Jennifer Boylan
DemocraticQ1 Rhode Island has among the highest electricity prices in the country, with the Governor’s office having declared an Energy Affordability State of Emergency in July 2026. What policies, if any, would you support to reduce energy costs for Rhode Islanders, and how will you balance maintaining grid reliability and meeting the state’s long-term climate goals?
We have a number of solutions. We should electrify everything and stop investing in natural gas-powered building systems. We must invest in renewables (wind and solar) and stick to our Act On Climate requirements. We need to cut red tape associated with residential solar (pass my Solar Cost Reduction Act) and make it cheaper and easier for people to pair batteries with residential and small scale solar. Microgrids and Virtual Power Plants (VPPs) are two emerging energy technologies that can promote grid resilience, energy independence, and renewable energy. We need to invest in utility scale battery systems and require Rhode Island Energy to roll out variable rates for electricity to encourage people to use more off-peak power. Rhode Island Energy’s spending should be under a microscope all the time; ratepayers should never pay for costs associated with advertising, marketing, communications, or public education that seek to influence public (H7881), and their profit margin should be trimmed. We need to stop utility shutoffs during extreme heat waves. We need strong guardrails on datacenters.
Keywords: renewables, batteries
Q2 Rhode Island has proposed more reporting, utility oversight, and zoning guidance for large data centers, along with shifting some generation, capacity, and reliability costs onto data center developers rather than ordinary ratepayers. How should the costs and benefits of large data center development be divided between developers and the public, and what requirements, if any, would you support on power, water, and public reporting before a project moves forward?
Data centers need substantial guardrails to protect Rhode Island communities, consumers, and the environment. Data center owners must not only pay for the costs of grid upgrades needed to power their facilities, but they must also help expand less expensive clean energy and benefits for local Rhode Island residents. We should establish a separate rate or rates for data centers, and incentivize data centers to meet a large portion of their energy with new clean energy. We should also require data centers to operate with flexibility, agreeing to reduce their power use when the grid is strained. We should consider requiring heat generated by data centers to be captured and reused. We should require data center applications to include projected water use and source, and require that data centers employ water conservation, efficiency, and maintenance of watershed/aquifer health. We should also consider air quality, and require that diesel-powered backup generators must, at a minimum, meet the EPA’s Tier 4 Final Emission Standards and that backup generators can only be used during emergencies and within existing regulatory limits. Battery backup generators should be preferred or perhaps incentivized. Last, we should prohibit non-disclosure agreements with municipalities.
Q3 Rhode Island faces environmental challenges including sea-level rise, flooding, coastal erosion, and extreme weather. How should the state prioritize and fund environmental resilience projects, and what scientific or economic criteria should be used to determine which communities and infrastructure receive investment first?
Rhode Island’s resilience plan update, Resilient Rhody 2025, includes a statewide vulnerability assessment that inventoried and evaluated the risks posed to publicly owned assets from sea-level rise, extreme weather, and other climate-related impacts. Through technical screening and stakeholder input, the state then narrowed that list to identify critical assets for further analysis and potential investment. The plan also identified key resilience actions to be taken, defined various agencies’ roles in their implementation, and estimated that completing them would cost $112 million to $304 million. The plan includes a formal “prioritization framework” for directing resources toward the most impactful projects. We should make the polluters pay and pass my Climate Superfund bill.
Q4 PFAS chemicals are widely used in consumer products but have raised health concerns due to their persistence in the environment and humans, and new state legislature-passed restrictions on their use will soon begin to be implemented. How should the state respond as scientific evidence about PFAS exposure and health effects continues to evolve? What balance should policymakers strike among public-health protection, testing and monitoring, feasibility for manufacturers, and the availability of safer substitutes?
We need to continue to be vigilant in terms of monitoring for PFAS (see the latest news from Tiverton) and seeking safer water supplies for those affected by contaminated wells. We need to stick with the PFAS laws on the books and not allow the laws to be weakened with carveouts. We should simultaneously focus on source reduction, encouraging safer substitutes for things that we know to contain PFAS (like artificial turf for example). Manufacturers who profit from the products that contain PFAS must be held accountable when their products destroy aquifers and/or expose Rhode Islanders to toxic substances.
Q5 Rhode Island has seen an over 50% decline in drug overdose deaths since 2022, already surpassing its 2030 reduction goal. Which evidence-based policies related to prevention, harm reduction, treatment, and recovery would you prioritize to ensure continued positive progress, and how would you evaluate whether state investments are reducing overdose deaths and improving long-term outcomes?
Rhode Island has a Governor ’s Overdose Prevention and Intervention Task Force. The Governor’s Overdose Prevention and Intervention Task Force Action Plan focuses on four strategies to prevent overdose and save lives: 1. Reinforcing Comprehensive Prevention, 2. Strengthening Rescue & Harm Reduction, 3. Increasing Engagement in Treatment, and 4. Supporting Recovery. All four of these pillars are critical to keep the downward decline in drug overdose deaths trending in the right direction. There are several Task Force Work Groups that are involved informing the larger Task Force. The Task Force issues semi-annual reports, the latest of which from March 2026 indicates that Rhode Island is on track to meet its 2030 goal of reducing overdose deaths by 30%. This is good news is proof that we are succeeding but it’s important to continue assessing the periodic reports to ensure that the progress continues going in the right direction.
Keywords: Overdose, harm reduction, prevention
Q6 Rhode Island universities, hospitals, and research organizations are a core part of our state’s economy and rely heavily on government support for biomedical and scientific research. What policies, if any, would you support to ensure stable research funding while also promoting accountability, scientific integrity, and translation of federally funded discoveries into benefits for Rhode Island communities?
As the Federal government seeks to terminate its funding commitments, we need to use every tool possible to get the funding reinstated. That means entrusting our Attorney General’s office to collaborate with other states and sue where appropriate. It also means leaning on our Congressional delegation to advocate for our state.
In the meantime, the state can leverage and expand dedicated state-level funding bodies, like the Rhode Island Life Science Hub, which is a quasi-public state agency, and the Rhode Island Research Alliance which is administered by the RI Science & Technology Advisory Council (STAC). There are private organizations, like the Rhode Island Foundation, that might be good partners to fund research. We should consider bonds to support state higher ed investments, and we should consider partnering with neighboring states where appropriate. Use of public dollars should always involve processes for oversight to ensure transparency, responsible spending, reporting, and accountability.