As used in this chapter:

(1) "Cost", with respect to a project, means:

(a) all costs of planning, designing, constructing, and financing the project, including fees for professional services, costs of insurance, and costs for principal and interest, during planning, designing, and construction and for up to one year after completion of construction;

(b) all costs associated with establishing necessary or desirable reserves in connection with a project; and

(c) other expenditures of the joint agency incidental, necessary, or convenient to the acquisition, construction, implementation, reconstruction, improvement, enlargement, or extension of a project.

If a project does not involve the acquisition or construction of a facility, "cost" includes all costs of the undertaking or funding of the undertaking. In either case, "cost" may include those administrative expenses a joint agency considers appropriate.

(2) "Governing body" means the duly constituted governing body of a governmental entity.

(3) "Governmental entity" means a special purpose district created by the General Assembly of this State for the principal purpose of furnishing natural gas to the residents, businesses, and industries of the service area as defined in and fully described in the act of the General Assembly that created and established the special purpose district, and in amendments to that act.

(4) "Joint agency" means a public body and body corporate and politic organized in accordance with the provisions of this chapter.

(5) "Member" of a joint agency means each of those governmental entities which have agreed to create a joint agency to undertake the ownership, operation, maintenance, financing, or contractual use of a project.

(6) "Project", "undertaking", or " facility" means a project or other undertaking pursued by a joint agency for a purpose that is a public and corporate purpose of a member of a joint agency and also means any plant, works, system, facility, and real and personal property of any kind, together with all parts of it and appurtenances to it, and any contract rights, relating to the storage, acquisition, exploration, production, distribution, enrichment, transmission, purchase, sale, exchange, or interchange of gas and relating to the acquisition, extraction, conversion, transportation, storage, or reprocessing of fuel of any kind for those purposes, or any interest in, or right to the use, services, enrichment, output, or capacity of the plant, works, system, or facilities. "Project" or "undertaking" is intended to include contracts and contract rights as well as tangible property.

(7) "State" means the State of South Carolina.

HISTORY: 2003 Act No. 8, Section 2, eff April 21, 2003.