Henrico County residents speak up during SCC's NextEra-Dominion hearing

Nov. 12 is the last day to submit written comments before the Virginia State Corporation Commission closes public comment on the proposed Dominion-NextEra merger.

At the last public hearing on the topic Nov. 5, eight Henrico County residents spoke up. As of the time of the hearing, 2,400 written comments had been submitted.

The proposed Dominion-NextEra merger would create the largest regulated utility in the world with 10 million customers, 110 gigawatts of power, and a connection queue of 130 GW.

The crux of what the three commissioners will have to consider when making their determination on this merger is whether “adequate service to the public at just and reasonable rates will not be impaired or jeopardized” by the combining of the two companies, according to reporting by the Virginia Mercury. SCC staff recommended against the commissioners approving the deal.

The evidentiary portion of the case is set to begin on Nov. 17. The SCC commissioners have until Jan. 11 to make their determination about whether the merger should be approved. 

At the public hearing by the SCC in Richmond last week, leaders of several business groups spoke in favor of the merger, but the majority of the 100-plus attendees were opposed. They cited issues such as potential conflict of interests regarding executive payouts and concerns that the merger would create a massive monopoly whose decisions would be made outside Virginia, potentially leading to higher transmission rates.

Before the hearing, the Stop NextEra Coalition (a coalition of faith, local community and environmental organizations statewide) held a protest. Faith leaders spoke about their concerns on the impact that their congregations are seeing with their bills on a daily and weekly basis.

“They're having folks reach out to them to say, ‘We are not able to make ends meet and looking for assistance, it's a day-to-day struggle for people,” said Melissa Thomas, co-director of the Stop NextEra Coalition and a Henrico County resident. “Because of the heavy saturation of data centers in Virginia, we're ground zero for what are the costs when a transmission line needs to be built out, to get energy to a data center, and who are the communities that are impacted that, or gas pipelines and gas plants, etc. We’re expecting elected leaders in the State Corporation Commission to protect Virginians.”

Speaker Leah Jones works at Community Climate Collaborative, which focuses on energy, energy affordability and accessibility. She testified because her organization has seen many people who are already struggling with energy costs across the area.

"We see how energy adds on to that weight in a serious way, especially our Black and brown neighborhoods, renters, other lower-income communities, are being impacted the most by this, especially because these are the groups who are most likely staying in homes that are less energy efficient, which also makes their bills skyrocket even higher," Jones said.

In Eastern Henrico, she sees this in her own neighborhood, where housing is a lot older.

"My bills spike out of nowhere, and also gradually. My bill has always been high, and it's continuing to go through the roof, more so now," Jones said. "Many of us feel the same when we receive our energy bill. I feel a pit in my stomach giving away all my money."

Here is Jones' testimony along with the other Henrico County residents who spoke at the Nov. 5 hearing.

Leah Jones: “We are deeply concerned that NextEra’s acquisition of Dominion will be accompanied by rate increases as NextEra continues to expand infrastructure and capacity. Florida Power and Light customers have experienced annual rate increases since 2022 and were ahead late last year with a $6.9 billion rate hike. Virginia is already dealing with rapidly increasing electricity rates. C3's 2020-2025 energy burden study actually found that nearly one-third of all Richmond households have high energy burden, and that one in five households in our city pay more than 10% of their income on utility bills right now. Virginia ranks sixth in the U.S. for electricity disconnections due to non-payment. Sixth, where would we rank if the acquisition proceeds? Every rate increase, every dollar more on someone's electricity bill has real material impacts on people's lives. It means a family being evicted because they had to make the impossible choice to keep the lights on rather than paying their rent that month. It means a beloved neighborhood church or community center shutting down stores because they can't afford to renovate, and their bills keep increasing. It means people being hospitalized for heat stroke because they can't afford to keep their AC on during the summer months. These are not hypotheticals. This is the reality that we are living in right now. I ask you to oppose this motion.”

Dean Gordon, East Highland Park resident: “I'm asking the commission to reject the merger. First of all, [I am concerned about] control. Next-Era would own about three quarters of the of the new company. Virginia's utility would answer to a board in Florida, had very much a minority position for members on the board. [My] next [area of concern] would be the risk. NextEra runs hundreds of separate business ventures, and many are far riskier than a regulated utility. The lieutenant governor has pointed out that NextEra has refused to promise limits on future acquisitions. Virginia families should not be on the hook for someone else's project. Fourth, the bill credits, they sound generous, but at $10 a month, it's $10 a month, and they end after four years. Rate increases don't end. Dominion just asked for another one. I also want to refer to the senator's comments earlier today, where he says it's really about data centers, powering data centers, which will benefit shareholders. We shouldn't be on the hook for a shareholder value. If shareholders are going to benefit, they should shoulder more of the burden. So, my request is to reject this deal, and if you can, then or won't, then please require binding protections for ratepayers, a firewall from next year's other businesses, and more time for a real review.”

 Sarah Woodhouse: “I was born and raised in Virginia and lived here have lived here for most of my 68 years. I'm here today to let you know that Virginians strongly oppose this merger. Since first becoming aware of it myself several months ago, I have talked to dozens and dozens of Virginians about this merger, and they understand exactly what this merger would mean for Virginia. They have seen acquisitions before. They know that good jobs will be lost and that our electric bills will go up. They see that NextEra is coming here to prey on them, they understand that this is a literal power grab. That NextEra sees the increase in demand for electricity in Virginia as an opportunity for them to enrich themselves and their shareholders at the expense of ratepayers. We see this for what it is: the unethical and immoral behavior of a monopoly that wants to continue to expand its power and choke off competition in Virginia and well beyond. In addition to job loss and higher electric bills for the rest of all of our lives, there are a lot of other reasons that Virginians like myself oppose this merger. We don't want to have our power controlled by an enormous out-of-state monopoly. We don't like the many and serious allegations of corruption by NextEra. We don't like that NextEra has backed away from their clean energy commitments, and we don't like that they have some of the highest profit rates in the country. It is my understanding that your job in deciding whether or not to allow this merger is to determine whether adequate service at just and reasonable rates will be impaired or jeopardized. It seems quite obvious that this merger will not only jeopardize service at just and reasonable rates; it will, in fact, guarantee the loss of service at just and reasonable rates.”

J. Thomas Brown: “I've been household ratepayer since 1996 in Henrico County. I have two concerns that have led to my opposing the merger. The first is greed, corporate greed. NextEra is 86% owned by institutional shareholders, such as BlackRock, the Vanguard Group, State Street Corporation, J.P. Morgan Asset Management, Geo Capital Management and many others. These owners or shareholders know how to make profit, but they know nothing about running a utility company. The general rule of mergers and acquisitions is to downsize by laying off and selling off duplicates that are, as they say, not cost effective. They want to maximize profit by raising your rates. The $10 teaser off our electric bills just doesn't cut it. And the second point I'd like to make, I'd like to ask you, Judge Babbitt, to recuse yourself from voting because you were employed by Next Era only a few years ago on the legal team. So I don't think you should be allowed to cast a vote.”

Rafael Dietch, Henrico County resident entrepreneur and infrastructure executive for over 25 years in the power and telecom industry: “As you evaluate this proposed merger, I respectfully ask you to continue not only the impact on ratepayers, but also the potential consequences for small businesses in Virginia. Large utilities often rely on smaller companies to build, maintain, and support critical infrastructure. Yet the financial imbalance between these organizations can be enormous. Financial decisions that may be insignificant for a multi-billion-dollar corporation can have devastating consequences for most small businesses, trying to get jobs, families, and local communities. I respectfully urge the commission to consider appropriate safeguards for small businesses in Virginia, including fair labor practices, independent dispute resolutions, protection against disproportionate financial actions and meaningful corporate oversight. As a small business owner, I believe that Virginia should welcome investment, but corporate growth must come with responsibility. A utility's strength should be measured not only by its financial performance, but also by how responsibly it treats small businesses and communities to support its operation.”

Gray Montrose, Henrico County resident and Dominion ratepayer: “I am asking the commissioners to reject this merger. For myself and for her [gestures to her baby in a carrier.] I am a person with asthma. There are days I struggle to breathe easily without medical help. I live in an environmental justice community, where we have had environmental problem after environmental problem, pollution and polluters operating with impunity because we’re business friendly, not people-friendly (unless you mean shareholders). When my county leadership started embracing data centers, I spoke to them about my concerns. A sitting Henrico supervisor told me, to my face, “They’re over there, that doesn’t affect anybody. And if we don’t get them here, they’ll go somewhere else.” Well, over there is my home. Anybody is me. And I’d much rather the data centers go somewhere else, or better yet, not be built at all because I don’t see that there’s much of a return to my community on a big, ugly box that blows diesel fumes, contaminates our water, and might be worthless tomorrow if the AI bubble crashes. This merger is about data centers. The power demand from data centers is worth a lot of money. And I’m tired of waiting for all that money to trickle down to me. You can’t tell me my bill will go down. Because that doesn’t make shareholders money. You can’t tell me there will be meaningful oversight, because all I see is this commission approving higher and higher profits. I’m tired of being trapped, forced to pay for someone else’s profits or physically suffer the heat and the cold, and physically suffer, because of the pollution forced on my community by power generation and the data centers fueling demand. NextEra sees us as a market opportunity. My opinion of this characterization is perhaps best represented by an eggplant emoji. I ask this commission to remember their duty to Virginians and reject this merger because I am not an ATM.”

Preston Tally, Let's Make It Happen Foundation: “I'm here today because of I believe the situation we deal with here is beyond imaginable, and it's not about the fact that should the merger happen, it shouldn't happen at this time. And the reason is because God only knows I'm gonna be a senior one day. I haven't seen nothing for senior citizens in this whole discussion throughout the whole course of this. On top of that, I'm dealing with a live situation where grandmother seniors are being overcharged on bills. There are so many fees in the in the bill structure. If we, as normal people, can't see or understand the bill, how do you expect seniors to understand the bill? Seniors earn a fixed income. I'm against the merger. The merger shouldn't happen. It cannot happen.”

Dina Weinstein is the Citizen’s community vitality reporter and a Report for America corps member, covering housing, health and transportation. Support her work and articles like this one by making a contribution to the Citizen.