The Virginia State Corporation Commission is in charge of the review of the proposed $67 billion NextEra Energy-Dominion Energy merger. The chair of the SCC, Kelsey A. Bagot, was a senior attorney at NextEra Energy before her appointment in 2024.
Small world.
Bagot, who will lead the review of the proposed merger, was a senior attorney at NextEra Energy for a 20-month stretch from 2022-2024.
No conflicts for her here.
Not at all.
That our General Assembly would confirm a senior attorney from a major utility to head up our SCC is bad enough.
Worse: her appointment was the work of two Democrats, Del. Jeion Ward, D-Hampton, and Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Charlottesville, who were given the task of coming up with nominees to fill two open seats on the SCC in the 2024 legislative session.
The other opening in 2024 was filled by Sam Towell, an attorney for Smithfield Foods.
This is the corporate Democrats at their best.
Now we have Gov. Abigail Spanberger, who bent over backwards to protect billions in tax breaks for data center operators in the recent state budget negotiations, pretending to want to intervene on our behalf in the SCC review of the Big Utility merger.
It’s all kayfabe, ladies and germs.
Done deal.
ICYMI: NextEra-Dominion merger
- Spanberger takes step to intervene in Dominion Energy-NextEra Energy merger
- State legislators ask Spanberger to call special session on Dominion-NextEra merger
- NextEra, Dominion file paperwork on proposed merger, getting SCC review clock ticking
- NextEra Energy wants to buy Dominion Energy: This one’s about data centers, AI
- Word for the good guys who oppose the Next Era-Dominion merger: Good luck
- Virginia groups pushing for changes to laws governing utility mergers
- Ghazala Hashmi takes leadership role on state review of proposed NextEra-Dominion merger