The Virginia Supreme Court ruled yesterday that the State Corporation Commission properly approved the Virginia section of a multistate power line. The Piedmont Environmental Council, the boards of supervisors for Fauquier, Prince William and Culpeper counties, and some property owners challenged the 2008 SCC approval sought by Dominion Virginia Power and the Trans-Allegheny Interstate Line Company.

Virginia’s attorney general is urging the State Corporation Commission to either cut Dominion Virginia Power’s electric rates this year or have the company give customers a refund for over-earning last year. Experts for Attorney General Bill Mims’ office told the SCC that Dominion Virginia Power’s rates should be reduced by $238 million or customers should receive a refund of $153 million.

As Virginians race to lock in record low interest rates on mortgages, some are stumbling because they thought they were locking in rates when they weren’t. The State Corporation Commission’s Bureau of Financial Institutions is reporting getting more complaints than the usual handful about lock-in agreements, with 11 complaints about them so far this year. Lock-in agreements promise to set a particular interest rate on a loan before the loan is closed.

Thomas P. Harwood, a top Virginia regulator during an era of upheaval for the state’s electric-power industry and its customers, died Sunday. He was 80. Mr. Harwood was a member of the State Corporation Commission from 1973 until his retirement in 1992. The period was marked by frequent battles between consumers and the businesses that the commission regulates—utilities, telecommunications and insurance, among them.

Dominion Virginia Power got a little ahead of itself in its Bear Garden plant rate case. “Any information provided by Dominion’s representatives that suggested a stipulation or settlement was in place concerning the Bear Garden facility was in error,“ the utility company said in a statement yesterday. Dominion Virginia Power representatives had said Tuesday that the utility had reached a tentative agreement with state regulators on a rate increase to pay for the natural-gas-fired power plant in Buckingham County.

Despite several state-ordered rate cuts during the past 15 years, credit insurers still have been taking a larger chunk of consumers’ dollars for their expenses and profits than allowed under state law. Now, the State Corporation Commission is trying once more to prevent overcharging on credit insurance—the optional coverage consumers buy so their creditors are paid if the consumer dies or is disabled.

The State Corporation Commission is reconsidering a decision made in May relating to the fees Embarq Corp. charges other phone carriers to connect long-distance callers. On May 29, the commission ordered Embarq to reduce its access fees 50 percent by 2010. Access fees are paid by one phone company to another when a customer makes a long-distance call within the state to someone using a different carrier.

Three big players in the telephone industry have asked the State Corporation Commission to reconsider a May ruling they say hurts competition and amounts to a subsidy for Embarq Corp. The strife is over access fees, which are paid by one phone company to another when a customer makes a long distance call within the state to someone using a different carrier.

The State Corporation Commission has scheduled a second public hearing—this one in Southwest Virginia—on a proposed electric rate increase by Appalachian Power. The July 1 hearing in Wytheville “will give members of the public in Appalachian’s southwestern Virginia service territory a more convenient location to offer testimony,“ according to a commission statement.

Virginia will join a national system in August to register and license mortgage loan originators to cut back on mortgage fraud and to protect consumers. “The public will have the added benefit of knowing that the person has been thoroughly checked out and would be qualified to originate a loan,“ said E. Joseph Face Jr., the state’s banking commissioner.

Rappahannock Electric Cooperative will grow by nearly 50 percent under a $350 million plan to serve half of Potomac Edison’s Virginia customers. Fredericksburg-based Rappahannock Electric will gain about 50,000 subscribers if the State Corporation Commission approves the transfer of service. “We’d like to start serving these Potomac Edison customers by Jan. 1,“ said Rappahannock spokeswoman Rhonda F. Curtis, “but there’s a lot of work to be done.“

Hours before lawmakers returned to the state Capitol for their spring session, Dick Saslaw welcomed deep-pocketed visitors: the head of giant payday lender Advance America, the company’s chief lobbyist and its fixer in Richmond. The trio told the Senate Democratic boss that the company had found a legal way to—and would—bypass profit-cutting restrictions Saslaw won last winter, perhaps as penance for his status as an industry defender and major beneficiary of its campaign cash.

Reflecting the declining natural-gas price trend and the approach of the warm season, Columbia Gas of Virginia plans to reduce its average customer bill by 16 percent this summer. Chester-based Columbia said the change should save its customers $6.76 on the typical monthly bill, starting May 29. The average gas cost will decrease to $34.97 a month compared with the current level of $41.73. The figures are based on the average monthly summer usage of 2,300 cubic feet of natural gas. The utility filed for the rate reduction with the State Corporation Commission.

A big payday lender is quitting Virginia because of the tough economy and new restrictions on high-cost instant loans, but others are finding new—and potentially controversial—ways to keep open their money stores. Recession and additional regulation have shrunk the ranks of cash parlors in Virginia more than 19 percent since December. There now are 630 payday-lending outlets—down from 786, according to the State Corporation Commission.

An environmental group took its fight against a $1.8 billion coal-burning power plant in Wise County before the justices of the Virginia Supreme Court yesterday. Cale Jaffe of the Southern Environmental Law Center told the high court it’s unconstitutional to require that the plant be in Southwest Virginia coal fields and be able to burn Virginia coal because those requirements favor one state’s coal over another’s.