RICHMOND — Virginia’s State Corporation Commission is taking telephone testimony from the public this afternoon on the proposed $67 billion merger of Dominion Energy and NextEra Energy, the first of two evenings of calls before written comments close Thursday and the evidentiary hearing opens Nov. 17. The session runs from 4 to 7 p.m., with the same hours scheduled Tuesday, in case PUR-2026-00112. Each witness who registered by the Nov. 2 deadline gets five minutes.
The commission has until Jan. 11 to decide whether the deal can go forward. Its standard under the Utility Transfers Act is whether “adequate service to the public at just and reasonable rates will not be impaired or jeopardized.” Regulators in North Carolina and South Carolina, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and federal antitrust officials also have to approve it before it can close, the Virginia Mercury reported.
What the companies are offering
Under the latest filing, described by the Mercury, the combined company would be the largest regulated utility in the world, with about 10 million customers and 110 gigawatts of power. NextEra shareholders would own 74.5 percent of the company and Dominion shareholders 25.5 percent. The companies have offered a bill credit worth about $10 a month for the average residential customer for four years, five years of job protection for Dominion employees, a new office building in downtown Richmond and up to $200 million in workforce development and weatherization programs. Their first proposal, filed in July, offered two years of credits and extended them to the large data-center customers in Dominion’s GS-5 rate class; the revised version redirects those savings to residential customers.
Dominion has said it would remain a separate utility subject to Virginia law, including the Virginia Clean Economy Act. Dominion’s vice president of corporate affairs, Bill Murray, said in a July interview with the Mercury that combining would give the utilities more buying power for new infrastructure. “It’s not a matter of we threw our hands up and said ‘we can’t do this, somebody, please, merge with us,’” he said. Financing the build-out together, at a one-notch credit rating upgrade, would be “a benefit to customers,” he said. Dominion CEO Bob Blue wrote in testimony that the companies believed their original allocation of credits was fair and reasonable but offered the change to ease concerns.
Supporters testified at the Nov. 5 in-person hearing in Richmond. Virginia Chamber of Commerce president Brad Hall pointed to the credits and said the combined company’s capital would pay for generation that would help customers over time.
Staff and the governor’s office ask for more
The commission’s own staff recommended against approval as filed. “The Merger Commitments and Supplemental Merger Commitments of the Petitioners are not sufficient to ensure that (Dominion) will maintain the resources to provide adequate service to its customers post-Merger,” staff testimony said, citing risk from NextEra’s unregulated, competitive business. Staff proposed more than 100 conditions, including that Dominion’s president remain a Virginia resident, that the company keep separate bank accounts and financing arrangements and that NextEra Energy Transmission be barred from owning future transmission projects in Dominion’s zone of the PJM grid. In rebuttal testimony this week, the companies accepted some of the conditions and rejected others, including a rate freeze and some of the ring-fencing plans, the Mercury reported.
Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s administration filed expert testimony calling for larger protections. Her witnesses recommended a bill credit of $29 a month, a six-year base-rate freeze, a financially walled-off subsidiary to build carbon-free generation for large data centers and executive pay tied to affordability and clean energy goals. “A $10 monthly bill credit does not provide much confidence when Dominion has already petitioned the Commission to recover more than $10 per month in fuel-related costs this year alone,” said Robert McCann, testifying for the governor. Lt. Gov. Ghazala Hashmi formally opposed the merger last month after a statewide listening tour. Amazon and Google are intervenors; Amazon’s witness said Dominion’s large-load interconnection process “is not keeping pace with demand.”
The public record so far
At the Nov. 5 session, commissioners heard from supporters and opponents. State Sen. Kannan Srinivasan, D-Loudoun, called the case “perhaps the most consequential decision this commission will make, in a generation.” Chesterfield County supervisor Jessica Schneider told commissioners that “people are struggling to make ends meet right now as it is.” Commissioner Samuel Towell said about 2,400 written comments had been filed by then, according to the Mercury.
Questions about the commission’s own makeup have followed the case. Chairwoman Kelsey Bagot worked as an attorney for NextEra for two years before her 2024 appointment. After Sen. Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax, asked in an Aug. 12 letter about her participation, Bagot declined to recuse herself, saying she consulted legal counsel and concluded that her involvement did not violate the Canons of Judicial Conduct, and that “mere work history with a regulated entity has not served as a categorical basis requiring recusal.”
Attorney General Jay Jones has asked the commission to restart its six-month clock after the revised proposal was filed; the commission had not ruled on that request as of the Mercury’s Nov. 5 report. Lawmakers’ requests to extend the review period through a special session were declined by the governor, who said she had already acted by intervening in the case.
What comes next
Written comments can be filed on the SCC website through Nov. 12. The second evening of telephone testimony is Tuesday, Nov. 10, and the evidentiary hearing begins Tuesday, Nov. 17 at 10 a.m. The commission’s Jan. 11 decision date stands unless it is changed.
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