SC Electric & Gas will have to give up critical, long-hidden documents.
The Office of Regulatory Staff revealed that the Public Service Commission’s hearing officer issued a directive to remove SCE&G’s confidential designations.
He ordered the utility to disgorge all documents related to the Bechtel Report no later than Oct. 22.
In other disclosures, it was learned that SCE&G’s owner, executives of Lexington County-based SCANA, 3 years ago discovered a million-dollar bid-rigging scheme by a Lexington bidder but failed to report it to state and federal law enforcement officials.
SCANA executives hid the scheme to avoid negative publicity about its failing nuclear project, avoiding disclosure to regulators and the public, a Charleston Post and Courier source said.
The bidder admitted he had submitted fictitious higher bids to win contracts, the newspaper reported.
The alleged fraud highlights the secrecy that SCANA’s leaders cloaked the failed $9 billion project in over the past decade, the Post and Courier said. 
The Chronicle has left an invitation for the bidder to give his side of the story on his company voicemail.
The previously undisclosed episode has come to light amid continued debate about why the project failed and who is responsible. 
In ordering further disclosure from SCE&G, the PSC hearing officer wrote that SCE&G’s response about the critical Bechtel Report “continue to be troubling.”
ORS, which represents the public and utility ratepayers said SCE&G agreed to “produce documents that provide the full account of the Bechtel engagement and assessment.” SCE&G then failed to do so.
“It is apparent that SCE&G continues to hinder access to a number of the Bechtel documents either in confidential form or in public form,” the PSC hearing officer wrote. 
“It is time for SCE&G to live up to its pledge. SCE&G shall disgorge all documents related to the Bechtel Report to the parties in public form as soon as possible, but no later than October 22, 2018.”
The Bechtel Report was written by nuclear experts who investigated SCE&G’s project in Fairfield County and found massive construction problems including Westinghouse reactors that don’t work.
The findings were hidden from regulators and the public until SCE&G abandoned the project in 2017.