Pass it and forget it
By Frank Carini / ecoRI News
columnist
In the early 2000s, for example, the General Assembly
passed legislation designed
to control the use of pesticides on school grounds. But in typical Rhode Island
fashion, the law has never really been enforced.
Rep. Lauren Carson, D-Newport, expressed her frustration
with this all-too-common state practice during a Feb. 6 House Committee on
Environment and Natural Resources hearing.
“Many parts of the bill have never happened,” she said.
“I’m disappointed this bill was not property implemented.”
Carson noted the legislation mandated that after July 1,
2001, no person other than a licensed or certified commercial applicator was
allowed to apply pesticide in any school building or on the grounds of any
school.
“We don’t have any idea if that is happening,” she said.
“Could be maintenance people are using chemicals.”
The law’s other six mandates — e.g., the creation of a
task force and providing, each new school year, parents and guardians with a
written statement regarding pesticide application policy on school property and
a description of any pesticide use at the school the previous year — were also
forgotten.
Carson has co-sponsored a bill (H7359), with same
name as its ignored predecessor, “Pesticide Control,” that she and other
lawmakers hope will remedy the past 23 years of neglect.
Honestly though, what is the point of crafting, holding
hearings, voting, and sometimes passing legislation that is designed to protect
Rhode Island public and environmental health?
As soon as the governor’s signature dries and the
bill-signing show packed up, the legislation is forgotten. No follow-up. No
support. No funding. No enforcement. Pure theater.
It’s an infuriating way to govern, if you want to call it that.
For instance, in 2008 the General Assembly passed and the
governor signed a law mandating the state develop a plan for reducing vehicle
miles traveled (VMT) by its employees. It was to include a public transit pass
program for state workers.
The law set the goal of reducing VMT by 35% in eight
years. A committee was to be formed to implement the plan and the director of
the Department of Administration (DOA) would report annually to that committee
and the governor.
None of that happened.
The DOA did draft a plan, but it has never been finalized
or brought to the General Assembly for approval. The “State Employee
Transportation Guide Plan,” dated 2010, offers recommendations on how to get
state employees walking, bicycling, taking public transit, and carpooling to
work.
A DOA official bragged to ecoRI
News reporter Colleen Cronin last month that some of the measures that were
suggested in the 14-year-old draft plan have been accomplished, such as
creating a Transit Master Plan and a Bicycle Mobility Plan.
Big deal. That’s like asking your kids for a Christmas
wish list and then never going shopping.
The taxpayer-funded Transit Master and the Bicycle Mobility plans are currently experiencing the same fate as the State Employee Transportation Guide Plan: lost in the Statehouse abyss of inaction.
It’s a shameful way to
run a state, but that’s what happens when you don’t properly fund and staff
agencies, waste taxpayer money on such things as video games, incompetent
bridge inspections, and a soccer stadium, and continue to pay for more
environmental/climate studies when you already know what needs to be done and
how.
The DOA official explained to my colleague that because
the law was passed so long ago and under a different administration, “I don’t
have any information about the decision-making at that time.”
I do. Here’s a link to the 2008
law and a link to the
25-page DOA draft plan. There also must be a hard copy of the plan lying around
1 Capitol Hill.
“We are committed to moving the needle for state
government and are continuing to review opportunities to develop additional
actionable strategies on an ongoing basis,” the official wrote in an email.
I don’t even know what that means, but I do know there’s
an excellent chance that if any “additional actionable strategies” are
implemented they would soon be forgotten.
I also know the state wasted 16 years that could have
been used to reduce transportation sector emissions and perhaps improve Rhode
Island public transit.
Three years after the legislation became law, public
transit rider and advocate John Flaherty, currently Grow Smart Rhode Island’s
deputy director, advocated for a 2011 resolution urging
DOA to follow through with the 2008 law.
Silence.
The 2021 Act on Climate law mandates
that “state agencies shall … develop programs to encourage state employees to
reduce their vehicle miles and use sustainable transportation alternatives,
including public transit systems.”
Rinse. Repeat. Ridiculous.
Speaking of foolishness, the reason given last year for
the state still not abiding by a 2000 amendment to
general law is pure Rhode Island gold.
A Division of Motor Vehicles spokesperson told me in
April, via email, that a flooded building was the reason for the delay.
“DMV Safety and Emissions Facility suffered catastrophic flooding in September 2022 that delayed development of the Heavy Duty Inspection and Maintenance Program,” the spokesperson wrote.
“DMV and DEM staff
continue to meet and work on finalizing regulations for the program. While we
are working diligently on those regulations we cannot yet offer a timeframe for
their implementation. In the meantime, the DMV is working on a long-term
solution for replacing its flood-damaged inspection facility in Providence.”
In the meantime, the transportation sector accounts for
much of the greenhouse gases spewed in Rhode Island, at nearly 40% of the
total.
The aforementioned amendment to state law acknowledged that heavy-duty diesel vehicles contribute significantly to air pollution and diminish “the quality of life and health of our citizens.”
The amendment also
noted the “Citizens of Rhode Island frequently raise concerns about emissions
from heavy-duty diesel engines” and “Technology exists to determine the level
of exhaust emissions from heavy-duty vehicles.”
The 24-year-old amended law directed the Division of
Motor Vehicles and the Department of Environmental Management to launch a
heavy-duty inspection and maintenance program, like the one we have for cars
and light trucks, by 2003.
No such program exists, even though the state admitted
Rhode Islanders wanted it, would have benefited from it, and the technology
existed to make it happen.
In 2021, a DEM official told ecoRI News, “I’m
not exactly sure why, what’s taken so long.”
The Smith Hill answer seems pretty straightforward.
“Vescere bracis meis,” or, as Bart Simpson would say, “Eat my shorts.”
Environmental laws are celebrated in the Statehouse, at
least initially, but many, such as a 1989 law that likely made the sale of nips
illegal, soon find themselves in the land of the lost.
The General Assembly passed the
Beverage Container Recyclability law 35 years ago. It mandated, among other
things, that retailers can only sell beverages in containers that “have
attained a 50% recycling rate by 1992.”
That recycling rate likely was never reached for any
plastic beverage container — although I’m pretty confident the state never
bothered to check — and now it’s inconceivable for nips.
Plastic bottles that are less than 2 inches tall and 2
inches in diameter, which include most nips, are too small for the Central
Landfill’s single-stream recycling sorting equipment to process, according to
the Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation.
In the meantime, lawmakers keep debating and holding for
further study bills that would prohibit the sale of nips. For example, a 2022 bill would
have banned the sale of any sealable bottle, can, jar, or carton that held less
than 3.4 ounces of alcohol. A nip is 1.7 ounces.
The state logo should be a hamster on a wheel.
Three-plus decades ago Rhode Islands lawmakers passed
the Natural Areas Protection Act of
1993. The legislation was supposed to provide, among other things,
the “highest level of protection to the state’s most environmentally sensitive
natural areas.”
It was designed to elevate “the health and welfare of the
people of Rhode Island by promoting the preservation of areas of unique natural
interest for scientific, educational, recreational, cultural, and scenic
purposes.” It was going to “allow significant public and privately owned lands
of critical environmental concern to be designated as natural area preserves.”
Not one natural area preserve has been created in 31
years. Early last year ecoRI News was told that,
“No one currently at DEM recalls the genesis of this Act.”
Rhode Island is often touted as an environment-friendly
oasis by outside publications and entities, both local and out of state, that
like to make lists. Those pronouncements and rankings are typically created by
simply looking at the long list of environmental laws the state has on the
books. It is impressive, but looks are deceiving.
Many (most?) of these laws aren’t supported, funded,
enforced, or even remembered.
To quote a famous military intelligence officer: “I know
nothing. I see nothing. I hear nothing.”
Welcome to the Ocean State.
Frank Carini can be reached at frank@ecori.org. His
opinions don’t reflect those of ecoRI News.