David Littell brings more than 25 years of regulatory experience to RAP. He provides advice to state officials, public utility commissions, and environmental regulators on complex energy, pollution, and economic issues. These include renewable resources and integration, demand response, energy efficiency and renewable portfolios, rate-making and rate design, economic assessment of energy and environmental resources, power, transmission, and non-transmission alternatives, as well as innovative approaches to air, water, land, and cross-media pollution.
From 2010 through 2015, Mr. Littell served as a commissioner of the Maine Public Utilities Commission, participating in the resolution of more than 2,000 cases involving energy efficiency, distributed generation, rate-making, rate design, and consumer protection issues. During his tenure, he became the longest-serving officer of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) and served as vice-chairman of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners’ Task Force on Environmental Regulation and Generation. Mr. Littell previously served as commissioner (2005 through 2010) and deputy commissioner (2003 through 2005) of the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, where he established RGGI, oversaw Maine’s greenhouse gas reduction initiatives, energy and industrial permitting, wildlife habitat protection, and toxics reduction initiatives. As environmental commissioner, he oversaw approval of more energy and economic investments in the State than any previous time period in the state’s history.
During his 12 years of public service, Mr. Littell chaired the New England Governors’ Committee on the Environment and co-chaired the New England Governors and Eastern Canadian Premiers’ Committee on the Environment. He also represented Maine on the Eastern Interconnection States’ Planning Council (EISPC) and chaired the EISPC Energy Zones Workgroup that identified clean energy resource zones and sensitive bird and wildlife and ecological areas in 38 U.S. states. Mr. Littell also served on the board of the National Regulatory Research Institute, chaired the Environmental Council of the States’ Cross-Media Committee, and served for five years on the executive board of The Climate Registry.
Mr. Littell was also a partner at Pierce Atwood, Maine’s largest law firm until 2003. From 1994 through 2003, he was an intelligence officer in the U.S. Navy Reserves, resigning his commission as Lieutenant Commander. Mr. Littell holds a law degree from Harvard Law School and a bachelor’s degree from Princeton. He was named a Distinguished Policy Scholar by the University of Maine in 2010.
