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March 15, 2011

Former PUC chair picked for commissioner

By The Mainebiz News Staff

Gov. Paul LePage yesterday nominated Pierce Atwood attorney Thomas Welch as commissioner of the Maine Public Utilities Commission.

Welch previously served as chairman of the PUC from 1993 to 2005 and helped create Maine's incentive regulation for major telephone utilities, according to a press release from the governor's office. Prior to joining the PUC, Welch was chief deputy attorney general for antitrust in the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office, and worked as a lawyer and a law professor. He will appear before a legislative committee in the upcoming weeks, and if approved, he would join Commissioners Vendean Vafiades and David Littell.

In related news, LePage appointed pulp and paper executive Kenneth Fletcher as director of the Office of Energy Independence and Security. Fletcher has worked for a number of companies, including Madison Paper Corp. and Wausau-Mosinee Paper Corp., and also served as a state representative. LePage also retained Anne Head as the commissioner of the Department of Professional and Financial Regulation. Head was appointed to that post by former Gov. John Baldacci in 2008.

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