Hold Utility Companies Accountable in Virginia

The House of Delegates Labor and Commerce Subcommittee #3 is voting on HB1914 and HB2160, bills that would reform how utility customers are charged in the Commonwealth. Email your Delegate and tell them to vote in favor of HB1914 and HB2160!

I’m writing to ask you to vote in favor of HB1914 and HB2160, bills that would reform how utility customers are charged in the Commonwealth. HB1914 and HB2160 help ensure that when consumers open their utility bills, they are being charged a fair price. Virginians pay the 6th highest energy bills in the country. Seventy five percent of Virginia households have utility bills that are considered unaffordable based on federal energy burden standards.

HB1914  gives the SCC the ability to lower utility rates by getting rid of some of the roadblocks that have prevented them from doing it in the past. HB2160 would require utility companies to fully refund overcharges to customers.

HB1914:

• Eliminates the $50 million cap in rate reductions so that when Dominion overcharges consumers by $300 million, consumers have some recourse. 
• Prevents Dominion Energy from using creative accounting to avoid rate reductions by allowing SCC to set future rates based on future costs. 
• Restores the SCC’s authority to consider ratepayer interests when determining how long the recovery period will be for large costs. This prevents utility monopolies from keeping rates artificially high. 
• Ensures that the SCC can keep utility rates as low as possible while still allowing utility companies to recover their operating costs and allowed profit.

HB2160:

• Eliminates incentives for overcharging by removing the provision that allows utilities to keep a bonus profit of 0.7% above their allowed profit as determined by the SCC. 
    If this bill passes, Dominion will have to refund $136 million of customer overcharges to their customers. (based on overcharges determined in the 2020 SCC Annual Report). 
• Eliminates a provision that allows Dominion to pocket an additional 30% of customer overcharges above the 0.7% earnings collar.  
 Unless this bill is passed, Dominion Energy is able to keep $110 million of overcharges.

We all want to live in a community where everyone has the resources and ability to thrive and succeed. But powerful monopoly corporations like Dominion Power and its CEO Tom Farrell are using their huge profits to pay for a huge team of lobbyists and lawyers whose job it is to rig the rules for them so they can profit off the backs of our community and our environment. We have to come together to ensure that powerful companies can’t put profit over the people who are struggling to keep the lights on.

For these reasons, I’m asking you to vote in favor of HB1914 and HB2160.

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