A trusted source for lawmakers

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