The staff of the Virginia State Corporation Commission is recommending a new hearing on Dominion Energy's request to build a transmission line in Prince William County, a project that has devolved into a bare-knuckle brawl between the potent utility and one of the state's most controversial politicians.
"Given the questions raised by the pleadings, staff submits that reopening the record for rehearing is appropriate at this time," the commission's staff wrote in a filing Wednesday.
The roughly 5-mile, 230-kilovolt line and associated infrastructure between Haymarket and Gainesville will power an Amazon data center expansion, but also, Dominion insists, provide broad benefits to a rapidly developing area. Amazon is known officially in filings as just "the customer," since neither the commission nor Dominion will acknowledge the internet giant as the developer behind VaData Inc., the listed owner of the data center.
