What Lexington County needs is inexpensive competition between all utilities including power and water.
What we have is an expensive regulated monopoly system that holds us captive to the utilities,drives our costs up and encourages them to take on costly projects we must pay for.
We did a little digging and found that monopoly regulation comes with a staggering price – more than $21 million a year.
 Regulating public utilities such as Dominion Energy and Blue Granite Water costs the taxpayers nothing. That’s the good news. But for ratepayers it is nothing but bad news.
The costs of the Public Service Commission and Office of Regulatory Staff are covered by fees paid by the utilities.
But as operating costs, the utilities pass these along in customer rates, according to Comptroller Richard Eckstrom.
The Public Service Commission costs ratepayers $5.6 million a year. $985,000 of that is in such operating expenses as rent, lights, water and phones.
The other $4.6 million pays for salaries, bonuses and benefits including:
• A $131,393 salary for Chairman Randy Randall.
• $129,449 each for the 6 other commissioners.
• $129,646 for Executive Director Jocelyn Boyd.
The other regulatory arm, the Office of Regulatory Staff, operates on ratepayer paid fees, too.
ORS operating costs total $15,466,839 a year.
Executive Director Nanette Edwards receives $178,619 a year, according to her office.
Small Business Chamber CEO Frank Knapp asked how these costs compare to other states? 
Energy expert Jim Clarkson calls the biggest cost the lack of competition and giving utilities incentives to tackle SC Electric & Gas’s failed $9 billion twin nuclear power project.
Tom Clements, an intervenor in the nuclear rate cases, said, “The worst part of these charges to Dominion customers is that they don’t even get what they paid for – proper, unbiased regulation of the utility.”
– JerryBellune@ yahoo.com