One of our priorities at York Electric Cooperative is to be our members’ trusted source of relevant energy information. As a cooperative, we take this responsibility seriously because we aim to serve you beyond the power in your house. To carry out this goal, this relationship must also extend to those serving you and me—our lawmakers at the State House and in Washington, D.C.
Every year, South Carolina’s General Assembly, the U.S. Congress and governmental agencies consider issues that affect our members. Whether it is legislation or regulations involving energy generation, tax breaks, infrastructure funding or anything else that impacts your quality of life, we strive to make certain that cooperatives are a trusted source of reliable public policy analysis. That’s why we work closely with elected officials, ensuring that they understand and are enabled to act on the issues that are important to our members.
The cooperative model provides a strong network of resources that helps us cultivate these relationships and advocate for you. It’s a collective effort that involves our staff, trustees and our cooperative partners statewide and in the nation’s capital. Fortunately, more often than not, we see those relationships and that advocacy yield positive results for cooperative members and our state as a whole. Last year, the General Assembly passed, and our Governor signed into law, legislation that did just that.
One piece of legislation increased tax credits to entities, such as YEC, that are engaged in infrastructure and development projects. This helped us invest in projects such as our new commercial and industrial business park on Hwy. 321 in York and continue site-readiness work to attract industry to our area. This economic activity can have a positive impact on those living here locally and it can help lower the overall price of power for YEC members, making our systems’ use of generation resources more efficient.
Legislators’ understanding of how we operate and educate our employees was crucial in a driver training bill that passed last session. It allows our statewide association, which provides much of the training to our workforce, to offer entry level driver training now required to obtain a Commercial Driver’s License (CDL). Without this allowance, cooperatives would be forced to absorb an added and unnecessary expense.
We’re thankful for our elected officials and the relationships we have with them. We’re encouraged when they seek our expertise on energy-related issues and trust our input when bills that matter to us are being considered.
With a new legislative session just beginning, we’ll continue to serve as a trusted source for you and for our elected leaders, standing by our mission to always look out for you.
The East York Industrial Park was York Electric Cooperative’s first large economic development project that began after many textile industries left our area. Providing enticing locations for industrial customers to land not only helps bring quality jobs to our community, but it also helps keep power costs low for all members.
Sincerely,
Paul Basha
President and Chief Executive Officer