Ashley C. Brown

Ashley Brown is a consulting attorney in the firm’s Boston office. He is currently the executive director of the Harvard Electricity Policy Group at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, a leading think tank on matters related to electricity restructuring, regulation and market formation, and an instructor in Harvard’s Executive Program on Infrastructure in Market Economy. Mr. Brown has also served as an arbitrator in matters relating to the evolution of competition in infrastructure industries.

Before his current activities, Mr. Brown was twice appointed by Governor Richard F. Celeste as commissioner of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, for terms running from 1983 to 1993. Prior to his appointment to the Commission, Mr. Brown was coordinator and counsel of the Montgomery County, Ohio, Fair Housing Center. From 1979 to 1981, he was managing attorney for the Legal Aid Society of Dayton, Inc., and from 1977 to 1979, he was legal advisor of the Miami Valley Regional Planning Commission in Dayton. While practicing law, he advised in litigation within federal and state courts, as well as before administrative bodies.

Mr. Brown has extensive teaching experience in public schools and universities. He is a frequent speaker and lecturer on regulatory, infrastructure, and energy policy matters in North and South America, Europe, Africa and Asia. Mr. Brown is fluent in English and Portuguese and has a working knowledge of Spanish.

Selected Activities

  • Member, Board of Directors, Oglethorpe Power Corporation, Tucker, Georgia
  • Member, Editorial Advisory Boards of The Electricity Journal and Electric Light and Power, Editorial Board of International Journal of Regulation and Governance
  • Member, Policy Committee and Brazilian Studies Committee, David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, Harvard University
  • Member of the US delegation of state government officials in the Center for Clean Air Policy/German Marshall Fund-sponsored exchange on clean air issues to Germany, 1989; to International Electric Research Exchange (IERE), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1991; in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Energy, to the Argentina and United States Natural Gas and Electricity Regulatory Meetings, 1992; and of the Brazil-US Energy Summit, 1995-1996
  • Consultant to the Hungarian Ministry of Industry and Trade on gas and electric regulatory policy, 1991-1992; to SNE, the Costa Rican regulatory agency, on transmission access issues, 1992; to the World Bank mission to Hungary investigating the financing of new power plants for MVM (Hungarian Electric Co.), 1992; to ENARGAS, the Argentine gas regulatory agency, 1992; to the USAID India Private Power Initiative Program on the introduction of private generation and competition into the public sector, 1993; to USAID on Philippines electric sector restructuring, 1994; to USAID on Russian electric sector restructuring, 1994; to the government of Ukraine on electricity regulatory policy and industry restructuring, 1994-1995; to the government of Brazil on electric sector restructuring, 1995-1996; to the Province of Salta, Argentina, on infrastructure regulation, 1996; to the Energy Regulatory Board of Zambia, 1997-present; to the government of the Republic of Cape Verde on utility restructuring and regulation, 1998-1999; to Nam Power, the electric utility in Namibia, 1998-1999; to the government of Indonesia on electricity regulation, 1999; to the government of Mozambique on reform of the commercial code, 2000; to the Inter-American Development Bank on sustainability of sector reform in Latin American energy markets, 2001-2002; to the government of Tanzania on electricity regulation, 2002; to the Inter-American Development Bank on Brazilian electric restructuring, 2002; and to the World Bank on Brazilian energy regulation, 2002-2003
  • Past Vice-Chair of the American Bar Association Committee on Energy, Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice, and past Chair of the American Bar Association Annual Conference on Electricity Law
  • Former member of the Executive Committee, past Chair of the Committee on Electricity, and past Chair of the Subcommittee on Strategic Issues, National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners; former member of the Executive Committee, Great Lakes Conference of Public Utilities Commissioners; former member, Mid-America Regulatory Conference
  • Former member of the Boards of Directors of the National Regulatory Research Institute and the Center for Clean Air Policy
  • Former member of Advisory Councils to the Boards of Directors of the Electric Power Research Institute and Nuclear Electric Insurance Limited
  • Former member, US EPA Acid Rain Advisory Committee; past Chair, Planning Section, National Governors Association Task Force on Electric Transmission; former member, National Task Force on Low Income Energy Utilization and Conservation
  • Former member of the Keystone Center’s Energy Advisory Committee; dialogue on Emissions Trading; project on the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935; project on State/Federal Regulatory Jurisdictional Issues Affecting Electricity Markets; and project on Electricity Transmission
  • Former member of the Advisory Council of the Consumer Energy Council of America Project on Electricity and of the Advisory Committee of the Consumer Energy Council of America Air Pollution Emissions Trading Project
  • Participant, Harvard University’s East Asian Electricity Restructuring Forum, 1994-1995
  • Instructor, Regulatory Training Program of the National Regulatory Research Institute at Ohio State University and the Institute of Public Utilities at Michigan State University, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1993; South Asia Forum for Infrastructure Regulation, 1999-2003

Publications

  • “When Do Risk Mitigation Measures Exacerbate Risks in Infrastructure Industries Abroad? Some Long-Term Considerations for Investors,” In Global Infrastructure Development, World Markets in 1999 (1998).
  • “Six Critical Choices of Regulatory Models for Brazil,” The Journal of Project Finance (Spring 1998).
  • “Regulatory Risk: Is the Subject Still Relevant or Do Markets Govern?” Yale Journal on Regulation (Winter 1996).
  • “Honey, I Shrunk the Franchise!” The Electricity Journal (March 1995).
  • “The Trinity of Transmission Issues: Siting, Access, and Pricing,” Maine Policy Review (April 1993).
  • “Electricity After the Energy Policy Act of 1992: The Regulatory Agenda,” The Electricity Journal (January-February 1993).
  • “The Energy Policy Act of 1992: The Paradox Facing the States,” Public Utilities Fortnightly (January 1, 1993).
  • “Sunshine May Cloud Good Decision Making,” Forum for Applied Research and Public Policy (Summer 1992).
  • “State Public Utility Regulation and Title IV,” In The New Clean Air Act: Compliance and Opportunity (1991).
  • “The Overjudicialization of Regulatory Decision Making,” Natural Resources and Environment (Fall 1990).
  • “A Possible Tradeoff of Federal and State Transmission Jurisdiction,” Public Utilities Fortnightly (November 9, 1989).
  • “State Power Over Transmission Access and Pricing: The Giant Will Not Sleep Forever,” Public Utilities Fortnightly (November 9, 1989).
  • “The Balkans Revisited: A Modest Proposal for Transmission Reform,” The Electricity Journal (April 1989).
  • “Breaking the Transmission Logjam,” The Electricity Journal (July 1988).
  • “Percentage of Income Payment Plans: Regulation Meets Social Reality,” Public Utilities Fortnightly (March 19, 1987).
  • Co-author, “Vision Without Site; Site Without Vision,” The Electricity Journal (October 2003).
  • Co-author, “Privatization and Regulation of the Oil, Natural Gas, and Electric Industries in Hungary,” Energy Law Journal (1992).
  • Co-author, “Transmission and Ratebase: A Match Not Made in Heaven,” Public Utilities Fortnightly (June 1, 1991). 

Education

  • University of Dayton School of Law, 1977, J.D.
  • New York University, 1973, Ph.D. (A.B.D.)
  • University of Cincinnati, 1970, M.A.
  • Bowling Green State University, 1968, B.S.

Bar Admissions

  • Ohio
  • Massachusetts
  • District of Columbia

Court Admissions

  • U.S. Court of Appeals, 6th Circuit
  • U.S. District Court, Southern District of Ohio

Languages

  • Portuguese
  • Spanish