Peter F. Neronha is in the homestretch of his second – and final – term as Rhode Island’s attorney general, and his workload is as heavy as ever.
He’s partially to blame for that.
In addition to traditional criminal prosecution and consumer protection duties, Neronha is seemingly stretching the boundaries of the R.I. Office of Attorney General. He’s been outspoken on social issues ranging from the state’s health care woes to a defense of diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace – arguably more vocal than any AG before him.
And he hasn’t shied away from confrontation, either, whether it’s quarreling publicly with Gov. Daniel J. McKee, a fellow Democrat, or joining lawsuits to fight actions by Republican President Donald Trump’s administration.
Neronha served as U.S. attorney for the District of Rhode Island from 2009 to 2017 and was first elected attorney general in 2018 and reelected in 2022. Now term-limited, he hasn’t been definitive about what he wants to do after 2026. In the meantime, Neronha says he still has plenty to do while he remains attorney general.
What are your priorities for the rest of your time in office? I really have a couple things I want to get over the finish line. Certainly, I want to get health care to a better place than we are today, even with some of the accomplishments that we’ve seen by getting Medicaid to 100% of Medicare [the fiscal 2026 state budget includes a $45 million allocation so primary care providers will be paid the same amount by Medicaid as they would be paid by Medicare]. I think that’s going to have a significant impact, but we need to do more. I want to make sure that the plan that we outlined [in May] continues to come to fruition. [The plan included steps ranging from a lawsuit filed against pharmacy benefit managers such as CVS Caremark for deceptive practices to creating a new state health care agency to collect and analyze health care data for governmental decision-making.]
We’re behind on meeting our Act on Climate goals. I feel like the state hasn’t moved quickly enough. I want to continue to push us forward there to the extent I can. I don’t control all the levers of state government, but I feel like using our bully pulpit can help move things forward like we did in health care.
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MULLING IT OVER: Attorney General Peter F. Neronha says he’ll decide sometime this summer whether he’ll run for governor in 2026.
PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO[/caption]
What have been your biggest accomplishments so far? And the biggest disappointments? What’s been most satisfying is building a team here that can plan for and respond to the health care challenges we’re facing. We weren’t in a position to do that in 2019 when I got here. I didn’t become as concerned about it until we dealt with the first major health care transaction that was the proposed merger of Mass General Brigham [then called Partners HealthCare] and Care New England [Health System]. [Mass General Brigham formally withdrew its application in 2019, months after Neronha took office.] It was pretty clear to me, before that merger fell apart, that we had to build a team here that was stronger and more capable of taking on some of these really difficult challenges.
In terms of disappointments, how do I put this? I don’t really feel like there have been any that have made me any less enthusiastic about coming to the office every day. Certainly, I wish we could have done some things faster. I wish we had made more progress as a state on health care so we wouldn’t be in the state of crisis that we are. And I wish I’d been able to be more persuasive to get others in government to act sooner. I think our criminal justice system on the state side doesn’t move quickly enough. I don’t feel like we have a very nimble criminal justice system in the sense that cases take a long time to move. Defendants don’t get their trial date if that’s what they’re looking for. But it also means that victims can get justice many years after they are victimized, and I don’t think that it helps in the overall goal of obtaining justice when cases are delayed that long.
When it’s time for me to step away, hopefully the office will be in good shape for whoever follows me, and they’ll be able to put their own stamp on it.
What are your plans for when you leave the office? Still to be determined.
You’re widely seen as a potential gubernatorial candidate. Are you considering running? I’ve given it thought. Some of the things I’m weighing are, as I get to this point in my life – I’m 61 now – how do I want to spend the next decade. Not all my family is close by. I don’t want to lose more time with them and I want to take into account what my wife wants to do with the rest of her career. I think that there are things that need fixing [in government], and I feel like that certainly I could play a role there. As governor, you have an opportunity to lead if you choose to do so. So, there’s an opportunity to fix things. I like fixing things. I like building teams, but what I ultimately decide to do, I’m not certain yet.
When would you have a decision? Sometime this summer.
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MORE WORK
TO BE DONE:
R.I. Attorney General Peter F. Neronha says Rhode Island is behind on meeting its Act on Climate goals and he plans to continue to push the state forward as he finishes his second and final term in office by “using our bully pulpit” to “move things forward like we did in health care.”
PBN PHOTO/
MICHAEL SALERNO[/caption]
If you were to run, what would you base your campaign on? A couple of things. Health care is one of them. We’re not making enough progress in education in our most urban cities. There are some children that are clearly being left behind. I don’t think, for example, that the state’s leadership of the Providence school system has advanced the ball really at all. I think that we can devise a state education policy that can serve children but let control be where it should be, which is in the local cities and towns that can do it right. But with input from leadership at the state level. If you just take a step back and think about what the governor should do, what any leader should do, is start by building a good team … in every role that I’ve had, you have to be able to spot and understand issues … and then figure out a way to address it. And most importantly, put really good people around you that can help you find solutions for the people you’re trying to serve.
How would you describe your relationship with Gov. Daniel J. McKee? It’s not very good, but it doesn’t impact the work here. The office works with the governor’s office and the components of the administration just fine. I have good relationships with the directors. The deterioration of [the relationship with McKee] is frankly linked to some of the investigations we’ve done of the administration. It is what it is. I don’t think he’ll get past it and [the ILO] investigation [into the awarding of a contract to a company with ties to the McKee administration, the ILO Group]. I accept that, but I have a job to do and I’m just going to keep doing it.
You have several lawsuits against President Trump. Why is it important for your office to engage in these lawsuits? We look at every single one of them through the same lens. There’s a three-part test that we use. It’s pretty simple, and I always come back to it. The first question is, Has the president broken the law? If the president has broken the law, Has he harmed Rhode Islanders? If he has harmed Rhode Islanders, then the question becomes whether we have legal standing to sue. If all three components of that test are met, then we’ll consider taking action. We have been part of [24] cases that have been filed against the president since his [second] inauguration. Of the [24], six of them have been filed here, and I’m really proud of that. What’s important about those cases? Well, most of them, if not all of them, involve funding.
Are you satisfied with how those cases are going? Yeah, I am. I have to remind Rhode Islanders how well they’re going. So there’s a sense that as the president does all these things and we file all these lawsuits, that we don’t get good outcomes until the cases are over. And that could take years. Well, the reality is that what we’re seeking in these cases, in nearly every case, and certainly in the cases that we’ve talked about, is injunctive relief. When we win those injunctions, what that does is put the brakes on what the president’s doing. So by getting those injunctions, we stopped the president from depriving Rhode Islanders of money we need, and those are wins. And we’ve stopped him from violating the Constitution.
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Attorney General Peter F. Neronha. PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO[/caption]
We’ve been talking about the health care crisis for a while. Would you say that’s the most pressing issue facing Rhode Islanders right now? If so, why? Yeah, I think it’s among them. Our economy could be more robust, and that ties into our health care problem. Health care is funded in three ways, Medicaid, Medicare and commercial. On a typical $100 procedure, if Medicare pays $100 for let’s say a physical [exam], commercial [insurance plans] will [reimburse more] and Medicaid will pay $37. So you can see why having a lot of people on Medicaid, as we have in Rhode Island, is bad for our health care system because there’s just less revenue coming into the system. How do we fix that? Part of the way we fix that is to get people under commercial insurance. We grow our economy so that the employers here have or provide insurance to their employees.
You mentioned Medicaid and you’ve been vocal about private equity in health care. Aside from those two issues, what else worries you about the health care system in Rhode Island? It’s not just Medicaid that’s too low. Medicare is too low in Rhode Island. Commercial, in my view, is too low as well. It’s low relative to our neighboring states. So certainly, we have to bring more revenue in from all three of those sources. We have to bring costs down. Primary care is a problem; revenue is a problem. Drug prices are a problem, but the state of our hospitals is a problem, too. I’m just not certain that all of our hospitals will survive economically if we don’t change some of the things we’ve already been talking about. I am really worried about [Roger Williams Medical Center] and [Our Lady of Fatima Hospital]. I can’t tell Rhode Islanders with a 100% degree of certainty – far from it actually – that two, three years down the road, maybe even sooner, they’ll still be there unless we change some of these fundamentals underlying health care.
Speaking of Roger Williams and Fatima, your office and the R.I. Department of Health approved the sale of the hospitals to the Centurion Foundation with many conditions. Where do the new CharterCARE health system and Centurion stand in meeting those conditions? Well, it took [CharterCARE health system and Centurion] a long time to agree to meet [the conditions]. They’ve got to raise the money by selling the bonds that are for sale to complete the conditions of the sale, which requires them to have a certain amount of cash to get the [new entity] started. If they don’t sell those bonds, or raise the cash, they can’t close the transaction.
Switching gears to some of the health care initiatives you recently announced. One of them is creating a new state agency for collecting and analyzing health care data. Why do you think that’s needed in Rhode Island? All of us agree here – the health care team and I – agree that the best approach is to have a state agency that has access to data and knows how to crunch data, has the kind of expertise to use that data to reach conclusions and come up with proposals and guide policy in a way that can make health care work really well for Rhode Islanders. We are far too [fragmented] in our health care thinking. You’ve got the office of the health insurance commissioner, which does certain things, in one place, and then you’ve got the Medicaid office, which is parked over here, and they do their thing with Medicaid, and then you’ve got the Department of Health. And to the extent they do strategic thinking around health care, certainly they have to manage our system. They do a good job of that. We really think that a model more like Massachusetts, where this kind of function exists in one agency, really moves the ball forward. And doesn’t require more bureaucracy or more expense. It just requires a rearranging of these roles and combining them and then building out the talent pool to be able to handle the modern health care challenge. You’ve got to be thinking of the challenges that are coming, not the ones that you’re facing now alone.
This is the second year in a row that you’ve proposed legislation to overhaul the Coastal Resources Management Council – the independent regulatory panel charged with overseeing coastal development – with little success. Do you plan to keep pushing for it? Yeah, we’ve wasted a lot of time in this office on unnecessary litigation. I really don’t understand the arguments that it’s going to cost more to get rid of the council. They’re unpaid, to my knowledge. It seems to me they’re costing more money because every time they make a decision, the odds of there being litigation go up by probably 50%. I’m exaggerating. But it’s inescapable to me why we haven’t solved that problem yet.
You’ve led a coalition to provide guidance on diversity, equity and inclusion laws. How concerned are you about misinformation surrounding DEI laws? So, I think the confusion is created by the president because the president rarely defines what he’s targeting. We’ve given some guidance to schools, and frankly, I was just thanked yesterday by a member of the community in Charlestown for providing that guidance because it allowed the School Committee to have clarity down in Charlestown as to what their policies should be around diversity, equity and inclusion. I believe that those policies, as we use them in this office by encouraging inclusion and diversity in our workforce, make us stronger. It should reflect the diversity that’s our state.
I’m confident that nothing that I’m aware of that’s going on in Rhode Island is violating federal law. If the administration says that we are, well, then we’ll hear what they’re saying. They’ll do an investigation. We’ll get the results of the investigation, and then we’ll deal with it. But I’m not overly concerned here, and I don’t think Rhode Islanders need to be overly concerned either.
Would you agree that you’re stretching the bounds of the AG’s office more than anyone before you – such as being outspoken on social issues? And how would you respond to those who might say the AG should stick to criminal prosecutions and consumer protection? I didn’t ask the voters to send me to this office to do as little as possible. I asked them to send me here to do as much as possible. We’ve expanded our work for Rhode Islanders while continuing to do all of the work done before I arrived, professionally and capably.
The truth is that the office was doing very little proactive consumer protection, environmental, energy, climate, and health care work when I arrived, and that work is expansive now. If the worst that people can say is that the office has done too much for the people of Rhode Island on my watch, I’ll take it.
