State lawmakers have done what some consider the unthinkable.
They rejected last week the recommendations they paid $9.2 million to get.
The House Ad-Hoc Santee Cooper Committee voted unanimously to reject all 3 bids for Santee Cooper.
 They rejected NextEra Energy’s bid to buy the taxpayer-owned utility that is almost $8 billion in debt.
Their other options were:
• Lexington County-based Dominion Energy’s offer to manage Santee Cooper.
• The Santee Cooper board’s own reform plan.
They decided instead to:
• Negotiate a better deal with NextEra, which owns Florida Power & Light.
• Come up with their own Santee Cooper reform plan.
The proposal came from lawyers and energy experts who were paid $9.2 million to spend months analyzing all offers and recommend the best ones.
Lawmakers had hoped they would come up with one that would not stick Santee Cooper customers with the $8 billion debt.
Lawmakers had agreed to pay up to $15 million if needed with taxpayers paying $5 million and Santee Cooper paying the rest.
But critics said NextEra’s offer would leave member owners of Mid-Carolina Electric in Lexington County and 19 other cooperatives in the state with the debt.
That meant potential rate increases similar to the $2 billion state regulators let SC Electric & Gas charge its 725,000 ratepayers for an abandoned nuclear power project it was building with Santee Cooper.
House Ways and Means Committee staff will help with guidelines to get the best deal for the state’s taxpayers and ratepayers.
Some Senators on the Senate Finance Committee were unsure if this is allowed under a law they passed last year.
Act 95 told the SC Department of Administration to collect bids for Santee Cooper and send lawmakers the best 3 bids to vote on.
Senate President Harvey Peeler, R-Cherokee, criticized the House plan.
He said he learned about it in an article written by Speaker of the House Rep. Jay Lucas, R-Darlington.