STEVEN M. FETTER

1489 W. Warm Springs Rd. – Ste. 110
Henderson, NV 89014
732-693-2349
RegUnF@Gmail.com
www.RegUnF.com

April 2002 – Present
President – REGULATION UnFETTERED – Henderson, NV

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: CH Energy Group (Lead Independent Director; Chairman, Governance and Nominating Committee; Member, Audit; Previous Chairman, Audit Committee and Compensation Committee), National Regulatory Research Institute, 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

• 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)

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