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Mary Beth Gentleman
Partner
Boston
Mary Beth Gentleman combines a decade of regulatory experience and nearly 20 years of practice at Foley Hoag to provide competitive power suppliers, energy service companies, and generating companies with strategic regulatory and market advice. She serves as Chair of Foley Hoag's Energy & Regulated Industries Practice Group and Co-Chair of the firm's Energy Technology and Renewables Practice Group, and her energy law experience has been recognized by her inclusion in both The Best Lawyers in America and Massachusetts SuperLawyers.
Mary Beth has a particular focus on matters pertaining to electric industry restructuring. She has helped clients negotiate restructuring settlement agreements with the major electric companies in New England, and also has adjudicated contested restructuring plans. She also advises wholesale generators in negotiating PPA restructurings and buy-out agreements, and in obtaining public utility commission approval.
Siting, permitting and asset purchases involving power plants are other primary areas of Mary Beth's energy practice. She serves as lead counsel for major power plant siting projects before the Massachusetts Energy Facilities Siting Board, and also handles permitting and siting issues that involve generating units, oil pipelines, natural gas pipelines, electric transmission lines and water lines to POTWs. Among the approvals that she obtained was the first Greenhouse Gas mitigation plan based on methane recovery. In addition, Mary Beth performs energy regulatory due diligence reviews for asset acquisitions involving fossil, hydro and methane-recovery facilities.
In addition to her energy regulatory practice, Mary Beth counsels software companies on establishing commercial relationships with energy distribution companies, generators, and regulatory agencies. She also advises energy and telecommunication companies on property tax valuation matters and represents them before the Massachusetts Appellate Tax Board.
Before joining Foley Hoag in 1989, Mary Beth had 11 years of experience with state energy regulation in Massachusetts. She served for six years as Assistant Secretary at the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy Resources, where she directed the development of state policy with respect to the electric, gas and oil industries and served as an energy and environmental policy advisor to Lt. Governor Thomas P. O'Neill, III. Mary Beth was also a technical staff member of the Massachusetts Energy Facilities Siting Board, where she reviewed siting applications for transmission lines, LNG storage facility, gas-fired generation unit and twin nuclear units, and co-authored LNG siting regulations.
Bars and Court Admissions
Massachusetts
professional / civic involvement
Conservation Services Group, Member, Board of Directors
Northeast Energy and Commerce Association, Vice President for Policy
Lex Mundi, Energy and Natural Resources Practice Group
MassDEP Commissioner's Advisory Committee
American Bar Association
Massachusetts Bar Association
Boston Bar Association
Energy Bar Association
SPEECHES AND CONFERENCES
Co-chair, "Energy in the Northeast," Law Seminars International Conference, Boston, MA (October 20-21, 2005 and October 16-17, 2006)
Panelist, "Ancillary Considerations in Power Procurement Contracting," Latest Rules and Trends in Effective Procurement and Contracting, Insight Information Conference (2005)
Panelist, "Renewable Energy: Where Are We? Where Are We Headed?" The Environmental Law Section of the Boston Bar Association (2003)
Moderator, "Power Markets: Where Are We Heading? (The Promise of Dereg, ISO/RTO Issues, Lessons from ENRON, Demand-Side Initiatives)," Power Markets in '02: Moving On, Northeast Energy and Commerce Association and the Connecticut Power and Energy Society (2002)
Panelist, "Retail Power Purchasing 101," New England Legal Foundation and Boston Bar Association, Corporate Counsel Committee (2001)
Moderator, "New Solutions for Customers' New Problems," Capturing the New Customer Markets Created by Energy Deregulation, Northeast Energy and Commerce Association (2001).
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