Taiwan, South China Sea matter
- Analysis: On Darline Graham’s “oops” moment
In other recent news
Women’s health care needs going unmet in S.C., study shows. A third of South Carolina women who responded to a nationwide survey said they’ve gone without reproductive health care since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2022 that the Constitution does not guarantee a woman’s right to an abortion.
Every S.C. student to get free breakfast thanks to state budget bill. Every K-12 student in South Carolina’s public schools will be able to eat breakfast for free this year with funding included in the state budget.
- Captain Sams Spit settlement passes legislature
- S.C. to soon ban candy, soda purchases with SNAP benefits
- S.C. bills to restrict THC products won’t be revived this year
S.C. governor vetoes delay on paying agency. State agencies can go ahead and pay contractors for their work at the Scout Motors site in Blythewood after Gov. Henry McMaster nixed legislators’ requirement that they wait for a full review of taxpayer dollars spent.
Democrats make it official: S.C. will be first in the nation in 2028. After months of wrangling, the Democratic National Committee formally approved a 2028 presidential primary calendar that put S.C. first, followed by Nevada and New Hampshire.
S.C.-1: Mace says she’s ready for life outside of political office. Outgoing 1st District Congresswoman Nancy Mace said Aug. 19, 2026, that she does not plan to run for elected office in the future and is ready to return to the private sector.
Less cargo has S.C. Ports Authority cutting its way toward growth. The S.C. State Ports Authority is looking for cuts to keep its budget on track after a Tuesday report of a 4.6% drop in the number of cargo containers in fiscal year 2026, which ended June 30, compared to the previous 12-month period.
Murdaugh attorney admits he lied about polygraph results, offers apology. One of Alex Murdaugh’s attorneys admitted Thursday that he was not honest about results from his client’s polygraph test.
A Flock of cameras?
Award-winning cartoonist Robert Ariail has a special knack for shining a light on critical issues in just the right way. This week, he takes aim at invasive Flock cameras that more and more law enforcement agencies are using. Privacy advocates complain about their intrusiveness.
- Love this week’s cartoon or hate it? Did he go too far, or not far enough? Send your thoughts to feedback@statehousereport.com.
Brack: S.C. race for U.S. Senate seat is oddest in decades
Commentary by Andy Brack | The November race for a new U.S. senator to serve a six-year term for South Carolina is the oddest in the 72 years since Strom Thurmond became the first person ever to win a Senate seat as a write-in candidate.
This year, most agreed that Dr. Annie Andrews, a Charleston doctor and Democrat, had an uphill battle against four-term Republican U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham. Despite unpopularity with the far right wing of his party in South Carolina, he was close to President Trump and he had a long track record of delivering federal largesse. On June 9, he nabbed 57% of the vote against six candidates to get his party’s expected nod.
Then he died unexpectedly on July 11 of a tear to his heart after returning from a trip to Turkey and Ukraine. It stunned the nation and turned South Carolina’s U.S. Senate race on its head.
Two days later, Gov. Henry McMaster surprised many by appointing Graham’s sister Darline to fill the newly open spot in the Senate until the current term runs out in January. Many then weren’t sure whether she would run for the full term, but she did along with two congressmen, a former governor and others. In a special primary, she came out on top, followed by U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman, a York County congressman who originally went to Washington to “clean up” the swamp, but decided to try to come home and clean up a Columbia swamp by running for governor – even though his party has been in charge of that swamp for more than two decades.
In a few days, the GOP will have a nominee to run against Andrews and a handful of inconsequential third-party candidates.
New national polling shows Democrats, who need to flip four U.S. Senate seats and net four in the U.S. House to take control of Congress, have an 8-point advantage over Republicans in a generic congressional race.
That’s interesting only to the point that it indicates Democrats have a path nationally to take Congress. In South Carolina, it doesn’t mean as much – mostly because on Tuesday we’ll know who is running. It will be a human, not a generic candidate without a personality, views on policy and a track record that voters can study.
If Democrats nationally have an 8-point advantage, for South Carolina that means that Andrews may have an even shot. But more than likely, she’s still an underdog challenger in a state where Republicans dominate the legislature and hold all state constitutional offices.
If Lindsey Graham were on the ballot, the election would be called about one minute after polls closed in November. But now, it will be tougher – especially if Trump says something odd during a Friday visit to Myrtle Beach. If he gives less than full-fledged support of his pick for the seat, Darline Graham, all bets are off.
But no one should be surprised if he says something like “Norman is a good guy, too.” That’s essentially what he did in June with a last-minute co-endorsement of state Attorney General Alan Wilson in a GOP gubernatorial runoff with Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette to seal her fate as the woman who almost won.
If Darline Graham wins Tuesday’s runoff, the battle for Senate will be between two women with little to no Washington experience. But Andrews can tout her professional credentials as a doctor who’s been in the trenches saving lives. Yet because voters don’t really know either of them, South Carolinians may just punch the “R” ballot because that’s what too many are used to.
If Norman wins, Andrews’ path to victory may be narrower because he’s a known entity in Washington and the GOP tribe will circle around him to try to keep the seat. But she will have a record to poke, which could be spicy.
Andrews’ overall path to flip the seat? Get a big turnout among South Carolina Black voters who are fed up with Trump’s racist, corrupt term in Washington. And hope GOP moderates and independents take a chance to show broad displeasure with the administration.
Andy Brack is editor and publisher of Statehouse Report and the Charleston City Paper. Have a comment? Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com.
Zhuang: Tell EPA to keep toxic PFAS out of food, water
By Jean Zhuang, SELC | A farmer who spreads fertilizer expects it will nourish the soil, not contaminate livestock, crops and water—endangering family members, consumers and neighbors.
Yet across the country and right here in the Carolinas, farming families are discovering toxic “forever chemicals” lurking in sewage sludge used as fertilizer have seeped into soil, water and sometimes even food.
Instead of acting on scientific evidence that this so-called PFAS contamination has serious risks, this administration has chosen to bury it. The Environmental Protection Agency’s scientists spent years studying what happens when PFAS-contaminated sludge is spread on farmland. Its conclusion was clear: the practice can contaminate food and drinking water, seriously harming communities.
PFAS compounds are a class of thousands of manufactured chemicals linked to cancer, liver disease, developmental harm to infants and children, cardiovascular disease and other serious health problems. Known as “forever chemicals,” PFAS do not break down naturally. They remain in our water, soil, food and bodies for years, if not decades.
But instead of protecting communities from these toxic chemicals, the EPA recently tossed aside its detailed scientific assessment of the risks posed by PFAS-contaminated sludge and replaced it with a nine-page document that downplays those risks while offering little protection for affected communities.
One finding in EPA’s risk assessment is especially alarming. It found that at contamination levels already documented in places such as Maine, roughly one in 28 children who regularly drink milk from affected farms could develop cancer later in life from that exposure alone. At higher contamination levels, the risks increase dramatically: more than one in three children could develop cancer from drinking that milk. And milk is only part of the story. PFAS can also accumulate in beef, eggs, fruits, vegetables, fish and other food produced on contaminated land.
These are not risks that farmers created. The contamination begins when industrial facilities discharge PFAS into wastewater systems. Conventional wastewater treatment plants are built for household sewage and were never designed to remove industrial chemicals like PFAS. As a result, the chemicals can become concentrated in sewage sludge that is later used on farm fields as fertilizer. Once there, the chemicals can move into soil, groundwater and surface water, crops, livestock, and ultimately, the food and water supply.
An impact in South Carolina
The consequences are not hypothetical. In Darlington County, South Carolina, farming families were encouraged for decades to use free sludge from a textile manufacturing facility as fertilizer and were told it was safe. Years later, testing found PFAS contamination in wells throughout the community, including some with levels thousands of times higher than federal drinking water limits. Families who relied on those wells for generations now face uncertainty about their health, their farmland, and their livelihoods.
This pollution is preventable. Industries can treat their own waste to remove PFAS and municipal wastewater treatment utilities can use their existing authority to stop pollution at its source—before it ever reaches the utility, sewage sludge, farmland, or drinking water sources. Preventing contamination at its source is the most effective and least expensive solution.
Yet instead of protecting people, EPA’s current approach buries the science on how harmful these chemicals are and allows avoidable contamination to continue. This shift is part of a broader pattern of the federal administration rolling back PFAS safeguards and shielding polluters from meaningful accountability.
The federal government recently entered into a weak settlement with Chemours, which operated in North Carolina, that imposes minimal penalties and allows the company to largely avoid meaningful responsibility for widespread contamination in N.C. and other states, while EPA leadership has elevated industry influence by appointing Chemours executives to its Science Advisory Board.
At the same time, EPA has moved to eliminate and delay national drinking water standards for several PFAS chemicals, threatening the safety of communities nationwide. Together, these actions signal an alarming retreat from science-based safeguards and a troubling pattern of prioritizing polluters over people.
Right now, EPA is inviting people to comment on its proposal through Oct. 5, 2026 so we invite you to take action at this link. Please join us in telling EPA to hold polluters accountable and keep toxic forever chemicals out of our farms, food and water.
Jean Zhuang is a senior attorney in the Southeastern Environmental Law Center’s Chapel Hill, N.C. office.
Tan and brick
Here’s another brick building – this one with a lot of painted tan accents. Where is it? Please send in your best guess – and your name and hometown – to feedback@statehousereport.com. And if you have a mystery photo to share, send that along too (but tell us what it is because we’re horrible guessers.)
Last week’s mystery, “Brick building,” currently is the Hartsville Museum, which sleuth Don Clark remembers a little more deeply as a boy in Darlington County: “When I was growing up, it was the Hartsville Library, and it was originally the Hartsville Post Office.”
Hartsville resident Bill Segars also had an interesting interaction with the building: “My company did the renovation change from the library to the museum in 1995 for a cost of $72,267. As a historical restoration contractor, I’ve managed to legally, with permission, obtain some interesting architectural details over the years.
“We changed the bronze letters on the building from ‘Hartville Library’ to ‘Hartsville Museum,’ generating in excess the letters ‘LIBRARY.’ Those letters now are installed on a board that is over a bathroom at our house on Lake Marion.”
Others who correctly identified the building were: Allan Peel of San Antonio, Texas; Michael Webb of Hartsville; Jay Altman of Columbia; Frank Bouknight of Summerville; and George Graf of Palmyra, Va.
- SHARE: If you have a Mystery Photo to share, please send it to us – and make sure you tell us what it is!
Send us your thoughts
Please send us your thoughts about politics and policy in South Carolina, but make sure to leave phone numbers and hometowns to help us verify them for publication. We publish non-defamatory comments, but unless you provide your contact information – name and hometown, plus a phone number used only by us for verification – we can’t publish your views.
- Have a comment? Send your letters or comments to: feedback@statehousereport.com. Make sure to provide your contact details (name, hometown and phone number for verification. Letters are limited to 150 words.
Statehouse Report, founded in 2001 as a weekly legislative forecast that informs readers about what is going to happen in South Carolina politics and policy, is provided by email to you at no charge every Friday.
- Editor and publisher: Andy Brack, 843.670.3996
- Statehouse bureau chief: Jack O’Toole
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