WASHINGTON — Five Virginia House Democrats, including Reps. Don Beyer, Suhas Subramanyam, Eugene Vindman and James Walkinshaw from the Washington suburbs, asked Virginia’s State Corporation Commission on Thursday to reject NextEra Energy’s proposed takeover of Dominion Energy in its current form, saying the deal would raise electric rates for decades.
“As proposed, we do not believe the merger is in the public interest,” the members wrote in a letter filed ahead of the commission’s Nov. 12 deadline for written comments. Rep. Jennifer McClellan of Richmond also signed, Beyer’s office said.
Supporters say the deal would bring customers relief and new investment. At a Nov. 5 public hearing, Virginia Chamber of Commerce President Brad Hall pointed to the four years of $10 monthly bill credits the companies have offered. “I believe these two companies coming together with a capital buying power that they’ll have, and the amount of investments that they’re gonna make into generation, which will help customers in the long run,” Hall said, the Virginia Mercury reported.
The $67 billion deal would create the world’s largest regulated utility, with 10 million customers and 110 gigawatts of power, the Mercury reported. The commission’s evidentiary hearing begins Nov. 17 in Richmond, and the three commissioners must rule by Jan. 11.
What the members want
Under Virginia’s Utility Transfers Act, the commission may approve a change of control only if it is satisfied that “adequate service to the public at just and reasonable rates will not be impaired or jeopardized.” The members wrote that the companies’ petition “fails this statutory test.”
Their main concern is data centers. NextEra’s investor materials stress the “multi-decade capital deployment opportunities” in Dominion’s territory, driven by Northern Virginia’s data centers, the letter says. Because transmission costs are shared across residential customers, the members argued, households and small businesses “will be locked into paying decades of capital carrying charges, depreciation, and an authorized Return on Equity” on a larger rate base. They also warned of stranded-asset risk if data center revenue falls short of the cost of the grid buildout.
The members called the bill credits and added money for Dominion’s EnergyShare assistance program “inadequate and only short-term.” They noted the petition contains no moratorium on base rate increases, no cap on rate adjustment clauses, known as riders, and no binding way to pass savings on to customers. They wrote that Dominion had already asked the commission this year for a $10-a-month increase for fuel costs.
At a minimum, they asked the commission to require the long-term rate protections recommended by commission staff and the larger bill credits sought by Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s office.
The letter also raises NextEra’s corporate governance and political spending. It cites what it describes as a $150 million settlement over political activity and a hearing examiner’s order to produce an internal “Robo memo,” and it argues that NextEra’s federal lobbying conflicts with the Virginia Clean Economy Act. Those are the members’ characterizations; NextEra has not addressed the letter publicly.
Where the case stands
Commission staff recommended on Oct. 19 that the merger be denied as proposed, finding the companies had not met their burden under the statute, according to the staff’s prefiled testimony in case PUR-2026-00112. Staff said it would not oppose approval if the companies accepted additional conditions, The Center Square reported. Attorney General Jay Jones’s office also filed testimony opposing the deal, and Spanberger is seeking a six-year residential base-rate freeze and larger customer credits.
In rebuttal testimony early this month, the companies agreed to some of staff’s proposed protections and rejected or altered others, the Mercury reported, including a rate and staffing freeze. By the Nov. 5 hearing, the commission had received about 2,400 written comments.
North Carolina and South Carolina regulators, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and federal antitrust officials must also sign off before the deal can close, the Mercury reported. The commission’s merger page lists the schedule and filings.
The Inquisitor reported on the commission’s Nov. 9 phone testimony in the case.
Featured photo: A Dominion Energy 230-kilovolt transmission line in Tysons, Va., January 2014. (Tonyglen14 / Flickr, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons; cropped)
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