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 has 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 led to a changing of the guards. Sen. Alana DiMario, D-North Kingstown, has been demoted as chair of the Senate Environment and Agriculture Committee. In her place, Ruggerio Sen. V. Susan Sosonowski, D-South Kingstown, appointed. This is Sosnowski’s second time as chairman 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.
On the other side of the building, the House of Representatives was a very different story. No drama, no leadership battle, just a near-unanimous vote for Speaker Joe Shekarchi, D-Warwick, to lead the chamber again.
But beyond any opening day drama is a bigger problem: the state’s looming budget shortfall, estimated to be more than $300 million. The final figures will not 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 strengthen existing environmental enforcement. In its biennial Green Report Card released last fall, the Environmental 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 Climate Act.”
“But,” the council wrote in its report card, “to effectively combat the climate crisis, the administration must strengthen 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, state government parlance for hiring more staff, in recent years. But DEM did not ask for any new jobs in its latest budget.
However, the Coastal Resources Management Board called for five new roles in one of its budget requests to the governor to strengthen its oversight of offshore wind permitting, shoreline access and coastal development, citing delays in agency review and permitting. due to staff shortages.
Meanwhile, the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority is in a major budget crunch. Under the budget approved by the agency’s board of directors, RIPTA has a $31 million deficit. Lawmakers kicked the can for the transit authority last year when they gave it $15 million in one-time federal COVID money to temporarily fill its budget gap.
Here are some 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 from the cumulative impact of polluting industries. The Environmental Justice Act, introduced by Sen. Dawn Euer, D-Newport, and Rep. 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 request by utility advocates from the Pawtucket-based nonprofit The George Wiley Center, the program would allow low-income residents to afford their energy bills. A percentage-of-income payment plan, as proposed each year in the General Assembly, would allow low-income residents to pay a fixed percentage of their income, instead of the per-kilowatt-hour rate they pay .
Bottle bill: Another annual bill that continues to get bogged down in the legislative process, lawmakers voted last year to send a bill creating a bottle deposit system back to the study commission that is investigating it. Since the end of the previous session, that study commission has met only once, with no further meetings scheduled at 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 from siphon bottles of alcohol, would assign a small fee, 5 or 10 cents, to each bottle sold in Rhode Island. which will be returned to the consumer once the bottle is returned to a redemption centre. Beverage groups, liquor stores and other businesses strongly oppose the legislation.
CRMC reform: Advocates are again positive this year about the renovation of 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 government 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 board that oversees the agency.
Building decarbonisation: With the acceptance of Advanced Clean Cars II and Advanced Clean Truckstwo California regulations that would phase out new gas-powered vehicles from being sold in Rhode Island state officials hope will curb transportation emissions. But the state still lacks a plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from homes, businesses and industrial sites. The latest greenhouse gas inventory shows residential buildings accounting for 20.5% of GHG emissions nationwide, with commercial buildings adding another 9%, and industrial processes adding 6%.
An ordinance for energy benchmarking for buildings was enacted in Providence last year, but the statewide version envisioned by lawmakers has yet to pass the Senate. Instead, the House and Senate passed a resolution asking the Executive Coordination Council for Climate Change (EC4) to write a report on how to implement the policy. The report is available to legislators on February 15.
Housing and Conservation: The State Housing and Conservation Trust Fund, established by state lawmakers in the early 1990s, was intended to encourage projects that built affordable housing and preserved precious green space across the state. The initiative eventually went unfunded, and despite nascent efforts in the mid-2000s to revive the policy, the Rhode Island Land Trust Council began pushing for the program again last year, but the bill did not make it out of the committee not reached.