On November 28, 2017, the Washington Post reported on Dominion’s “Campaign to elect a pipeline:” Va.’s most powerful company ran multi-front fight.

“Dominion Energy was taking no chances with the fate of its proposed natural gas pipeline during this year’s election season, even though both major candidates for governor supported the $5 billion project. The state’s most powerful corporation, along with partner companies and the American Gas Association, poured resources into online groups called EnergySure and Your Energy Virginia to whip up what it called a grassroots ‘campaign to elect a pipeline.’ Numbers from an industry presentation suggest the scope of the effort: As of early October, Dominion had compiled a ‘supporter database’ of more than 23,000 names, generated 150 letters to the editor, sent more than 9,000 cards and letters to federal regulators and local elected officials, and directed more than 11,000 calls to outgoing Gov. Terry McAuliffe and Virginia’s U.S. senators.”

Poor Dominion. They’ve had to work so hard to overcome the noise created by what they think is a “fragmented group of environmentalists and landowners from some of the most remote parts of the state,” trying  “to get attention for their (anti-pipeline) concerns”. They’ve had to deal with folks like us using “‘outrage and intimidation’ as ‘common tools’ to try to delegitimize the (approval) process.”

Never mind that what Dominion tries to portray as a merely a pesky “fragmented group” from “remote parts of the state” includes many individuals, many local, regional and national groups – as well as duly elected officials.

Dominion is worried about what might happen when citizens express their concerns and beliefs, worried that, “Nowadays [regulators] are being bombarded by general citizenry, by elected officials who have asked to insert themselves into the process, and this debate swirls around.” Funny thing – we thought people being involved with issues of concern to them was a good thing, part of the democratic process.

We always knew that the American Gas Association was involved in the whole Energy Sure blitz; Dominion actually created it. “Dominion established EnergySure in 2015, and uses a mix of internal staff and outside consultants to maintain it. The company would not disclose how much money it puts into the effort.”

Read the Washington post article here.  The Washington Post also has posted Dominion Energy’s Power Point to industry insiders detailing its campaign to build support for its controversial pipeline. See Dominion’s 10-slide PowerPoint here.

Then read Blue Virginia’s 11-28-17 commentary on the Post article, Dominion Spends “Captured” Virginia Ratepayer Money to Push Its Propaganda, Disparage Pipeline Opponents and the Media.