Va. Utility Faces Biggest Fight In Plan for 65-Mile Power Line

"We are in a mode today where there's an urgent need to beef up our energy delivery system, and transmission is part of that," said David Owens, executive vice president of the Edison Electric Institute, a trade association. "Even if you have the most aggressive energy-efficiency program, there is still the need to build new power facilities as well as transmission facilities in order to maintain the reliability we are accustomed to."

The reliance on long-distance transmission lines worries environmentalists who say the lines and steel towers would ruin the landscape and spur the construction of large power plants that emit greenhouse gases and hasten global warming.

Opponents also argue that the Dominion line is not needed for Virginia. Experts for the opposition are expected to testify during the hearings that the company has exaggerated the region's energy needs and that the company's true purpose is to sell electricity to lucrative markets in New York.

"If you look at the size of this line, the capacity of the line, and you compare that to the expected growth in the whole Northern Virginia area over the next decade, the line is grossly out of proportion," said Mitchell S. Diamond, a former energy official at Booz Allen Hamilton. "There are other solutions that would be better."

Foremost among the opponents is the Warrenton-based Piedmont Environmental Council, which has helped shape outlying parts of Northern Virginia with its anti-sprawl efforts, which have included the Disney fight.

Among the group's high-profile supporters are the Mars family, founders of the candy company, and actor Robert Duvall, who hosted a fundraiser for the group last year on his 360-acre farm in Fauquier County. The organization has hired several legal and environmental experts to represent them for the power line hearings, including Jeffrey D. Watkiss, a partner in the law firm of former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani.

But opponents face a formidable foe. Dominion is one of the state's largest business taxpayers and an influential player in Richmond, with 16 registered lobbyists.

Last year, Dominion's political action committee donated more than $775,000 to political campaigns, split about evenly between Democrats and Republicans. The company was the largest business donor to state campaigns in 2007, data from the nonpartisan Virginia Public Access Project show.

The Dominion project is part of a 300-mile project planned with Allegheny Power. Dominion would be in charge of the eastern stretch, which would begin in Frederick, Va., and end in Loudoun, slicing through parts of Fauquier, Rappahannock, Culpeper, Warren and Prince William counties.