Virginia Senate commerce committee advances broad energy docket on data centers, undergrounding, EV charging and utility political‑spending limits

The Senate Commerce and Labor Committee met in Richmond on March 1 to consider a packed energy docket that ranged from limits on utility recovery of political‑influence costs to pilot programs for undergrounding high‑voltage transmission lines, revisions to data‑center oversight and funding for interconnection and distributed solar programs.

Shelby Green, a researcher with the Energy and Policy Institute, told the committee that Senate Bill 761 would prevent investor‑owned electric and gas utilities regulated by the State Corporation Commission from recovering political‑influence and promotional advertising costs through retail rates. "This bill would remove the cost of political influence activities such as lobbying and promotional advertising from customers' bills," Green said, adding that in recent Dominion rate cases regulators had identified roughly $22 million in costs the company sought to recover and that, she said, customers were charged about $35 million for trade‑association dues in Dominion’s last rate case.

Dominion Energy and other utilities urged caution. Chris Nolan of McGuireWoods, speaking for Dominion, warned that the substitute language could be read so broadly that routine economic development engagement and other legitimate interactions with public officials might be classified as "political influence activity." "This does…