NextEra's Maine playbook: what its ballot fights say about Virginia

RICHMOND, Va. - What does NextEra Energy do when a project threatens its business? In Maine, the answer was politics. Virginia's utility regulators laid out the record in testimony filed Monday.

Stop the Corridor

The New England Clean Energy Connect, or NECEC, was a transmission line designed to bring Canadian hydropower through western Maine to New England. It would have competed with power from NextEra's plants in the region. According to State Corporation Commission staff testimony in Case PUR-2026-00112, "NextEra supported two ballot initiatives in Maine that were aimed at stopping the NECEC project" (staff testimony, p. 181).

In 2019 and 2020, NextEra Energy Resources, NextEra's competitive arm, funded a group called "Stop the Corridor" in the amount of $95,726, to support a 2020 ballot question asking voters whether to require Maine regulators to reject the already-approved line (p. 181). Maine's Supreme Judicial Court ruled that initiative did not meet constitutional requirements for the ballot (p. 181).

From $95,726 to more than $20 million

NextEra did not stop there. It funded a second ballot initiative in 2021 to ban high-impact transmission lines in the Upper Kennebec region, retroactively to 2020, which staff said "could have effectively terminated" the project (p. 181). According to the testimony, NextEra Energy Resources gave more than $20 million in cash contributions and another $1.4 million in in-kind contributions to Mainers for Local Power in 2020 and 2021 to support that initiative (p. 182). The companies told staff no in-kind services were provided, but staff noted public records disclose both cash and in-kind contributions (p. 182).

The referendum passed. The Maine Supreme Judicial Court later found it unconstitutional to the extent it applied retroactively, and in April 2023 a Maine jury found Avangrid had the right to build the line (p. 182). In November 2024, Avangrid and its affiliates sued NextEra in federal court in Massachusetts, alleging anti-competitive conduct to delay the project. The court dismissed the federal and state antitrust claims in September 2025, and a motion to dismiss remaining state law claims was still pending as of Oct. 5, 2026 (p. 183). Those are allegations, and NextEra has contested them.

Staff said it did not rely on NextEra's political and legal history in its legal analysis but included it "for the Commission's information" (p. 172).

Would it happen here?

That is the question for Virginia. Maine shows a company willing to spend heavily on ballot politics to protect its market. Virginia has no statewide citizen initiative process, so the arena here is the General Assembly, where Dominion has long been one of the biggest players.

The money Dominion spends now

VPAP data shows Dominion's top 20 Democratic recipients took at least $8.42 million in 2025-26, including Speaker Don Scott ($600,409), Majority Leader Scott Surovell ($600,000), Sen. Mamie Locke ($600,000) and Del. Charniele Herring ($625,000). In 2023-24 the figure was at least $7.15 million. Dominion's top 20 Republican recipients took about $5.58 million in 2025-26. Virginia Scope, citing VPAP, reports nearly $18 million to Democrats and more than $15 million to Republicans since 2018. OpenSecrets data shows Dominion Energy PAC gave $117,800 to federal Democratic candidates and $162,500 to Democratic PACs and party committees in 2023-24.

Under a hypothetical where the Florida-run parent shut off Virginia contributions, Democrats would lose at least $7 million to $8.5 million per state cycle and about $280,000 per federal cycle. Nothing in the staff filing addresses political giving, and NextEra already operates its own PAC. Maine suggests NextEra knows how to spend when it wants to; whether it would spend the same way in Richmond is unknown.

NextEra has not said whether it plans to continue or change Dominion's political giving in Virginia.

Page numbers refer to the 201-page public version of SCC Staff's prefiled testimony, Volume I of VII, in Case PUR-2026-00112 (SCC document 261030140), filed Oct. 19, 2026.