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Eleanor D'Ambrosio
Of Counsel
Overview
Eleanor D’Ambrosio combines her policy and regulatory experience to provide clients with proactive and responsive counsel and advocacy in utility-related regulatory and business matters, helping them provide efficient and high quality service to the public.
Eleanor brings a strong track record of public policy to her private practice, having served first in the Texas Legislature and later in state agencies. Her experience as an attorney with the Public Utility Commission of Texas, most recently as Deputy Director of the Legal Division, gives her unique perspective on the challenges in the state’s utility regulatory environment.
During her tenure at the Public Utility Commission, Eleanor was integral to several rulemakings to implement new or revise existing rules applicable to water utilities. She also represented Commission Staff in contested cases, including base rate proceedings for both electric and water utilities, wholesale water rate appeals, change in control proceedings, interim rate proceedings such as transmission cost recovery factor and generation cost recovery rider cases, certificate of convenience and necessity amendments for generation owned by vertically integrated utilities, and sale, transfer, and merger proceedings.
While in law school, Eleanor clerked in both the Administrative Law and Environmental Protection Divisions of the Texas Attorney General’s Office. Her interest in utility law was the natural outgrowth of her time spent in administrative law. Prior to law school, Eleanor served in a variety of roles for Texas state representatives, from campaign manager to legislative director to chief of staff. Her time in the political arena provides her with an understanding of how to draft and advocate for legislation that enhances and protects her clients’ interests.
Credentials
Education
- The University of Texas School of Law (J.D.)
- Brown University (B.A.)
- Public Utility Commission of Texas (Deputy Division Director)
- Served as lead attorney in the proceedings to authorize the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, Inc. to securitize up to $2.9 billion to stabilize the wholesale electric market and actively participated in settlement negotiations
- Managed and settled two electric sale, transfer, merger cases; one electric rate case; and rate cases for two of the largest water and sewer utilities in Texas
- Represented the public interest in contested cases before the State Office of Administrative Hearings (SOAH), including the largest wholesale water rate appeal to be filed with the Commission and a controversial application for a certificate of convenience and necessity amendment for wind-powered generation facilities
- Took a leadership role in rulemakings related to the fair market valuation of water utilities and the streamlined expedited release of property from a water certificate of convenience and necessity
- Office of Public Utility Counsel
- Represented OPUC in contested case proceedings before SOAH, including a rate case for a transmission and distribution utility and a fuel reconciliation for a vertically-integrated utility
- Represented the interests of residential and small commercial customers in rulemaking proceedings before the PUC
- Texas State Board of Plumbing Examiners
- Prosecuted enforcement actions for violations of the Plumbing License Law before SOAH
- State Bar of Texas
- Public Utility Law Section
- Administrative and Public Law Section
- Austin Bar Association
- Administrative Law Section
- “Water Case Law and PUC Decisions,” Panel Discussion, Public Utility Law Section Annual Conference, Austin, August 2022