#2022-25 December 9, 2022

Governor-elect Healey Eyeing Administration Hires

On Thursday, closer now to her swearing-in than to when she was elected, Governor-elect Maura Healey said that she is continuing to work on picking people to join her team.

During a visit to the State House, Healey was asked if she would be open to keeping any members of Governor Charlie Baker’s administration as Cabinet secretaries.  The governor-elect said she and Lieutenant Governor-elect Kim Driscoll are all about identifying the right and best people for these jobs.  There is no update regarding whether other administration officials, such as those at the Division of Banks or elsewhere, may be impacted by the administration change.

Though Healey and Driscoll haven’t announced any secretary picks yet, she did say they are spending a lot of time talking with people interested in joining the administration and that they could come from within government or even out of state.  Healey didn’t limit her timeline for top hires, saying they would happen within the coming weeks.

The governor-elect and lieutenant governor-elect are set to be sworn in on January 5.

Everett Casino Snags First Sports Betting License

On Thursday, the Massachusetts Gaming Commission and its regulators voted to award the state’s first sports betting license to Encore Boston Harbor after deferring similar votes for other outlets earlier in the week.

The commission’s unanimous vote put the Everett casino, owned by Wynn Resorts, a big step closer to accepting in-person wagers on professional and most college sports, though it cannot accept bets just yet.  The commission is targeting “late January” for the start of in-person betting at Encore as well as at the other two gambling centers it already regulates, Plainridge Park Casino and MGM Springfield.  Mobile betting could follow by “early March” unless the commission runs into complications.

Encore was the only of the three so-called Category 1 applicants that secured license approval on the same day that the commission first considered its application.  On Tuesday, the commission deferred its vote on the application from Plainridge Park Casino in Plainville and on Wednesday put off a vote on MGM Springfield's application.

The Gaming Commission is expected to hold meetings starting next week to review the five applications that came in for mobile betting operations tied to one of the casinos or the slots parlor.  That would give commissioners a chance to dive more deeply into the connections between PPC and MGM Springfield and their mobile operators.

Next month, the commission plans to hold similar hearings on the six applications for “untethered” mobile betting.  That is the only competitive category, though commissioners could elect to award a license to each applicant since they did not receive more applications than the maximum number of untethered licenses allowed - which is seven.

State Launches $50 Million Fund to Aid Clean Energy Startups

Clean energy technology companies that have promising products that could help the state meet its decarbonization goals but might not have the capital to make their ideas a reality have a new potential source of funding as the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC) launched the 2030 Fund, a new $50 million investment vehicle earlier this week.

The fund aims at providing companies with an average of $500,000 (and up to $1.5 million) in early-stage financing in hopes of attracting additional private capital that will allow the companies to scale up their solutions.  MassCEC said the fund's investment of $5 million annually “will support momentum of early-stage companies by providing cash runway to help achieve key milestones.”

The fund’s launch “signals to the market that Massachusetts is increasing its commitment [sic] to the commercialization of climate technologies,” MassCEC said.  Massachusetts-based startups whose products or services are in line with the definitions of “clean energy” or “clean energy research” are eligible, and MassCEC said that applicants must have three of four business functions (headquarters, primary research and development, primary sales and marketing, and primary manufacturing) located in Massachusetts.

Governor Charlie Baker has long argued that stimulating the state’s innovators to work on advancements to clean energy technology will be key to accelerating the state’s transition to having net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.  Last year, he proposed using $750 million in federal stimulus funds to establish a clean energy investment fund at MassCEC to, among other things, provide support for the advancement of promising technology.  Lawmakers rejected Baker’s idea when they passed a climate law in late July.

For more information on the new MassCEC 2030 Fund, click here.