Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger said her unprecedented move to intervene in a utility megamerger is needed because the current proposal contains inadequate protections for utility workers and ratepayers already wary of rising energy costs.
Spanberger (D) said she is “deeply skeptical” of a plan to sell Virginia’s biggest power company, Dominion Energy, to Florida-based NextEra Energy for about $67 billion. She announced Thursday that she was formally requesting to be a party in the case before the State Corporation Commission (SCC), the regulatory body charged with reviewing the proposal.
The merger, if approved, would create the world’s largest regulated utility at a time when electricity providers are racing to meet skyrocketing demand from data centers and the AI boom. Virginia is home to the largest concentration of data centers, but voters and state lawmakers have soured on the centers amid concerns about the economic and environmental cost.
As a party in the case, Spanberger will be able to request additional information on the proposal from the companies and participate in any discussions surrounding the approval process. While Spanberger said it is not her intention to infringe on the commission’s authority, she left open the possibility of future legal action.
“Because I’m intervening in the case, I do have the ability to take legal action once there’s a decision made,” Spanberger told reporters. “But the first step in that potential, down the line, is being a party in the case.”
Ari Peskoe, director of the Electricity Law Initiative at Harvard Law School, said the particular independence of Virginia’s State Corporation Commission, compared with other states, gives Spanberger less power to influence the merger. Unlike the majority of other states, where governors can hire and fire such commissioners, Peskoe said, in Virginia commissioners are elected by the General Assembly.
“Certainly there’s no legal obligation, or other pressure, on the commissioners to give the governor’s views any more weight than other parties that will participate here,” Peskoe said.
The chair of the corporation commission, Kelsey A. Bagot, previously served as a senior attorney at NextEra Energy, according to her official biography. Opponents of the merger have called on her to recuse herself from considering the deal. A commission spokesperson said no decision has been made.
Dominion and NextEra have touted the merger as a win, both for the companies and consumers in Virginia. They said the corporation commission is the right venue for weighing their proposal.
The commission “is the appropriate forum to evaluate this transaction and balance the interests of the Commonwealth, and we are confident its established, fact-based review will demonstrate the benefits this proposal offers Virginia,” Dominion Energy chief executive Robert M. Blue said in a statement. “We welcome the Governor’s participation in the regulatory process and agree with her priorities of affordability, protecting Virginia jobs and supporting the Commonwealth’s energy future.”
In a statement, Neil Nissan, a spokesperson for NextEra, said that while the company respects the governor’s decision to participate in the regulatory review, the state’s authority over the utility and rates will remain unchanged.
“What changes is the strength of the platform behind Dominion Energy Virginia: greater scale, greater purchasing power and a lower cost of capital — structural advantages that put sustained downward pressure on the cost of serving Virginia customers over the long term,” Nissan said.
Peskoe said that while the benefits to the companies are obvious, he believes the advantages for the state are less clear.
“The question is: Does anyone in Virginia benefit from this other than Dominion shareholders?” Peskoe said. “When the utility has multiple territories — it’ll be four states here for NextEra — they have options. They can choose to invest where it makes sense for them for their bottom line. If you’re a one-state utility, you don’t have that choice.”
Spanberger said her efforts are aimed at ensuring that any deal maintains affordable energy prices, job protections for utility workers and commitments to investing in new energy sources — which she termed her “nonnegotiable priorities.”
“I believe it is extraordinarily important to be a party to the case, to intervene in this case, so I can have a voice on behalf of Virginians, asking questions, ensuring that I’m getting answers, and, importantly, putting forth priorities that I know to be important for the people of Virginia,” Spanberger told reporters Thursday, after announcing the move in a Washington Post op-ed.
Dominion and NextEra filed the merger application with regulators on July 15, and regulators have a maximum of 180 days to issue a ruling or else the proposal would be approved by default.
Several state lawmakers have said more time is needed to properly review such a momentous case and urged Spanberger to call a special General Assembly session to extend the deadline for regulators to make a decision.
Del. Joseph P. McNamara (R-Roanoke) knocked Spanberger’s intervention as “political showmanship,” saying it won’t be enough to address all lawmakers’ concerns.
“If Gov. Spanberger truly wanted to protect Virginia ratepayers, she would heed our request and bring the legislature into session and make the necessary changes to allow the SCC sufficient time to evaluate the benefits, or lack thereof, of the proposed merger,” McNamara said in an interview Thursday.
Democratic state Sen. Russet Perry (Loudoun) said that while it would be useful to have Spanberger’s voice at the negotiating table, “the Governor’s intervention doesn’t address the fundamental issues before us.”
“Intervention and extending the review are not mutually exclusive. We can do both,” said Perry, whose Northern Virginia district overlaps with “Data Center Alley,” the densest concentration of the facilities in the state. “More time means more questions can be asked, more evidence can be reviewed, and ultimately, a better-informed decision can be made.”
Lt. Gov. Ghazala Hashmi (D) has also called for extending the review period, saying in a statement Thursday that “Virginia’s current review timeline was not designed for an acquisition of this magnitude.”
Spanberger said her priority “is not drawing out a time frame wherein I have no ability to impact an outcome, or provide feedback, or ask questions. My priority is in ensuring that I can be part of that conversation, which is why I’m intervening.”
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