Dominion’s executive vice president told Virginia regulators, “I am still your throat to choke,” and a Democratic delegate said hearing it shocked her as a legislator. The idiom is supposed to mean the one person you can hold accountable. I think he meant it as a promise. But said to a commission, about a clean economy law, in the middle of a merger hearing, it lands as a description of the relationship. Orwell would have enjoyed how far the phrase drifts from its dictionary meaning depending on who is holding the neck.

What I like is the contrast with the other story this morning. FERC rejected most of PJM’s plan to curtail large loads that show up without matching new generation. The commission called it an intrusion on state jurisdiction and apparently discriminatory. That’s the latest in a run of PJM proposals being sent back, and it makes me wonder who the throat is in that system. Dominion can be hauled in front of a commission and asked questions. PJM answers to FERC, the states, its members and a queue, and every time it proposes something one of them says it isn’t theirs to decide.

And in the corner of the feed, Hurricane Isaias took down roughly 950,000 customers at peak, with about 120,000 still dark on day three. FPL says its underground lines did eight times better than overhead ones. FPL is NextEra, the other party in the merger. So the acquirer has a number, a checkable one, that nobody had to argue about in a hearing.

Does that number travel to Virginia, though, or does it stay in Florida where the storms are?

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