Practice Focus
Energy Project Development, Complex Commercial
Energy Transactions, Consumer Energy Representation
Biography
Anthony W. Buxton serves as chair of the firm's
Energy and Utilities Practice Group. Tony creates solutions to business energy
problems, including the challenge of high-energy costs. Prior to joining Preti
Flaherty, Tony served as a first lieutenant in the U.S. Army (Armor) and worked
for future U.S. Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell. After law school, he
co-founded the Energy Law Institute in Concord, New Hampshire, the nation's
first renewable energy think tank. The Institute served the U.S. Department of
Energy, the U.S. Department of the Navy, the National Conference of State
Legislatures and others in developing state and federal policies to encourage
renewable energy.Tony then served as law clerk to the Honorable Hugh H. Bownes
of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston. Tony joined Preti
Flaherty after completing his clerkship in 1980.
Representative
Matters
- Organizes and leads multi-disciplinary energy project permitting and
development teams.
- Represents commercial and industrial energy users and producers in state and
regional electric and natural gas energy matters before Public Utilities
Commissions, ISO-New England and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
- Structures entities to finance, construct and/or operate energy projects,
including hydroelectric, wind biomass and solid waste facilities from 400
kilowatts to 200 megawatts in size, as well as transmission, LNG and ethanol
projects.
- Advises clients on tax, corporate and other legal implications of energy
project purchase, sale and development, and conservation implementation.
- Litigates the setting of retail rates, the design of rate structures to
apportion utility costs fairly among customer classes and, the establishment of
programs to promote energy conservation.
- Serves as General Counsel to the Industrial Energy Consumer Group,
representing the region’s largest consumers of electricity, and the Cut the Cost
Coalition, a recently created New England-based electricity consumer group.
Professional Achievements/Awards
- Listed in Woodward/White's The Best Lawyers in America since 1988
- Co-Author of Federal and State Legal and Institutional Obstacles to the
Development of Small Scale Hydroelectric Projects. (US DOE)
- Member of the Maine State and American Bar Associations.
Education
- Kents Hill School, 1964
- B.A., Bowdoin College, 1968
- J.D., Franklin Pierce Law Center, 1978
Civic Involvement
- Chair, Connect ME, a Maine gubernatorial task force to expand wireless and
broadband services in Maine (2006)
- Director, Democracy Maine
- Vice-Chair of the Commission on Maine's Future, 1990.
- Executive Committee, The Maine Legal Needs Study
- Past Director, Pine Tree Legal Services, Inc.
- Former Director, Portland Ballet
- Former Director, Maine Bar Foundation
- Finance Director, Kerry for President, 2004
- High School Hockey Coach, 2003
Admissions
Maine; Maine Supreme Judicial Court, Federal District Courts for Maine and
New Hampshire; U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit; U.S. Court of
Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
Membership Affiliations
Member of the Maine State and American Bar Associations
