Va. House votes TUESDAY on consumer protection bill. Contact your delegate NOW to support HB -1718

In Virginia, electric monopolies buy space on gas pipelines, and they pass the cost of those contracts on to consumers — even if they never use the pipeline and even if lower-cost alternatives exist. Currently, the SCC reviews these contracts only after the utility has already spent the money. The SCC has always allowed electric monopolies to pass these costs on to customers in the past.

HB 1718 would protect customers from this price gouging. While the bill does not prevent a company from building a pipeline, it does ensure that pipeline developers bear the risk of a new pipeline project, rather than forcing electricity customers to bear both the risk and the cost.

The energy landscape in Virginia is changing, and arguments that massive new natural gas pipelines are necessary to meet our energy needs are simply not bearing out. The SCC has recently acknowledged that electricity demand is flat or even shrinking in Appalachian Power territory, and the agency rejected Dominion Energy’s latest projections of growing electricity demand as “consistently overstated.”

If your electric utility wants to charge you for a new pipeline, it should have to prove to state regulators that it is needed and that it is the lowest-cost option for meeting your needs.