This year they’re hitting the books to learn about climate change and flooding
This story was originally published in EcoRI News, a publication partner of Ocean State Stories.
PROVIDENCE — Lawmakers are a bit like school students; both leave their respective buildings for good in the summer, while a lucky few report for extra work in the interim.
The traditional last day of session for most lawmakers is whatever day the Senate approves the state budget. This year that day fell on Friday, June 20, and in the wee hours of the following day both chambers passed whatever remaining legislation was left and adjourned for the year.
But a select few lawmakers will be returning for duty between now and January to serve on two study commissions concerning the environment: one examining oversight for the 2021 Act on Climate law and the other taking a dive into flooding issues along the Pawtuxet River.
Legislative officials in the past have found study commissions useful for different reasons. Once upon a time, it was a way of sending a disliked or unwanted bill to legislative Siberia. While the commissions produce facts and findings, lawmakers aren’t bound to their recommendations unless the mood strikes them.
One environmental study commission changed that paradigm. In 2021, Rep. Terri Cortvriend, D-Portsmouth, sponsored and shepherded a study commission to investigate lateral shoreline access. The issue had plagued the General Assembly for years, and at the time, study commissions were seen as a good way to delay action.
The shoreline access study commission, however, bore fruit. The final law clarifying the public’s right to shoreline access — 10 feet landward of the lowest seaweed line — passed in 2023, a year after the commission wrapped up its work. Cortvriend was praised for turning what was once a death sentence, into a useful fact-finding tool.
It remains one of the only environment study commissions to do so. A commission to study reforming the Coastal Resources Management Council has had many of its recommendations ignored, and lawmakers this year passed a watered-down piece of legislation that only shrinks the number of appointees on its politically appointed council, instead of changing the agency to become structured like the Department of Environmental Management.
For now, the bottle bill commission, the joint legislative study commission on plastic waste, has also hit a legislative cul-de-sac. In the closing days of the 2025 session, General Assembly leaders announced they didn’t support efforts to implement a bottle redemption system, and swapped the language for a study and analysis to be performed by a combination of DEM, the Department of Administration, and the quasi-public Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation. That new study? Not due until December 2026, after next year’s session and next year’s election.
Here’s what’s going on for legislative summer school this year:
Act on Climate oversight: One of the first commissions proposed this session, the legislative study panel, sponsored and likely to be chaired by Sen. Sam Zurier, D-Providence, will examine how much progress Rhode Island has made toward its climate mandates since passing the Act on Climate law in 2021.
The legislation requires the state to increasingly reduce or offset its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in incremental mandates before reaching net-zero by 2050. While the state succeeded at the first benchmark, environmental groups have said state officials are slow-walking policies to reduce Rhode Island’s entire emissions inventory.
Zurier told members of the Senate Environment and Agriculture Committee he was skeptical after a few presentations from members of the Executive Climate Change Coordinating Council (EC4), the state’s lead agency on climate change response.
“Are we actually going to be able to meet the goals of the Act on Climate?” Zurier asked at a committee hearing in April. “The goal would be for the commission members to learn more about climate science and policy and review the EC4’s plan and make sure we follow through what we intended to do when we passed the Act on Climate.”
The commission is made up of five senators, no more than four from one party (read: Democrats) and has until May 1, 2026 to report its findings and conclusions to the General Assembly.
Pawtuxet River flooding: Frequent flooding has been a serious problem along the Pawtuxet River for years, stretching back to the floods of March 2010. In the past, the city of Cranston has bought homes in flood-prone neighborhoods along the Pawtuxet and Pocasset rivers, demolishing the homes and removing human-made structures from flood zones.
The city also received a $225,000 climate resiliency grant from the Ocean State Climate Adaptation and Resilience (OSCAR) fund program in March. The money will be used to undertake a two-part citywide flood study to identify areas where wetland restoration and other flood mitigation measures could be implemented.
The 11-member House study commission, sponsored by Rep. Earl Read III, D-Johnston, will study how flooding along the 18-mile-long river impacts the communities that the river flows through, including Scituate, Warwick, West Warwick, Cranston, and Coventry.
“This one particular event resulted in $100 million of property damage, including homes, businesses, roads, and infrastructure,” Read said at a March committee hearing about the 2010 floods. “Since then five separate flooding events have impacted communities in Kent County.”
Three members of the commission will come from the House of Representatives, with remaining spots being filled by appointees from the Army Corps of Engineers, the state Emergency Management Agency, a designee from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Warwick Sewer Authority, and DEM.
The commission has until Jan. 2, 2026 to furnish the General Assembly with a report.
Also included in this year’s summer study commissions is one study panel from last year.
Climate change impacts: Formed at the end of last session, this House commission chaired by Cortvriend has met seven times since last September, and had its lifespan extended by legislation in February.
The commission’s goal has been to widely study the impacts of climate change on different Ocean State municipalities. It’s a sequel commission of sorts, to a sea level rise commission created and chaired by Rep. Lauren Carson, D-Newport, in 2015.
This study commission now has until May 14, 2026 to submit its final report.
