Commerce asks legislature for $150 million to cover Scout Motors site overruns

Secretary Harry Leitzy of the South Carolina Department of Commerce told the budget committee that the department is asking the General Assembly for $150,000,000 in nonrecurring funds to cover cost overruns tied to delivering a pad‑ready site for the Scout Motors project.

Leitzy said the money would not go to Scout Motors but to contractors and vendors who performed work to make the site ready. “This is not additional money for Scout Motors. This is going in to pay for the state's obligation to deliver a pad ready site to Scout,” he said. “Scout will not be receiving any of these monies; these are all going to go to contractors and others that have been working to make the site ready for Scout to occupy.”

The department provided a numeric breakdown of roughly $150 million in excess costs: about $72 million for additional wetlands and stream mitigation (including a roughly five‑month pause that increased holding and mobilization costs); $17 million required for permanent dams at the direction of environmental regulators; about $43 million attributed to roadwork and contract inflation; and roughly $18 million for out‑of‑sequence acceleration costs after permit delays.

Committee members pressed Commerce on alternatives if the appropriation is not approved. Representative Weeks asked where the money would come from if the legislature declined the full request; Leitzy responded that most Commerce funds are already committed to projects and that unpaid contractor invoices would be left unpaid or require diverting recurring funds for years to come. He said the department has met frequently with partner agencies and designated a contact at the Army Corps of Engineers to improve coordination and avoid similar delays on future projects.

Leitzy also emphasized public benefits from the work: he said Richland County will retain ownership of the larger site, that road and interchange work will serve the broader Blythewood area, and that mitigation purchases have added about 5,000 acres along the Congaree and Broad rivers to public ownership that could be used as a state park in the future.

The request remains a recommendation to the General Assembly; committee members did not take a final vote during the hearing. The department said it has identified the amounts for many contracts and that some work will continue into 2026 and 2027 as remaining road and mitigation work proceeds.