Vermont Public Service Board -- [ Michael H. Dworkin ]

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Michael H. Dworkin
Chairman
Current Term:
1999 - 2005

Michael Dworkin has been a litigator, a professor, a businessman, and an administrative-judge.

Mr. Dworkin received his Bachelor of Arts Degree in history from Middlebury College in 1975, summa cum laude and as salutatorian. His legal training was at the Harvard Law School, from which he was graduated in 1978, cum laude.

Mr. Dworkin began his legal career as a law clerk for Judge Catherine Kelly, of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. After his clerkship, Mr. Dworkin spent five years in the U.S. EPA's Office of General Counsel. There he focused upon the development and appellate defense of major emission standards.

In 1984 Mr. Dworkin became Communications Counsel for the Vermont Public Service Board, representing the Board in litigation before the Federal Communications Commission and as a hearing officer. Mr. Dworkin published several proposals for alternatives to traditional telecom regulation, and drafted statutes and orders implementing incentive-regulation.

From 1986 to 1995 Mr. Dworkin devoted increasing attention to energy issues, including a year-long generic investigation into energy efficiency principles for electric utilities.

From 1988 to 1995 Mr. Dworkin was General Counsel of the Vermont Public Service Board. His primary responsibility was to ensure the legal sufficiency of the final orders of the Board. In that period the Board issued over 800 orders, of which 80 were appealed. Only 3 were remanded or reversed.

In 1995 Mr. Dworkin became Senior Vice President and managing partner in Riser Management Systems, L.P., an engineering and consulting firm bringing the benefits of telecommunications competition to Class A residential and commercial office buildings -- and to the people who work in those buildings. Over a four year period, he helped build Riser from a staff of three employees to almost forty specialists.

In 1999 Mr. Dworkin returned to public service, as the Chairman of the Vermont Public Service Board. He is Chair of NARUC's Committee on Energy Resources and the Environment; Administrator of the contract for Efficiency Vermont (selected by the Kennedy School of Government as one of America's five most significant and innovative programs); he represents NARUC on the Advisory Council of the Electric Power Research Institute; and is a former Director of the Electricity Innovation Institute.

Mr. Dworkin has often taught, spoken, and written on questions of administrative law or regulatory policy. Significant publications include:

Four Years' Experience with the Nation's First Energy Efficiency Utility: Balancing Resource Acquisition and Market Transformation Under a Performance Contract (with Blair Hamilton), Juried Proceedings of the ACEEE 2004 Summer Study Conference on Energy Efficiency.

The Environmental Duties of Public Utility Commissions (with David Farnsworth and Jason Rich), 18 Pace Envtl. L. Rev. 325 (2001).

Wired for Profit: The Property Management Professional's Guide to Capturing Opportunities in the Telecommunications Market; BOMA International, First Edition, 1998; Second Edition, 1999; (with Andrew Montroll and Stephen Huffaker, RCDD).

State Regulators, State Competitors (with V. Louise McCarren), The New Telecommunications Era (Herbert Forrest and Richard Wiley, eds., Practicing Law Institute 1985).

Mr. Dworkin's prime goal is to help Vermont's citizens find the best long-term balance of value and cost (including unpriced environmental costs) in their utility services. He believes that Vermonters will benefit from working with others who seek a similar balance in state, federal, and international jurisdictions.