SC Electric & Gas’s new owners are under fire from the Sierra Club.
The national environmental watchdog group charges Dominion Energy:
• Profits by exaggerating future energy demand.
• Games several states’ regulatory systems.
• Builds unnecessary gas pipelines and power plants.
• Charges ratepayers for unneeded construction.
Asked for comment on these charges, Eric Boomhower of Lexington County-based Dominion said his company is committed to a clean energy future.
“We have dramatically overhauled our energy portfolio to include more low- and no-carbon sources through large investments in renewables such as solar, wind and nuclear,” he said.
More on Dominion’s defense is on Page A3.
The Sierra Club’s Tom Clements said Dominion has a history of predatory rate hikes, accidents, environmental disasters and insistence on investing in dirty fossil fuels like coal and gas.
Its influence on politics jeopardizes public health.
To protect its profits, Dominion spends heavily to influence politics, he said.
Since 1996, Dominion spent almost twice as much on political campaigns and causes as the next leading corporation in Virginia.
Clements charged that:
• Dominion convince regulators that projects like the Atlantic Coast Pipeline it is building in South Carolina are in the public’s interest.
Dominion asks regulators for a fuel charge to pay for the pipeline transportation costs. Ratepayers are then stuck for gas transportation costs for 10 to 20 years.
• Dominion buys utilities to increase control of Southeastern energy as it did with SCANA, owner of SCE&G which abandoned a $9 billion nuclear project here.
• Virginia, one of Dominion’s main markets, had the 8th highest residential electric bills by state in 2016.
In 2017, Dominion ranked last in energy efficiency.
• Dominion has racked up the 7th most environmental violation penalties of all US companies since 2000.
• Dominion has 11 coal ash dumps and 6 coal ash landfills, many leaking toxic radium and arsenic, forcing families to cook, clean and bathe with bottled water.