Attorney General Jay Jones Asks Regulators to Reset Clock on Dominion-NextEra Merger

Sep 23, 2026, 6:00 PM ET

A sign outside of a Dominion Energy office building in downtown Richmond. (Photo by Ned Oliver/ Virginia Mercury)

Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones is asking state regulators to treat last week’s expanded Dominion Energy–NextEra Energy filing as a new deal that should restart the statutory review clock, a move that could push a final State Corporation Commission decision deep into the 2027 General Assembly session.

In testimony filed around Sept. 18, Jones argued that the companies’ Sept. 14 supplemental package is significant enough to count as an amendment to the original $67 billion merger application. Under that theory, the SCC’s familiar 180-day countdown would begin anew from the supplemental filing date rather than from the July application that currently points toward an early January 2027 deadline.

If commissioners agree, the case could remain open into March, overlapping the regular legislative session that begins in January. That timing matters in Richmond because lawmakers in both parties have spent the late summer arguing that a compressed review is too short for a transaction that would create one of the nation’s largest regulated electric utilities.

What changed in the supplemental filing

Public accounts of the Sept. 14 package describe expanded conditions the companies say are meant to address ratepayer and political concerns. Those conditions have been characterized as including longer bill-credit commitments and a pledge tied to a downtown Richmond office presence, among other assurances. Jones’s filing casts those additions not as housekeeping but as a materially different bargain that intervenors need time to interrogate.

The attorney general’s office framed the request around process as much as substance: resetting the clock, Jones argued, would give intervenors a fair window to review the new details, keep the public engaged, and allow additional parties to decide whether to join the case. That language tracks complaints from legislators who have said ratepayers, localities, businesses, and consumer advocates need a real chance to examine filings rather than a sprint to a January decision.

Special session politics still unresolved

Parallel to the SCC docket, Democratic lawmakers asked Gov. Abigail Spanberger to call a special session so the General Assembly could lengthen the statutory review period. Spanberger declined a second special session, telling colleagues the legislature is already in an active special session and can reconvene itself if House and Senate leaders agree.

Whether leadership will do so remains uncertain. House Speaker Don Scott, D-Portsmouth, has separately written SCC Chair Kelsey Bagot urging that affordability for Virginians guide every question in the review, that the combined company honor Virginia Clean Economy Act standards, that customers see no rate increase attributable to the merger, and that data centers cover the full cost of the infrastructure needed to serve them. Scott also pressed for Virginia job protections and a Richmond co-headquarters commitment.

Republican legislators raised timeline concerns earlier in the summer as well, underscoring that skepticism about the 180-day window is not confined to one caucus. Meanwhile Spanberger’s administration has intervened in the case, a rare step that lets her team question the companies, review confidential materials, and argue for conditions.

Why the calendar fights matter for bills

Utility cases often feel remote until the math shows up on monthly statements. Dominion serves a large share of Virginia households and businesses, and the merger’s critics argue that generation, transmission, and data-center load growth already pressure rates. Supporters cast the combination as a way to finance grid upgrades and meet soaring electricity demand, especially in Northern Virginia’s data-center corridor.

A reset to March would not decide those debates, but it would change the theater in which they unfold. Legislators returning to Richmond in January could write alongside an open SCC record rather than after a January ruling. Consumer advocates and localities that have sought intervention would have more runway. The companies, for their part, would face a longer period of uncertainty before closing.

Public testimony is currently scheduled to begin in November, with a full hearing calendar posted on the SCC website. Jones’s request does not cancel those dates on its own; it asks commissioners to treat the supplemental package as the event that starts the statutory clock. How the SCC answers will signal whether Virginia’s largest pending utility deal remains on a compressed winter timeline or becomes a spring fight that collides with budget and energy legislation.

For now, the practical question for households is simpler than the docket captions: whether regulators believe last week’s additions were modest clarifications or a different deal on the table. Jones is betting they are the latter, and he wants the clock to say so.

Email Jay Jones at:

Jay Jones: RPickett@oag.state.va.us,

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