Experience
STEVEN M. FETTER
1240 West Sims Way
Port Townsend, WA 98368
Phone: 693-2349 in area code 732
Education
University of Michigan Law School, J.D. 1979
Bar Memberships: U.S. Supreme Court, New York, Michigan
University of Michigan, A.B. Media (Communications) 1974
April 2002 – Present
President – Regulation UnFettered- Port Townsend, Washington
Founder of advisory firm providing regulatory, legislative, financial, legal and strategic planning advisory services for the energy, water and telecommunications sectors, including public utility commissions and consumer advocates; federal and state testimony; credit rating advisory services; negotiation, arbitration and mediation services; skills training in ethics, negotiation, and management efficiency.
Service on Boards of Directors of: Central Hudson (Fortis Inc. subsidiary) (Chairman, Governance and Human Resources Committee); and Previously CH Energy Group (Lead Independent Director; Chairman, Audit Committee, Compensation Committee, and Governance and Nominating Committee); National Regulatory Research Institute (Chairman); Keystone Energy Board; and Regulatory Information Technology Consortium; Member, Wall Street Utility Group; Participant, Keystone Center Dialogues on RTOs and on Financial Trading and Energy Markets.
October 1993 – April 2002
Group Head and Managing Director; Senior Director — Global Power Group, Fitch IBCA Duff & Phelps — New York / Chicago
Manager of 18-employee ($15 million revenue) group responsible for credit research and rating of fixed income securities of U.S. and foreign electric and natural gas companies and project finance; Member, Fitch Utility Securitization Team.
Led an effort to restructure the global power group that in three years time resulted in 75% new personnel and over 100% increase in revenues, transforming a group operating at a substantial deficit into a team-oriented profit center through a combination of revenue growth and expense reduction.
Achieved national recognition as a speaker and commentator evaluating the effects of regulatory developments on the financial condition of the utility sector and individual companies; Cited by Institutional Investor (9/97) as one of top utility analysts at rating agencies; Frequently quoted in national newspapers and trade publications including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, International Herald Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Forbes and Energy Daily; Featured speaker at conferences sponsored by Edison Electric Institute, Nuclear Energy Institute, American Gas Assn., Natural Gas Supply Assn., National Assn. of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC), Canadian Electricity Assn.; Frequent invitations to testify before U.S. Senate (on C-Span) and House of Representatives, and state legislatures and utility commissions.
Participant, Keystone Center Dialogue on Regional Transmission Organizations; Member, International Advisory Council, Eisenhower Fellowships; Author, “A Rating Agency’s Perspective on Regulatory Reform,” book chapter published by Public Utilities Reports, Summer 1995; Advisory Committee, Public Utilities Fortnightly.
March 1994 – April 2002
Consultant — NYNEX — New York, Ameritech — Chicago, Weatherwise USA — Pittsburgh
Provided testimony before the Federal Communications Commission and state public utility commissions; Formulated and taught specialized ethics and negotiation skills training program for employees in positions of a sensitive nature due to responsibilities involving interface with government officials, marketing, sales or purchasing; Developed amendments to NYNEX Code of Business Conduct.
October 1987 – October 1993
Chairman; Commissioner — Michigan Public Service Commission — Lansing
Administrator of $15-million agency responsible for regulating Michigan’s public utilities, telecommunications services, and intrastate trucking, and establishing an effective state energy policy; Appointed by Democratic Governor James Blanchard; Promoted to Chairman by Republican Governor John Engler (1991) and reappointed (1993).
Initiated case-handling guideline that eliminated agency backlog for first time in 23 years while reorganizing to downsize agency from 240 employees to 205 and eliminate top tier of management; MPSC received national recognition for fashioning incentive plans in all regulated industries based on performance, service quality, and infrastructure improvement.
Closely involved in formulation and passage of regulatory reform law (Michigan Telecommunications Act of 1991) that has served as a model for other states; Rejuvenated dormant twelve-year effort and successfully lobbied the Michigan Legislature to exempt the Commission from the Open Meetings Act, a controversial step that shifted power from the career staff to the three commissioners.
Elected Chairman of the Board of the National Regulatory Research Institute (at Ohio State University); Adjunct Professor of Legislation, American University’s Washington College of Law and Thomas M. Cooley Law School; Member of NARUC Executive, Gas, and International Relations Committees, Steering Committee of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency/State of Michigan Relative Risk Analysis Project, and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Task Force on Natural Gas Deliverability; Eisenhower Exchange Fellow to Japan and NARUC Fellow to the Kennedy School of Government; Ethics Lecturer for NARUC.
August 1985 – October 1987
Acting Associate Deputy Under Secretary of Labor; Executive Assistant to the Deputy Under Secretary — U.S. Department of Labor — Washington DC
Member of three-person management team directing the activities of 60-employee agency responsible for promoting use of labor-management cooperation programs. Supervised a legal team in a study of the effects of U.S. labor laws on labor-management cooperation that has received national recognition and been frequently cited in law reviews (U.S. Labor Law and the Future of Labor-Management Cooperation, w/S. Schlossberg, 1986).
January 1983 – August 1985
Senate Majority General Counsel; Chief Republican Counsel — Michigan Senate — Lansing
Legal Advisor to the Majority Republican Caucus and Secretary of the Senate; Created and directed 7-employee Office of Majority General Counsel; Counsel, Senate Rules and Ethics Committees; Appointed to the Michigan Criminal Justice Commission, Ann Arbor Human Rights Commission and Washtenaw County Consumer Mediation Committee.
March 1982 – January 1983
Assistant Legal Counsel — Michigan Governor William Milliken — Lansing
Legal and Labor Advisor (member of collective bargaining team); Director, Extradition and Clemency; Appointed to Michigan Supreme Court Sentencing Guidelines Committee, Prison Overcrowding Project, Coordination of Law Enforcement Services Task Force.
October 1979 – March 1982
Appellate Litigation Attorney — National Labor Relations Board — Washington DC
Other Significant Speeches and Publications
Filing for Bankruptcy Isn’t the Right Solution for Puerto Rico (Forbes Online, November 2015)
The “A” Rating (Edison Electric Institute Perspectives, May/June 2009)
Perspective: Don’t Fence Me Out (Public Utilities Fortnightly, October 2004)
Climate Change and the Electric Power Sector: What Role for the Global Financial Community (during Fourth Session of UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of Parties, Buenos Aires, Argentina, November 3, 1998)(unpublished)
Regulation UnFettered: The Fray By the Bay, Revisited (National Regulatory Research Institute Quarterly Bulletin, December 1997)
The Feds Can Lead…By Getting Out of the Way (Public Utilities Fortnightly, June 1, 1996)
Ethical Considerations Within Utility Regulation, w/M. Cummins (National Regulatory Research Institute Quarterly Bulletin, December 1993)
Legal Challenges to Employee Participation Programs (American Bar Association, Atlanta, Georgia, August 1991) (unpublished)
Proprietary Information, Confidentiality, and Regulation’s Continuing Information Needs: A State Commissioner’s Perspective (Washington Legal Foundation, July 1990)