RICHMOND -- Gov. Tim Kaine has rewritten legislation creating a new regulatory scheme for Virginia's electric utilities, seeking to strengthen consumer protections and conservation incentives while preserving new benefits for power companies.

The governor's revisions received a tepid response from consumer advocates and environmental organizations' representatives, who argued that the legislation still tilts too heavily toward the interests of utility companies.

Kaine released details of his changes to two identical utility regulation bills Tuesday, one day after finishing work on the 958 bills the General Assembly passed during its regular winter session. The governor also announced that he had made only minor changes to legislation that restricts government's ability to seize private property by invoking eminent domain authority.

The General Assembly will convene April 4 to act on bills that Kaine has amended and vetoed.

No bill is more complex than the electric utility restructuring measure, which passed the General Assembly with broad bipartisan support. The legislation would end the state's experiment with deregulation of electricity, which failed to produce the competition that lawmakers had envisioned when they started the process eight years ago. Lawmakers, consumer groups and businesses feared that electric bills would skyrocket after rate caps expire in 2010 unless a new regulatory model was put in place.

After negotiations with utility companies and various interest groups, lawmakers passed legislation creating a "hybrid" regulatory model that allows state regulators to adjust rates every two years and lets power companies reap earnings roughly equal to those of "peer group" utilities in the Southeast.

Kaine amended the bill to give the State Corporation Commission broader discretion in setting allowable profits for utilities, which could help control future increases for ratepayers. The governor also sought to improve incentives for conservation and reliance on alternative energy sources.

"My primary goals in amending this bill were to ensure that appropriate consumer protection measures were in place to keep Virginians' electric rates among the lowest in the country, and to ensure that electric companies have incentives to conserve energy, produce cleaner energy, and take other steps to protect the environment," Kaine said in a statement released by his office.

Spokesmen for Appalachian Power and Dominion Virginia Power said the major utilities generally supported Kaine's changes to the legislation.

"The new regulatory principles that were proposed in the legislation have largely been retained," said Appalachian Power spokesman John Shepelwich.

The legislation will have no effect on Appalachian Power's three recent rate increases, which have generated more than 20,000 complaint calls to the SCC.

Consumer and environmental advocates said Kaine made improvements to the bill, but not enough for their liking.

Irene Leech, president of the Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, said the bill provides greater financial certainty to power companies than it does to ratepayers.

"This is a totally untried regulatory structure," Leech said. "On balance, it's awful for consumers."

Michael Town, director of the Virginia Chapter of the Sierra Club, said the bill creates greater incentives for utilities to build more power plants than for conservation measures.

"This bill is all about what we should build and not what we should save," he said.

Town did credit Kaine for increasing incentives for clean electric generation such as clean coal and renewable energy plants that have reduced carbon emissions.

Richard Hirsh, director of the Virginia Tech Consortium on Energy Restructuring, said lawmakers may have produced a better bill if they had taken more time with the process. The legislation evolved from a proposal that Dominion Virginia Power unveiled in December, and lawmakers passed it during a hurried 46-day session.

"I think I would have preferred a less rushed and more considered approach to restructuring the utility system in Virginia," Hirsh said.

Kaine also announced Tuesday that he had made minor changes to legislation restricting the use of eminent domain. The bill was passed in response to the 2005 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Kelo v. New London, in which the court upheld a Connecticut city's condemnation of a homeowner's property for a private development project.

The legislation defines "public uses" for which private property can be taken. It allows eminent domain for eliminating blight, but only if the property itself is blighted. Kaine negotiated changes with lawmakers that will help redevelopment authorities retain the ability to improve blighted areas.