‘To effectively combat the climate crisis, the administration must bolster its capacity by funding the agencies responsible for implementing essential climate programs and policies.’
Originally published by ecoRI News, a nonprofit newsroom covering environmental news in Rhode Island. Read more at ecoRI.org
PROVIDENCE — Lawmakers will return to Smith Hill on Tuesday to two very different chambers, and one big problem.
In the Senate, the leadership drama that had been simmering since the last session came to a head during the annual leadership vote, when 12 senators, all Democrats, voted “present” instead of voting to re-elect Senate President Dominick Ruggerio, D-North Providence, for a new term of leadership for the chamber.
It also resulted in a changing of the guards. Sen. Alana DiMario, D-North Kingstown, was demoted from chair of the Senate Environment and Agriculture Committee. In her place, Ruggerio appointed Sen. V. Susan Sosonowski, D-South Kingstown. It’s Sosnowski’s second time as chair of the committee; she led the eight-member body for much of the past decade, before assuming leadership of the Senate Commerce Committee in 2021.
Over on the other side of the building, the House of Representatives was a very different story. No drama, no leadership fight, just a near unanimous vote for Speaker Joe Shekarchi, D-Warwick, to lead the chamber again.
But outside of any opening-day drama is a bigger problem: the state’s looming budget deficit, estimated to total more than $300 million. The final numbers won’t be known until the state budget office makes its final estimate in May.
That’s bad news for state environmental groups seeking funding for new programs or money to beef up existing environmental enforcement. In its biannual Green Report Card released last fall, the Environment Council of Rhode Island, a coalition of the state’s environmental advocacy groups, wrote that the state’s efforts “to mitigate climate change remain insufficient to meet the goals of the Act on Climate.”
“However,” wrote the council in its report card, “to effectively combat the climate crisis, the administration must bolster its capacity by funding the agencies responsible for implementing essential climate programs and policies.”
Agencies such as the Department of Environmental Management have slowly acquired new full-time equivalent (FTE) positions, the state government lingo for hiring more personnel, over the past few years. But DEM asked for no new positions in its latest budget.
The Coastal Resources Management Council, however, asked for five new roles in one of its budget requests to the governor to bolster its oversight of offshore wind permitting, shoreline access, and coastal development, citing delays in reviewing and permitting on the part of the agency due to staffing shortages.
Meanwhile, the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority is in dire budgetary straits. Under the budget approved by the agency’s board of directors, RIPTA has a shortfall of $31 million. Lawmakers last year kicked the can down the road for the transit authority when they gave it $15 million in one-time federal COVID money to temporarily fill its budget gap.
Here’s what other priorities lawmakers left unfinished last year:
Environmental justice: While agencies like DEM have taken steps internally to increase environmental justice within government, the state still lacks protections for neighborhoods and other areas against the cumulative impacts of polluting industries. The Environmental Justice Act, introduced by Sen. Dawn Euer, D-Newport, and Rep. Karen Alzate, D-Pawtucket, last year would have empowered agency regulators to consider cumulative impacts when approving projects and future permits for development.
Percentage income payment plan: An annual ask by the utility justice advocates from the Pawtucket-based nonprofit The George Wiley Center, the program would allow low-income residents to afford their energy bills. A percentage income payment plan, as proposed every year in the General Assembly, would enable low-income residents to pay a flat percentage of their income, instead of the per-kilowatt-hour rate they pay.
Bottle bill: Another annual bill that continues to get snagged in the legislative process, lawmakers last year chose to punt a bill creating a bottle deposit system back to the study commission investigating it. Since the end of last session, that study commission has only met once, with no further meetings scheduled as of the start of the new session.
The bottle deposit system, a longtime request by environmental groups, zero-waste advocates, and state residents fed up with the endless pollution of nip bottles of alcohol, would assign a small fee, 5 or 10 cents, to each bottle sold in Rhode Island that would be returned to the consumer once the bottle is returned to a redemption center. Beverage groups, liquor stores, and other businesses strongly oppose the legislation.
CRMC reform: Advocates are once again bullish this year on overhauling the state’s coastal regulator. Since a study commission focused on reforming the agency ended in 2022, there have been a number of failed attempts to install safeguards on the agency and transform it closer to a traditional state department. Last year’s efforts ultimately stalled after a sketchy financial estimate from the House fiscal office grossly overestimated the cost of the politically appointed council that oversees the agency.
Building decarbonization: With the adoption of Advanced Clean Cars II and Advanced Clean Trucks, two California regulations that will phase out new gas-powered vehicles from being sold in Rhode Island, state officials hope to curb transportation emissions. But the state still lacks a plan to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions from homes, businesses, and industrial sites. The latest greenhouse gas inventory shows residential buildings accounting for 20.5% of GHG emissions statewide, with commercial buildings adding another 9%, and industrial processes adding 6%.
An energy benchmarking ordinance for buildings was enacted last year in Providence, but the statewide version envisioned by lawmakers only passed the Senate. The House and Senate instead passed a resolution asking the Executive Climate Change Coordinating Council (EC4) to write a report on how to implement the policy. The report is due to lawmakers Feb. 15.
Housing and conservation: Passed into law in the early 1990s by state lawmakers, the state Housing and Conservation Trust fund was meant to encourage projects that built affordable housing and conserved precious green space across the state. The initiative ultimately went unfunded, and despite nascent attempts in the mid-2000s to resurrect the policy, the Rhode Island Land Trust Council started pushing for the program again last year, but the bill didn’t make it out of committee.
