Virginia Lt. Gov. Ghazala Hashmi will host her final meeting next week in Roanoke to discuss the purchase of Richmond-based utility Dominion Energy by Florida-based NextEra Energy.
Hashmi, who scheduled five total sessions for her “Energy Costs Listening Tour,” has already held meetings in Loudoun, Norfolk, Richmond, and Charlottesville.
Opponents of the merger want to slow down the process, which could wrap up as soon as January.
“Hashmi has called for a more thorough review process, including additional time for legislative oversight, to help ensure this decision is made transparently and with Virginia families—not out-of-state interests—at the forefront,” a website set up to promote the tour states.
NextEra is offering $67 billion to buy out Dominion, which would be the largest utility merger in American history.
After the terms of the deal were announced, Hashmi sent a letter to the State Corporation Commission requesting that it ask Dominion and NextEra executives for the answers to 64 questions before the commission could sign off on the proposed merger. The commission, which oversees utilities and must sign off on any deal, will also hear public witness testimony beginning on Nov. 5.
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This week the companies offered to sweeten the deal for Virginia ratepayers, promising that the merger would create 1,000 new jobs in the commonwealth, deliver a $10 monthly residential bill credit for the first four years, and invest in a $100 million workforce development fund. Shareholders of both companies had signed off on the agreement before this announcement.
“This package would help Virginia build more of the clean energy and infrastructure it needs faster, so the Commonwealth can reduce its reliance on expensive imported power,” NextEra Energy President John Ketchum said. “It would do that while positioning Virginia as a major energy leader.”
Dominion told investors this week, “We are also reaffirming our support for the State Corporation Commission, Governor and General Assembly’s efforts to protect residential and small business customers from costs associated with serving data centers.”
The company added that after the merger it would “remain locally led, separately regulated, and accountable to the State Corporation Commission.”
Gov. Abigail Spanberger has also told the commission that she wants to be involved in the approval process.
“I remain skeptical of the benefits this merger would deliver to Virginia—particularly if those benefits come at the expense of affordability, existing jobs, or meeting our homegrown clean energy goals,” she said last month. Virgina’s governor said her three priorities will be reducing energy bills, “protecting Virginia’s utility workforce, and accelerating Virginia’s progress toward producing affordable, reliable, local, and clean power into the future.”
However, while she said this month that she supports a “thorough and comprehensive review” of the deal, she will not recall lawmakers to consider it. “The General Assembly is currently in a special session and can choose to come together at this time,” she said.
The office of lieutenant governor of Virginia is not usually a high-profile role, but Hashmi has written that she thinks that her “foremost duty is to advocate for the economic well-being and long-term interests of the citizens of the Commonwealth.” That is why, she said, she is playing a lead role in this proposed merger.
The lieutenant governor is first in the line of succession if the governor should pass away or resign, but that hasn’t happened in the modern era. Two sitting lieutenant governors, Tim Kaine in 2006 and Ralph Northam in 2018, ran for governor this century and won. Hashmi may be bidding to follow Spanberger in 2029.
Just last year, then-Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears fell short in her bid for the top job. She is currently back on the campaign trail encouraging Virginians to vote “no” on three constitutional amendments, including Proposed Constitutional Amendment, Question 1, which would enshrine the right to an abortion into the state constitution.
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