Dominion shareholders approve proposal requiring gas asset risk disclosure

Dominion Energy Inc. shareholders approved a resolution that would require the utility to disclose plans for mitigating risks that relate to potential stranded natural gas infrastructure assets.

The resolution passed by a wide margin during a May 11 annual meeting, with 429,566,229 votes in favor and 106,515,321 against, according to a filing by Dominion. There were 35,365,762 votes abstained and 100,975,721 brokered nonvotes.

"This stands among the highest votes on a non-management approved climate-related proposal in the past decade and should shine a bright light on investor priorities at electric and gas utility companies like Dominion and its peers," Dan Bakal, senior program director of climate and energy at green investor group Ceres, said in an email.

The company's board of directors sought to exclude the proposal from its voting slate, but the SEC ruled that existing public disclosures did not sufficiently address how Dominion would deal with infrastructure that the clean energy transition could force the utility to abandon.

In making its case against the resolution, Dominion argued that it had "substantially implemented" such disclosures by selling its gas transmission and storage portfolio, canceling the joint venture Atlantic Coast gas pipeline in 2020 and investing in renewable natural gas projects. The resolution, however, noted that the company signed up to buy volumes transported by the Equitrans Midstream Corp.-led Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC. The pipeline will miss a summer 2022 in-service date following adverse court rulings and years of permitting delays.

"This indicates that the company may not be sufficiently addressing commitments for new natural gas infrastructure projects to be reconciled with climate stability goals or the existence of increasingly low-cost clean energy pathways," the shareholder resolution said.

A separate resolution requiring Dominion to disclose medium-term targets for eliminating Scope 3 emissions as part of its net-zero by 2050 target was not approved during the May 11 meeting.

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