Senate Committee Sends McKee’s CRMC Executive Board Nominees to Full Vote Next Week
If approved, the six picks will have a powerful role in determining state permitting for coastal projects
May 20, 2026
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PROVIDENCE — More than two and a half months after he was required to by state law, Gov. Dan McKee this week announced his new slate of appointees to run the state’s embattled and sometimes controversial coastal regulatory agency.
If approved by the state Senate, the six picks, all older, white men, will have a powerful role in determining state permitting for coastal projects in such areas as aquaculture, offshore wind, climate change and waterfront home development at the state Coastal Resources Management Council.
McKee’s six nominees, selected based on more specific criteria in an attempt to increase accountability for the CRMC, include four brand-new faces and two current members.
“Rhode Island’s oceans, coastline, and beaches are extremely important to the social, economic, and environmental well-being of our state, and these nominees will help the CRMC continue its mission of protecting these critical resources,” said McKee in a statement.
The Senate Environment and Agriculture Committee voted to send all six nominees to the state Senate for a full vote.
The new members will have a significant amount of work ahead. CRMC is currently in the middle of hearing testimony on whether Westerly’s Spring Avenue Extension is a public right of way, and the agency is embroiled in a series of lawsuits with Quidnessett Country Club over an illegal seawall.
The new faces include:
Scott Rabideau, a wetlands biologist with more than 40 years in the consulting business before his retirement last year. Nominated as the council’s coastal biologist member, Rabideau and his firm were a frequent presence at CRMC hearings, usually testifying in support of coastal developments that hired his firm, Natural Resource Services Inc.
A Burrillville resident, Rabideau represented the town for four terms in the General Assembly as a state representative, leaving office in 2022. Between 2013 and 2019 he served on the Judicial Nominating Commission and has served on the state Ethics Commission since McKee appointed him in 2024.
(During his hearing, Rabideau credited reporting from ecoRI News for spurring him to apply.)
W. Michael Sullivan most recently served as executive director of the Rhode Island Nursery and Landscape Association before leaving that post last year. In 2018 President Donald J. Trump appointed him to serve as the state’s executive director of the USDA Farm Service Agency. Sullivan also worked as a full, tenured professor of plant science at the University of Rhode Island and is a former director of the state Department of Environmental Management, which he led from 2005 to 2011.
Like Rabideau, Sullivan has a background in local politics, serving for six years as town council president in his hometown of Richmond, R.I, as well as four years as a state senator. He has a bachelor’s degree in plant and soil science from the University of Rhode Island, and a master’s in the same field from the University of Vermont, with a Ph.D in agronomy from the University of Nebraska. Sullivan serves as a CRMC member affiliated with an environmental organization.
He is a member of the Southern Conservation District and the state Technical Review Committee.
Richard A. Bernando has been appointed to fill the engineer role on the council. Since 2023, Bernardo has worked as the executive vice president and director of transportation for Crossman Engineering, a firm that provides services in environmental engineering, transportation engineering, site planning and land surveying, according to its website.
The firm has worked on public and private projects ranging from the Smithfield Crossings retail development to renovating the parking lots at Rhode Island College. Between 2022 and 2023 Bernardo served as the director of public works for the city of Cranston. Bernarndo’s previous stints in the public sector include a year as the manager for design engineering in the state Department of Transportation, where he worked on the 6/10 interchange, and as the director of public works in Burrillville from 2003 to 2009.
Bernardo, who lives in Warwick, has more than 45 years of experience in civil and environmental engineering, and has a bachelor’s of science degree in civil engineering from Roger Williams University.
Carder Starr is “a creative entrepreneur with 35 years of experience,” according to a copy of his resume provided by the governor’s office. In his business career, Starr has founded and led six separate companies ranging from nutritional supplements to salad dressing to exporting frozen seafood. He most recently formed a startup that created a word game app called Linguicity in West Kingston, R.I.
Starr has a bachelor’s degree in geological sciences from Brown University, and a master’s degree in marine affairs from the University of Rhode Island. He’s been a member of the Narragansett Democratic Town Committee since 2012, and town treasurer since 2017.
McKee is also re-appointing acting CRMC chair Raymond Coia, a labor official and Cranston municipal judge who has served on the CRMC in some capacity since 2002, and Stephen Izzi, an attorney from Cranston.
Coia is one of the CRMC members that is currently serving an expired term. State law allows incumbent members of CRMC to serve even after their term expires, effectively creating lifetime appointments by sitting governors who do not regularly send new CRMC appointments to the state Senate.
Coia was last appointed in 2018, according to the secretary of state’s website. His appointment this year is the first time Coia has had to appear before the Senate since then.
The picks come at a time of intense scrutiny for the agency and its practices. CRMC’s executive board is made up almost entirely of political appointees, sans the state Department of Environmental Management’s representative, which is almost always Ronald Gagnon, an employee in the department’s customer service office.
Those political appointees are typically insulated from any consequences of their decisions, and state Superior Court has been known to kick a decision back to the council for re-consideration because of a mistake, intentionally or not, on the part of the executive board.
It’s why environmental groups like Save The Bay and the New England chapter of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers have backed legislation that would abolish the executive council and overhaul CRMC, either by making its structure similar to DEM, or merging it into DEM entirely.
Topher Hamblett, executive director for Save The Bay, characterized the new nominations as “a waste of time,” and called on the Senate to table McKee’s nominations and instead pass the reform legislation in the chamber.
“It doesn’t matter who gets appointed to the council at this point because it’s so horribly flawed in its structure,” Hamblett told ecoRI News. “Its performance has been abysmal over the last five or six years especially.”
Sen. Susan Sosnowski, D-South Kingstown, chair of the Senate Environment and Agriculture Committee, dismissed Hamblett’s and other opponents’ position on tabling the nominees during the hearing on Wednesday.
“That just isn’t before us today,” said Sosnowski. “The governor has sent us some names and we need to consider them.”
Hamblett pointed toward recent controversies swirling around CRMC and said, “I think the public wants to see us move beyond all the political connections that come along with the council and wants to see a professionally run agency free of all that nonsense.”
Coia’s renomination was especially problematic, said Hamblett. Coia has served on the council for 22 years, experience that the governor indicated in his press release was reason enough for re-appointment. But some controversial decisions happened under his leadership of the council.
In his hearing, Coia defended the council’s decision on Champlin’s Marina & Resort on Block Island allowing the marina to expand into Great Salt Pond, an agreement reached in November and December 2020 during private meetings between the marina’s former owner and the CRMC board. The town of New Shoreham and other long-standing opponents of the project weren’t involved with the agreement. The Rhode Island Supreme Court rejected the deal in 2022.
Coia said the press wrote stories blowing the facts out of proportion. There was no “backroom deal” said Coia; all parties – the applicant, opponents and town – had been involved, he said.
“I can’t say what we did was wrong, at the time we thought it was correct, we thought we handled it correctly by the law as it should be,” said Coia.
Regarding Quidnessett Country Club and its illegally constructed seawall, Coia declined to answer questions, pending litigation in Superior Court. But some senators weren’t satisfied with no answer.
“Do you think it’s appropriate to change regulations retroactively?” asked Sen. Victoria Gu, D-Westerly, referencing CRMC’s consideration of a water type change last year which would have retroactively allowed the construction of the seawall.
“It depends,” said Coia, after a lengthy pause.
Coia was the only appointee not to pass unanimously out of committee. Sen. Megan Kallman, D-Pawtucket, was the lone no vote.
The Senate is expected to vote on all six nominees next week.
Get rid of the CRMC and all the clowns
Not s single environmentalist. Seems ridiculous to me
“…(Scott) Rabideau and his firm were a frequent presence at CRMC hearings, usually testifying in SUPPORT OF COASTAL DEVELOPMENTS that hired his firm…..”. This appointment alone proves what a sham this process is.
McKee is horrible…let’s hear what Foulkes and Block would do to counteract this.
i know rabideau, sullivan and bernardo and yes scott made a living representing coastal developers however he knows coastal biology and the CRMC regs probably better than any of the CRMC staff. he s well equipped to see through the smoke that applicants blow. rich has been around for a long time and brings a lot of engineering knowledge that was otherwise missing. And i’ve seen mike eviscerate CRMC applicant’s experts when they’re full of it. i don t know Starr but he credentials are impressive.
Coia’s chairmanship allowed the block island marina deal to occur. regardless of the back room or non-back room deal, and i don t know the details, and especially since the court reversed the decision, it seems that it was poor leadership on his part.
i agree that the CRMC should be under DEM but in the interim the four new members will bring a much higher level of expertise to the council.
A retired smoke-blower refereeing a new class of smoke-blowers. LOL.
As a retired environmental professional with 45 years of experience in Rhode Island’s, and other States’ environmental sectors—including time within the DEM, the Department of Administration, and three decades in private practice—I have spent a lifetime observing the intersection of policy and our natural landscape. Through this lens, I have come to see our environment not merely as a set of assets to be managed by bureaucracy, but as a complex, functioning creation that requires thoughtful, public-facing stewardship.
I am encouraged by the Governor’s recent move to appoint six new members to the Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC). Specifically, I wish to voice my strong support for the appointments of Richard Bernardo and Scott Rabideau. Both are individuals of immense integrity and technical caliber; their presence on the board is exactly the kind of professional infusion the Council needs to restore public confidence and operational excellence.
There has been much debate regarding the future of the CRMC, particularly suggestions that its authority should be transferred to the DEM. I strongly believe the solution to the Council’s challenges—such as “small-p” political influence and permitting delays—is not to dismantle our citizen-led structure or bury its functions within a massive state agency. A government department is, by design, a closed loop; a citizen board, however, is a vital part of the public square.
The appointment of professionals like Mr. Bernardo and Mr. Rabideau proves that the institution itself is capable of renewal. We do not need to trade public oversight for the “administrative deafness” that often occurs when internal procedure is prioritized over the practical, complex realities of the communities we serve.
We can address these challenges without stripping the public of their oversight role by implementing necessary legislative guardrails:
Implement a Scientific Decision Matrix: To remove the subjectivity that invites lobbying, we should mandate a scientific decision matrix for permit applications. This replaces subjective pressure with objective, weighted data, providing board members with the “armor” to resist political maneuvering.
End the Culture of Delay: We should utilize “fast-track” protocols for routine, non-controversial applications to declutter the docket, while enforcing strict attendance thresholds to ensure that public service remains a professional commitment.
Ensure Accountability: We should empower the Ethics Commission to audit board proceedings and mandate real-time, public-facing access to every vote and the rationale behind it.
We have a unique opportunity to reform the CRMC from within by combining strong, professional leadership with transparent, objective decision-making tools. Let us preserve the board, support high-caliber appointments like Bernardo and Rabideau, and ensure our government remains accountable to the people of Rhode Island.
Mr Esner too has a bias. Crying, “The Sky is Falling” all the time erodes credibility.
There has been some pushback regarding the Governor’s appointment of Scott Rabideau to the CRMC, citing his history of representing applicants before the board as a disqualifying conflict. I believe this perspective is not only short-sighted but fundamentally misunderstands the nature of professional stewardship.
To suggest that a career spent navigating the complexities of coastal development from the consultant’s side is a “sham” is to ignore the immense value of practical, hands-on experience. A board member who understands how the regulations actually impact a project on the ground—and who has spent years working within the framework of our coastal laws—brings a level of technical literacy that a purely theoretical or administrative background simply cannot match.
Furthermore, let us be honest about the “environmentalist” perspective. Many who criticize industry-experienced appointees often champion those from strictly regulatory or preservationist backgrounds, such as the Department of Environmental Management’s (DEM) Natural Heritage Program. While these perspectives are important, they carry their own distinct biases. A regulator whose entire career has been spent saying “no” or enforcing static, top-down mandates may be just as prone to “administrative deafness” as a developer’s consultant is to project advocacy.
The real danger is not the background of the appointee; it is the absence of a balanced, cross-disciplinary understanding of the law.
Mr. Rabideau—and indeed, individuals like Richard Bernardo—possess the professional maturity to handle the “consciousness of a consultant.” This is not a synonym for bias; it is the ability to bridge the gap between human economic necessity and the mandate of environmental protection. We do not need board members who have lived in a hermetically sealed room of environmental theory. We need practitioners who understand the nuance of the law, the realities of the shoreline, and the heavy, often difficult task of reconciling growth with conservation.
By appointing people who have actually worked in the trenches of the industry, we aren’t creating a “sham.” We are creating a functional, informed board that can see the whole picture. If we want a CRMC that works, we must move past the idea that industry experience is a moral failing and recognize it as the professional competence required to make difficult, equitable decisions for Rhode Island’s coast.
here, here
Mr. Travassos knows full well “regulators” do not spend their careers saying no. Nobody would keep their job very long if all they said was no. Why is it necessary to reference regulators negatively? Their job is not to stop development, it’s to “regulate” it, based on the laws that the people enact. Their job is to apply the specific rules outlined in the law to each application, for example, to alter a freshwater wetland. In the last 50 years, DEM’s Freshwater Wetland section has reviewed tens of thousands of applications. My guess would be that no more than 5% of those applications were denied. (I’m sure you could easily get that figure from DEM). Which means the 95% either didn’t have a wetland on their property (many people apply just to make sure) or they were given a permit to alter a wetland.
The Natural Heritage Program had no regulatory authority. We were just a reference for the Wetlands staff to use when they assessed the potential impacts to rare and endangered species. During the 28-year tenure of the NHP, we answered hundreds of requests from consultants regarding the presence of rare species on sites to be developed. Rare species being what they are, there were few problems encountered. Again, in 28 years I appeared before only four public hearings to explain the importance of a particular location that was slated to be developed. In all four instances the sites were eventually developed. One site resulted in the loss of the South Kingstown pine barrens. I’d say my track record on saying “no” isn’t very good.
There was one project that came before Wetlands in which NHP info contributed to its denial, in Cumberland. A radio company wanted to raise a tower in the floodplain of the Blackstone River. Scott Rabideau was the consultant for this project, but the application made no mention of the significance of the wetland to several rare birds. Mr. Rabideau is not the only consultant to downplay the potential impacts of the projects they work on, so I won’t pick on him and just say I don’t think any consultant should be placed on CRMC.
Since 2007 when I retired, there has been no consideration of rare species on any development in RI. That’s almost 20 years of free passes. So yes, John. The sky really is falling. You’re just ignoring it like everybody else.
With all due respect to Mr. Enser, he’s a preservationist, which is not a bad thing. It’s just that he doesn’t have the will (pocketbook) of the people behind him because most people are not willing to pay the price for preservation. Consequently, we live in a world of regulations that attempt to placate both sides, though almost always the vulnerable species lose.
Given that dilemma, we try to do our best at figuring out what seems best, and professionals like Bernardo & Rabideau at least understand enough and are intelligent people of integrity, which I believe is what’s been missing on the Board, to do a good job.
While not perfect, and until the people are willing to actually sacrifice for the sake of the environment, we must do the best we can.