Virginia Legislature Bucks Governor’s Amendments to Dominion-Backed Bills

The Virginia Legislature has passed bills, now on Governor Abigail Spanberger's desk, that would assign specific electric grid upgrade costs to data centers and enable Dominion Energy to spend $900,000 per mile burying local distribution lines. These bills, championed by Senate President Pro Tempore Louise Lucas and Del. Destiny LeVere Bolling, both recipients of Dominion campaign contributions, aim to make data centers pay a "fair share" for their significant load growth on the grid. Governor Spanberger had proposed several amendments to these bills, seeking additional ratepayer protections, such as giving the State Corporation Commission (SCC) sole discretion over the prudence of undergrounding projects and limiting Dominion’s annual expenditure increases on the program. She also sought to raise the threshold for companies to opt out of the data center provisions and ensure costs for data center generation and distribution were not borne by other customers. However, the legislature rejected these amendments. According to the State Corporation Commission, the passed legislation would save a typical residential customer $5.52 monthly (a 3.4% reduction) while increasing data center customer bills by 15%. This has sparked considerable opposition from the data center industry; the Data Center Coalition argued that the cost assignment circumvents traditional ratemaking processes and suggested the industry could build its own substation infrastructure. Meanwhile, ratepayer advocates like Dana Wiggins of the Virginia Poverty Law Center expressed concern that the undergrounding program would add a $4.88 monthly fee to residential bills without sufficient analysis of its necessity. Brennan Gilmore, executive director of Clean Virginia, criticized the General Assembly for failing to adequately protect ratepayers, urging the governor to veto the legislation. Governor Spanberger now faces a 30-day window to either sign or veto the bills. Her decision is complicated by the legislature’s rejection of her amendments and ongoing budget negotiations, making the ultimate outcome for data center and residential electricity costs uncertain.