PROVIDENCE — Seven months after taking office, Gov. Gina Raimondo stood shoulder to shoulder with the chief executive of a Chicago energy company that had chosen Rhode Island as the proposed site of a natural gas-burning power plant that would be among the largest in New England.
While protesters picketed outside with signs reading “FRACKED GAS KILLS,” inside the offices of the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce, Raimondo celebrated what she hoped would be a source of cheap energy and good jobs for Rhode Island, assuring Michael Polsky, CEO of developer Invenergy, “We’re going to make sure that you’re successful here.”