Not enough money for environment progress
By Rob Smith / ecoRI News staff
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.
