Gov. Abigail Spanberger was on Fox5 DC on Sunday to discuss her decision to intervene in the proposed $67 billion merger between Florida-based NextEra Energy and Dominion Energy.
Funny thing: Fox5 DC had me on their “DMV Zone” afternoon news show a couple of weeks ago to discuss how, at the time, it had seemed that Spanberger was dawdling on whether to intervene in the NextEra-Dominion merger.
Small world.
“As governor of the Commonwealth, I want to make sure that I can have a voice at the table on behalf of the millions of Virginians who I serve, principally on three major priorities,” Spanberger told Fox5 DC’s “On the Hill” on Sunday.
On Thursday, the governor announced in an op-ed published in the Washington Post that she had taken the legal step of formally requesting to be a formal party to the case.
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“This action will allow my administration to have the legal right to engage, bring concerns forward, request detailed information about the proposed merger, and make clear that Virginians expect to see long-term, tangible benefits of any potential deal,” Spanberger wrote in the op-ed.
NextEra and Dominion formally filed applications seeking regulatory approval of their proposed $67 billion merger with the State Corporation Commission last month starting the clock – and it’s a quick one – on the state review.
State law gives the SCC 60 days to review the applications, though the commission can move to extend that time frame by an additional 120 days.
A pair of state legislators have formally asked Spanberger to call a special session that would give the Virginia General Assembly the ability to extend the timeframe for reviewing the proposed merger.
Spanberger didn’t address that issue in her WaPo op-ed, or in her Fox5 DC sit-down.
She was asked to weigh in on a related issue – a recent order by the SCC, following urging by her administration, to assign the cost of transmission infrastructure built exclusively for data centers to those facilities.
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It’s like we’re twinsies, me and the governor.
Last time I was on “DMV Zone,” I was introduced as “founder and editor of Augusta Free Press and friend of the ‘DMV Zone.’”
I wonder if the governor got introduced as, you know, “a friend of.”
That could be something for her to shoot for.
What she had to say on the data centers matter:
I filed comments with the SCC related to a rate case, and ultimately, the SCC’s final decision was aligned with what I was pushing for — which is that data centers have to pay for any transmission costs that need to go in to support their businesses. It should no longer be customers and Virginia families throughout communities that have to pay for increased or changes in transmission infrastructure to accommodate a data center. Now, it will be the data center end user that has to pay for those transmission costs, not the people in a surrounding community. So that’s a huge success. Ultimately, it will save Virginians hundreds of millions of dollars in the long run.
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Chris Graham
