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Maggie Goodlander (D-NH)
Maggie Goodlander
Democrat·New Hampshire

“No Utility Giant Should Get a Blank Check”: Goodlander Fights Mega-Merger That Would Hand One Company All of New England’s Nuclear Power, Including Seabrook

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The deal would create the world’s largest regulated electric utility and hand a single corporation control of Seabrook Station and New England’s only other nuclear power plant. For New Hampshire, the stakes could not be higher. The merger would put Seabrook and Connecticut’s Millstone plant under common ownership, giving one company control over roughly a quarter of New England’s electricity. In the lawmakers’ words, that would mean “considerable negotiating leverage over states and the ability to demand abusive terms at the expense of households.” And because neither company is a regulated utility in New Hampshire, the state’s Public Utilities Commission gets no say. FERC is the only regulator standing between Granite State families and a nuclear monopoly. Meanwhile, the $2.25 billion in bill credits NextEra is offering to win approval would go only to Dominion customers in Virginia and the Carolinas. Not one dollar would go to New Hampshire, which would shoulder the risk and get none of the reward. Granite Staters can’t afford it. Residential electricity rates in New Hampshire jumped more than 16% over the past year, according to the Energy Information Administration’s July data . Goodlander’s advocacy comes as governors from five New England states have sounded the alarm and called for “the highest level of scrutiny” of the deal. “Granite Staters are already getting crushed by the cost of energy, and no utility giant should get a blank check to get even bigger on their backs,” said Congresswoman Goodlander . “This deal would put Seabrook and every other nuclear plant in New England under one corporate roof, and New Hampshire wouldn’t get a single vote on it. That’s too much power in too few hands. Federal regulators must look under every rock, test every promise, and block this deal if it would do what so many corporate mergers have done before: stick families with higher bills. I spent years taking on corporate monopolies at the Justice Department. I know a bad deal when I see one, and I will keep fighting to put New Hampshire ratepayers ahead of utility profits.” The $66.8 billion deal would be the fourth-largest merger of all time, creating a company worth $420 billion. “Our fundamental concern is that this new entity will be both a gigantic power generator and a gigantic power-providing utility,” the lawmakers wrote . They warn that combining two major regulated utility businesses with extensive electricity-generation assets could allow the merged company to favor affiliates, shift costs to captive ratepayers, weaken competition in power markets, and discourage transmission investments that would bring lower-cost power into New England and other regions. Under Section 203 of the Federal Power Act, FERC may approve the transaction only if it is consistent with the public interest and does not pose a risk of harmful cross-subsidization. The letter calls on the Commission to evaluate the merger’s effects on competition, rates, regulation, transmission development, and regulated utility assets across all affected regions, including ISO New England. The lawmakers urge FERC to deny the application unless N

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