By Peter Key

FERC last week authorized Dominion Energy’s proposed acquisition of SCANA and its South Carolina Electric & Gas subsidiary, saying the transaction was consistent with the public interest (EC18-60).

“We are pleased by the FERC’s considered and timely action,” Dominion Energy CEO Thomas Farrell II said in a statement. “We will continue working toward achieving the other required regulatory approvals and completing our transaction by the end of this year.”

The deal has been approved by the Georgia Public Service Commission and federal antitrust regulators. It still requires approval by SCANA shareholders, the North Carolina and South Carolina public service commissions, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Dominion offered to buy SCANA on Jan. 3 for $7.9 billion in stock and the assumption of $6.7 billion in SCANA debt. (See Dominion to Buy Distressed SCANA for $8B.) SCANA became an acquisition target after its failed attempt to add two reactors to the V.C. Summer nuclear plant. The company and its partner on the project, Santee Cooper, which is owned by the state of South Carolina, spent $9 billion on the expansion before pulling the plug on it last summer.

The decision created a firestorm in South Carolina, where SCE&G and Santee Cooper ratepayers have been shouldering the project’s cost. The state late last month enacted a law directing the Public Service Commission to cut SCE&G’s rates by an amount that would cover nearly all the portion of the rates that go to covering the failed nuclear project’s cost. SCE&G responded with a lawsuit challenging the law’s constitutionality in federal court.

SCE&G has been sued by its customers over the project, which is being investigated by the FBI, the South Carolina State Law Enforcement Division and the Securities and Exchange Commission, none of which has filed any charges.

SCANA said Friday it has added two independent directors to its board and appointed them to a Special Litigation Committee charged with investigating claims alleged against some of its current and former directors in shareholder lawsuits against it in federal and South Carolina courts.