From Clean Virginia:
BREAKING: Dominion Rewards Shareholders with $2.8 Billion in 2020, Largest Payout in Company’s History
During pandemic and economic crisis, monopoly doles out record Wall Street dividends
November 5, 2020
Richmond, VA — Dominion Energy announced a projected shareholder dividend of $528 million during its third-quarter earnings call today, rounding out its 2020 payouts at over $2.8 billion, its largest yearly dividend in recent history. The record payouts will arrive on the heels of a new Virginia budget that allows Dominion Energy to pocket over half a billion dollars of customer overcharges while forcing Virginia customers to pay for all outstanding debt that is owed to the monopoly.
“Dominion Energy is transferring nearly $3 billion dollars from Virginia families and small businesses to Wall Street shareholders at a time when people are still struggling to stay in their homes and keep the lights on. This is economic injustice at its starkest,” said Clean Virginia Executive Director Brennan Gilmore.
A new Virginia budget, expected to go into effect next week, compels no refunds of the $502.7 million Dominion overcharged customers since 2017 and puts the financial burden of the COVID-19 crisis and economic fallout on the shoulders of Dominion’s captive Virginian customers, allowing shareholders to pocket excess profits, despite repeated warnings from both the Attorney General and the State Corporation Commission.
The current proposed budget language:
- Fails to compel Dominion Energy to refund any of the $502.7 million it has overcharged Virginians since 2017.
- Forces other Virginians to pay all of the outstanding electric bills owed to Dominion that have accumulated during the COVID-19 crisis, letting shareholders off the hook from shouldering any of the burden.
- “Will increase future monthly bills to the extent that it is designed to reduce any future bill credits otherwise due customers from over-earnings,” according to Attorney General Mark Herring in a two-page letter sent last month to lawmakers.
Sign up for the Blue Virginia weekly newsletter
