It was unrealistic to have expected U.S. Commerce Secretary and former R.I. Gov. Gina M. Raimondo to use her influence to steer to her home state a piece of $1 billion in federal economic development funding.
Two groups with Rhode Island connections were among 61 finalists, including a request for up to $100 million to boost the state’s ocean-based, or blue, economy. Neither was among the final grant recipients, though both received initial seed funding. Ms. Raimondo insisted politics did not influence the decision-making, though ample funding went toward political battlegrounds ahead of midterm elections.
The reality is politics always plays a part in such deliberations and the blue economy proposal didn’t offer the Biden administration enough political bang for the bucks.
The good news, however, is development of the state’s blue economy is well underway. And Gov. Daniel J. McKee has proposed $70 million in related investments that would go a long way toward unlocking the ocean economy’s enormous potential.