Reforming PUC and state agency mandates is key for advancing equity and climate policy

Northeastern states have committed to significant economy-wide cuts in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. But despite these goals, most states have not empowered the agencies that play an outsized role in carbon emissions to prioritize climate, equity, and environmental justice in their decision-making. States’ commitments to climate and equity are just pretty words if they do not have a mechanism to make them binding and real. To achieve our climate goals, all government agencies should be required to prioritize climate change impacts and equity in their decisions.

Acadia Center wrote recently on the importance of reforming PUC and state agency mandates to better align with climate and equity goals. Since then, we have been a part of several notable mandate reform successes across the region.

In June 2021, Maine Governor Mills signed LD 1682, An Act To Require Consideration of Climate Impacts by the Public Utilities Commission and To Incorporate Equity Considerations in Decision-making by State Agencies. The Maine PUC is now mandated to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in line with the state’s climate targets and to prioritize climate alongside its other responsibilities. In addition, LD 1682 opens the door for all state agencies to address equity concerns in environmental justice, frontline, and other vulnerable communities that are disproportionately burdened by current energy policies by requiring a stakeholder process to develop guidelines for how state agencies should include equity considerations in their decision-making. Acadia Center played a key role in ensuring the passage of LD 1682 and will continue to work with stakeholders to ensure that all agencies consider equity in their regulatory and programmatic decisions.

In addition, in March 2021 Massachusetts Governor Baker signed a landmark climate bill (S.9) that achieves key mandate reform goals. The bill went into effect in June and requires the state’s Department of Public Utilities (DPU) to consider equity and reductions in greenhouse gas emissions as equal priorities to reliability, safety, and affordability. The bill will serve as a critical tool in empowering the DPU to act in alignment with the state’s climate goals.

By reforming agencies’ mandates, states can empower the entities that play a key role in emissions and equity outcomes to be partners in meeting state policy priorities. Instead of choosing the cheapest solution in the moment, agencies will be positioned to choose the best solution for both today and tomorrow’s consumers and environment.

Click here to read more about the role of the PUC and state agency mandate reform in supporting progress on climate and equity policy.

Summer Legislative Update: Massachusetts

Only 6 months into the marathon 2021-2022 legislative session, Massachusetts has already passed landmark climate legislation. Among other things, the Next Generation Climate Roadmap law updates the Commonwealth’s greenhouse gas reduction requirements to 50% reductions by 2030 and net zero by 2050, codifies definitions for “environmental justice population” and “environmental justice principles,” and allows the state to procure an additional 2,400 megawatts of offshore wind. Crucially, the legislation also updates the mandate for the Department of Public Utilities (DPU), requiring the department to give equal weight to equity, reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, security, and safety, in addition to its traditional focus on affordability and reliability. It also requires the development of sector-specific emissions targets, legislates the development of a new opt-in municipal stretch energy code, and sets energy efficiency standards for household appliances. Acadia Center played a key role in the enactment of this legislation, providing tireless advocacy and continuing to hold the legislature’s and Governor’s feet to the fire.

Despite this significant victory, Acadia Center’s work continues. In addition to the just and equitable implementation of the climate legislation, significant work remains to be done in the electric, transportation, and building sectors. To that end, Acadia Center is employing its policy expertise and coalition leadership, specifically with the ACES coalition, to prepare analysis and testimony for a host of bills that would rapidly electrify our transportation and building infrastructure and drastically cut emissions.  Legislation that Acadia Center has drafted and filed (by Senator Joanne Comerford and Representative Natalie Blais) would create a stakeholder council like the Energy Efficiency Advisory Council to guide grid modernization and the transition away from natural gas (S.2144/H.3261) and eliminate the automatic ‘bonuses’ approved for electric utilities by the DPU in recent years (S.2143/H.3259).  Acadia Center has also been deeply involved in the development of legislation that would implement the Transportation & Climate Initiative Program (TCI-P) with a greater focus on environmental justice, directing at least 70% of TCI-P proceeds towards investments in communities that suffer disproportionately from transportation pollution or lack access to mobility options.  Environmental justice legislation has been a particular focus for Acadia Center, and the organization is also promoting legislation that would expand air quality monitoring in pollution hotspots.

Acadia Center’s work goes far beyond just focusing on legislation as well. While legislative approval is not required in Massachusetts for the implementation of TCI-P, Acadia Center endeavors to ensure that the program is implemented with an eye toward environmental justice. The organization continues to lead on the Energy Efficiency Advisory Council, crafting detailed analysis and policy recommendations for the Commonwealth’s 2022-2024 three-year energy efficiency plan. Finally, Acadia Center is actively monitoring and participating in several dockets at the Department of Public Utilities that impact crucial questions facing the Commonwealth, such as the role of natural gas in its energy transition, and implementing modernization plans for the electric grid. We are also actively involved in the New England Governors’ Energy Vision process, led by Massachusetts, which is seeking to reform the governance of ISO-New England.

Summer Legislative Update: Rhode Island

Acadia Center’s leadership on climate, energy, and equity issues was on full display during Rhode Island’s 2021 regular General Assembly session, as we testified remotely at dozens of hearings and working with legislators to refine and advance key pieces of legislation.

Acadia Center worked with its partners in the Climate Crisis Campaign and Climate Jobs RI coalition to advance the historic Act on Climate into law, Acadia Center’s top legislative priority in Rhode Island. The Act on Climate transforms previously aspirational climate goals into meaningful and enforceable greenhouse gas reduction mandates—45% by 2030, 80% by 2040, and net-zero by 2050. After years of work building legislative support, Acadia Center was able to combat a last-minute stream of fossil-fuel industry backed disinformation. Acadia Center’s Rhode Island Director, Hank Webster, engaged directly with print journalists, talk radio hosts, and concerned legislators to disprove unfounded claims about climate action and the legislation’s impact. Acadia Center is now spearheading efforts to work with the McKee Administration to develop an updated state climate plan by December 2022.

Building on the success of the Act on Climate, Acadia Center is the lead organization working to advance the regional, bipartisan, Transportation and Climate Initiative Program (TCI-P) in Rhode Island. Acadia Center helped legislators develop S872 and H6310, the TEAM Community Act which will codify the state’s involvement in the TCI-P. The Senate overwhelmingly passed the legislation in June and Acadia Center is urging House leaders to address the policy in an anticipated special fall legislative session. To support TCI-P, Acadia Center convenes advocates and businesses for biweekly strategy calls and developed a Rhode Island-specific microsite, www.TCI4RI.com, to help key stakeholders stay apprised of the benefits of the program.

Throughout the pandemic-truncated 2020 and full 2021 legislative sessions, Acadia Center also worked to successfully advance two key energy efficiency bills—1) an extension of the state’s energy efficiency programs and 2) an update to the state’s appliance energy efficiency standards. In the waning hours of the 2021 regular session, Acadia Center testified before the House Environment and Natural Resources Committee to oppose a dangerous last-minute rewrite of the energy efficiency extension bill and to instead support a plain extension of the energy efficiency programs. Those efforts were successful and, as a result, the state’s nation-leading energy efficiency programs are protected through 2028. Acadia Center and colleague organizations also successfully advanced a law that sets minimum energy efficiency standards for appliances sold in the state and protects consumers from unknowingly buying and installing energy-wasting versions of everyday products. This update will reduce carbon emissions by 256,000 metric tons and lower utility bills by $10 million annually.

Acadia Center will be busy this summer, working with RI policymakers to advance a robust clean energy and environmental justice agenda in the anticipated fall legislative session, including: the TEAM Community Act to implement the TCI-P, legislation to adopt a 100% Renewable Energy Standard by 2030, and the Environmental Justice Act to better protect affected communities from new activities that increase cumulative impacts.

Summer Legislative Update: Connecticut

Acadia Center’s high hopes for the 2021 legislative session continue, as we prepare for the two upcoming special legislative sessions in July and September that will decide the outcome of critical pieces of legislation. Our top priority continues to be the passage of legislation to implement the Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI), which will be discussed again in September. TCI failed to pass in the last weeks of the session that ended in early June, which was a surprise and a major disappointment.

The TCI bill (SB 884) would have been the most important climate legislation of the past decade. The TCI Program is projected to be a source of economic growth, new jobs, and cleaner air, and the extensive modeling of its impact predicts $360 million in annual health benefits regionally by 2032. A critical companion bill, SB 931, would have directed Connecticut to study the energy, environmental, and air quality impacts of adopting California’s medium and heavy- duty vehicle standards. Acadia Center has convened and developed the CT Transportation Climate Initiative Coalition over the last two years, which is made up of over 35 organizations and individuals. The coalition was especially successful at creating united messaging focused on equity, environmental justice, health, air pollution, economic development and jobs.

With a Democratic majority in the House and Senate and a Democratic governor, Acadia Center and all advocates had every reason to believe we were in a strong position to win. However, TCI was a victim of last-minute political horsetrading, as some senators made the passage of TCI conditional on supporting their other favored pieces of legislation, leading to a stalemate between Governor Lamont and the Senate leadership. However, Matt Ritter, Connecticut’s Speaker of the House, has promised to discuss TCI again in the special session.

Despite these setbacks, our other two priority bills did manage to pass in regular session. SB 356, establishes an energy efficiency retrofit grant program specifically for affordable housing, and the legislature has allocated seven million dollars to implementing the program over the first three years through the American Rescue Package Act. Acadia Center had been advocating for progress on these retrofits for years; an estimated 23% of housing had previously been ineligible for state efficiency programs because of issues such as lead and asbestos removal and remediation, which needed to be addressed before going forward with efficiency upgrades (these issues are collectively referred to as “health and safety barriers”). SB 952 stimulates the energy storage and clean tech industry, by establishing energy storage goals of 300 megawatts by 2024, 650 MW by 2027, and 1,000 MW by 2030, and  directing CT Public Utilities Regulatory Authority  and Department of Energy and Environmental Protection to support energy storage through their efforts.
The move to pass TCI continues this summer with the coalition intact and the strategy to win evolving as the lessons learned take hold.  The successful passage of energy efficiency in affordable housing and the storage bills will also install needed climate and energy policies.

The current strategy is to lobby the decision makers in July in person (now that pandemic restrictions are being lifted) to ramp up their understanding of TCI for the September session. All eyes are now on Connecticut!

 

 

 

Summer Legislative Update: Maine

After the COVID-19 pandemic abruptly halted the 2020 legislative session, the 130^th Maine Legislature roared back to life in 2021 and had one of the “most productive environmental and energy legislatures in more than 30 years!” according to one veteran of Maine’s environmental advocacy community. Acadia Center was at the center of the session, testifying on 25 bills, supporting new PUC Commissioner Patrick Scully, engaging in dozens of strategy meetings, and achieving key victories across the buildings, power, and transportation sectors. For example, Acadia Center conceived and led successful passage of legislation that requires the Maine Public Utilities Commission to include achieving the state greenhouse gas reduction targets as a primary mission. The bill also opens the door for state agencies to take actions that consider equity and environmental justice goals in all state policy, programmatic, and regulatory decisions.

Acadia Center was a lead actor in the Maine Climate Council by developing recommendations to reduce emissions and address the impacts of climate change on residents, communities, industries, forests and ecosystems. We worked to implement Climate Action Plan goals like eliminating HFCs, promoting offshore wind, setting appliance standards, and increasing weatherization funding. We made a data-driven case to expand electrification for building heating and transportation. Acadia Center worked to advance bills to incentive renewables, energy storage, microgrids, and other non-wires alternatives in Maine’s electricity grid.

Acadia Center deployed its analytic, policy expertise and coalition partnerships to advance its goals, including prioritizing Climate Action Plan strategies and using our research and analyses to make the case to policymakers. We served on the Steering Committee and on the Leadership Team of Climate Maine, a broad-based coalition to support strong Maine state climate action and the legislative steps necessary to implement. Acadia Center elevated our PUC reform bill as one of four priorities by the Maine Environmental Priorities Coalition and steered advocacy to passage in the Legislature. Acadia Center earned media in the Portland Press Herald, Maine Public Radio and other outlets and placed op-eds on transportation, utility and regulatory reform, and building heating.

Even with the legislature wrapping up in July, our work is not finished. Acadia Center will be actively involved in the process for the Governor’s Office of Policy Innovation and the Future (GOPIF) to begin incorporating equity considerations in decision making at the Department of Environmental Protection, the Public Utilities Commission and other state agencies, including defining key terms like “environmental justice,” “environmental justice populations,” and “frontline communities.” The Legislature and Administration will also grapple with building codes for new construction, transportation emissions, energy efficiency, and other issues. Acadia Center will prioritize and engage accordingly.

Acadia Center Releases 2020 Annual Report

Today, Acadia Center released its 2020 Annual Report – “Pathways to Possibilities” – an interactive microsite that highlights the organization’s 2020 stories of impact and progress and hopes for its future. As with so many people and organizations, 2020 was a year of unexpected changes and major shifts in perspective. However, the Annual Report’s opening quote from writer and environmental activist Rebecca Solnit states, “Inside the word ‘emergency’ is ‘emerge;’ from an emergency, new things come forth.” This has certainly been true for Acadia Center. We built on the foundation of our vision of expanding a clean energy future for all and intensified our resolve and dedication to justice. Our commitment to seizing new opportunities with partners and charting the course toward sustainable change has never been stronger.

None of this would be possible without generous individuals and foundations who enthusiastically support Acadia Center’s work. With leadership from our Board of Directors, and our dedicated and passionate staff, we can accelerate the change communities urgently need. Thank you for your unwavering encouragement and partnership.

Read the full report HERE

PUC Regulatory Reform in Maine: Putting the ‘Action’ in Climate Action Plan

Reforming Maine’s PUC is a key step to meeting the state’s climate goals

On December 1, 2020, the Maine Climate Council launched “Maine Won’t Wait, A Four-Year Plan for Climate Action,” which outlines an ambitious set of pathways for Maine to meet is climate requirements and make significant cuts in economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The legislature, governor, and state agencies are now turning the Plan’s priorities and strategies into action. A key step will be to ensure that the state’s Public Utilities Commission (PUC) is well-positioned to help the state meet its climate goals.

One significant barrier to implementing pathways laid out in the Climate Action Plan is the fact that Maine has not explicitly empowered key agencies that impact carbon emissions – including the PUC – to prioritize climate and equity in their decision-making. Today, the PUC is limited by its mandate to reduce the costs of energy, ensure reliability, and guarantee utilities the opportunity to earn a profit on their business. The PUC cannot regulate utilities in alignment with state climate targets or make decisions that prioritize reducing greenhouse gases.

The decisions that Maine’s PUC makes over the next few years will determine the type of energy infrastructure that gets built over the next few decades. Those decisions will play a significant role in determining whether the state meets its 2030, 2040, and 2050 climate targets. Maine’s PUC must prioritize climate and equity in its decision-making today and must stop making decisions that are inconsistent with Maine’s climate goals. The PUC should be more empowered to support a rapid transition to clean energy resources and to move away from default approvals for fossil fuel investments. By reforming the PUC’s enabling statute, legislators can give the PUC the tools to effectively carry out the Plan’s vision and strengthen its role as a key partner in support of Maine’s climate goals.

An Act to Require the Public Utilities Commission to Consider Climate Change and Equity in its Decision-Making

The Act to Require Consideration of Climate and Equity Impacts by the Public Utilities Commission (LD 1682) will reform the PUC’s mandate to require it to consider greenhouse gas reductions and compliance with Maine’s climate statute, alongside equity and environmental justice, in its decision-making. Aligning the PUC mandate with Maine’s push for dramatic emission reductions will enable consideration of the full costs of energy investments in all decisions and require the PUC to minimize climate impacts. This will allow utility regulators to make decisions that support greenhouse gas reductions and that appropriately value climate justice issues, societal health impacts, job creation, reliability, and other quantifiable benefits. This screen will minimize long-term costs to ratepayers from climate and other impacts that now fall outside the scope of the PUC’s responsibility in just keeping the cost of energy low. By prioritizing climate, equity, and environmental justice, Maine’s PUC will be better positioned to act on climate and meet the goals of the Climate Action Plan.

For more information:

Jeff Marks, Maine State Director, jmarks@acadiacenter.org, 207.236.6470 ext. 304

Oliver Tully, Policy Strategist, otully@acadiacenter.org, 860.246.7121 ext.202

Overcoming Barriers to Home Weatherization in Connecticut: A Success Story

For over a decade, Acadia Center has been working to ensure that energy efficiency is available to the most vulnerable residents of Connecticut, and the Covid-19 pandemic has made the need for these services even more stark. One significant barrier to installing needed weatherization and efficiency services is that about 23% (almost ¼) of all homes that go through an audit in the programs are deferred and not served due to what are known as “health and safety barriers” such as mold, asbestos or vermiculite, and knob and tube wiring, which are rampant in older and neglected housing stock. What’s worse, the housing with such health and safety barriers are likely the homes most in need of weatherization and treatment by the programs to address their old and leaky spaces. Since repairs to fix these health and safety barriers are not funded through the efficiency programs, that means that no further efficiency work can be done in those homes, at least not without a major investment of funds that homeowners lack. The lack of weatherization is costing residents  of those homes at least an additional $1,000 a year in higher heating bills (and potentially more than $2,000 for homes using oil or propane).

In 2013, Acadia Center participated in a study with other stakeholders exploring the need for energy efficiency to be available to the most vulnerable residents in the state, which resulted in 7 recommendations, including providing funding and financing to resolve the health and safety barriers that would cause eligible households to be deferred from weatherization. However, this study didn’t lead to change at the time.

Through holding a position as Vice Chair of the Energy Efficiency Board (EEB) in Connecticut, Acadia Center was able to keep this issue as a top concern and over the past year, Acadia Center staff worked extensively with the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP)  to organize two workshops to discuss the issue of health and safety barriers. One idea that emerged from these workshops is to use federal funds from the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) to address health and safety remediation in targeted homes. Acadia Center asked DEEP to reach out to the Department of Social Service (DSS) to enable this policy change, and in early April, the LIHEAP board voted to allow $2M in funding to address these barriers, beginning in January 2022. This is the first time that LIHEAP funds have been allocated towards health and safety barriers, hopefully setting a precedent that can be followed for years to come.

 

 

 

“Have you heard the one about Maine’s electric grid?”

A regulator, an environmentalist, and a utility executive walk into a bar…and come out with an agreement “to plan, build, and operate the electric grid that is needed to meet Maine’s climate and energy requirements.”

A bad joke, but a good result! After six months of deliberations, a high-level stakeholder group of investor-owned utilities, current and former PUC Commissioners, environmental groups, renewable energy companies, municipalities, and state agency officials coalesced around a set of strategies, that if implemented, could change Maine’s electricity grid for the benefit of energy consumers.

The Maine Utility/Regulatory Reform and Decarbonization Initiative (MURRDI) was convened in the fall of 2020 by The Nature Conservancy and the Great Plains Institute and charged with developing strategies to:

1. plan, build, and operate an electricity grid, that
2. meets the State’s aggressive climate and energy requirements, while
3. maintaining a safe, reliable, secure, and affordable grid.

In the spring of 2021, the participants emerged with a verdict that could set Maine on a course to modernize the grid while achieving major climate, energy, economic, and equity benefits for everyone.

Acadia Center was honored to be chosen for a seat at this table, joining experts from Efficiency Maine Trust, Governor’s Energy Office, Public Utilities Commission, the Public Advocate, Maine’s two investor-owned utilities (CMP & Versant), representatives of the state’s biggest cities, and a handful of our environmental and renewable partners. Together, MURRDI advanced discussion and strategies designed to achieve the following outcomes:

• Reduction in greenhouse gas emissions 45 percent by 2030 and 80 percent by 2050;
• Increased renewable resources to account for 80 percent of electric sales by 2030 and 100 percent by 2050;
• Accelerated deployment of electrified transportation and buildings, distributed generation, load flexibility, and renewable electricity supply resources, including grid-scale wind and solar;
• Regional electricity market integration that harnesses innovation and emerging technologies;
• Enhanced focus on consumer needs related to climate requirements, equity and environmental justice, safety, reliability, resiliency, and other quantifiable benefits.
• Siting of distributed and grid-scale renewables and storage where they bring the greatest benefits to the grid and least adverse impacts to Maine’s natural resources; and
• Much, much more.

Acadia Center is especially excited about two of the nine recommendations it helped develop:

1. To investigate, adopt, and implement an all-encompassing, long-term, strategic grid planning process, with an eye toward phasing out fossil fuels and separating utility planning from ownership.
2. To expand the PUC’s decision-making framework to consider Maine’s climate requirements, equity implications, and impacts on environmental justice communities to enable consideration of the full costs and benefits of energy investments in all decisions.

Acadia Center supports the entire report, including the seven other recommendations to:

3. Endorse the New England States’ Vision for a Clean Affordable, and Reliable 21st Century Regional Electric Grid and extend it with regard to distributed energy resources and demand participation, comprehensive integrated system planning, and state policy objectives.
4. Move toward a more dynamic grid with more granular load flexibility capabilities in a concerted manner, including time of use rates and/or other dynamic rate structures that more accurately reflect the cost of producing and delivering power, and take into account how time-varying rate designs could help to meet the state’s climate and energy requirements.
5. Explore the opportunities, challenges, benefits, and drawbacks of establishing a market framework at the distribution level, including through pilot projects.
6. Identify and implement temporary measures to advance new EV fast charger (including DC fast charging and clustered Level 2 charging) deployment in the near term.
7. Provide useful, accessible, transparent, and dynamic hosting capacity information to developers and customers, including enabling greater understanding of the data, tools, and processes required.
8. Explore opportunities to enable using ratepayer dollars to pay for innovation investments in return for PUC oversight.
9. Support development of transmission that is carefully sited to avoid and minimize environmental impacts.

Acadia Center is deeply engaged in this topic with a wide array of allies and stakeholders and will be moving forward to help implement plans to reform rates, incentives, and resource planning to create a reliable, affordable, and clean energy system in Maine. For example, in 2021-22 Acadia Center will monitor Power Sector Transformation Stakeholder group to explore the transformation and planning of Maine’s electric sector to help achieve greenhouse gas emission reductions. Acadia Center will use, complete, and apply recommendations from its UtilityVision and Next Generation Energy Efficiency frameworks to inform policymakers and stakeholders on energy efficiency; electrification; GHG reductions; utility structure; load management; non-wires alternatives; distributed energy resources; and other solutions necessary to change existing statutes and regulations to achieve climate, energy, and equity objectives. Finally, Acadia Center will continue to push a bill in the 130^th Legislature to add climate and equity to the PUC’s responsibilities, empowering it to value emissions reductions and environmental justice in all policy, programmatic, and regulatory decisions.

The MURRDI report deserves a standing ovation clean energy, zero carbon, and equity for all. Who knew?

 

Rhode Island Adopts Mandatory, Enforceable Climate Targets

On April 10th, Governor Daniel McKee signed the landmark Act on Climate bill into law, updating Rhode Island’s climate goals with mandatory, enforceable targets which scientists indicate are necessary to avoid the worst effects of the climate crisis. The law updates the 2014 Resilient Rhode Island Act which set aspirational goals and will ensure the state takes actions necessary to reduce carbon emissions below 1990 levels by 45% by 2030, 80% by 2040, and to net-zero levels by 2050. With the strokes of 5 ceremonial pens, Governor McKee added Rhode Island to the growing number of states in the region that have committed to reducing carbon pollution.  As a result, Rhode Islanders will see benefits from cleaner air, healthier homes, increased investment in the local economy, and a more independent and resilient energy system. 

This law puts Rhode Island at the forefront of a changing regional economy that is actively reducing its dependence on polluting, imported fossil fuels by transitioning to local, clean, and renewable sources of energy.
– Hank Webster, Acadia Center’s Rhode Island Director and Staff Attorney

The Act on Climate law requires the state to update its greenhouse gas reduction plan by the end of 2022 with another update in 2025 and every five years thereafter. At the signing ceremony on historic Bowen’s Wharf in Newport, Governor McKee instructed his cabinet to “ramp up the strategic planning and outreach needed to put together plans and meet the targets under this act, and do it quickly.”

Acadia Center will continue to be a key stakeholder in those discussions and on Monday, Acadia Center’s Rhode Island Director, Hank Webster, convened leaders in the business community to discuss opportunities to work together to achieve these important environmental goals for the benefit of all Rhode Islanders. “This law is really about making sure Rhode Island prepares itself for an energy transition that we know is occurring on a global scale. It will ultimately help create and sustain jobs, improve our energy resiliency, and attract new businesses and workers. Rhode Island was the birthplace of the American industrial revolution and with this significant commitment to a clean energy economy, we can recapture that legacy of innovation.”

The Future: One Day at a Time

President Abraham Lincoln is credited with saying “The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a  time.” It’s also true that the present has often been built one day at a time through incalculable numbers of small and large actions. Acadia Center supported passage of Rhode Island’s initial climate legislation in 2014 and has been a lead organization in the annual efforts to strengthen Rhode Island’s commitment to clean energy, working in collaboration with other advocates as part of the Environment Council of Rhode Island, the Climate Crisis Campaign, the Energize Rhode Island Coalition, and Climate Jobs RI Coalition—a partnership between environmental and labor organizations. Acadia Center provided regular climate and energy briefings to legislators, demonstrating the health and economic benefits of climate action for their constituents, such as lower rates of asthma, cardiovascular disease, and even premature death.

Acadia Center and its partners conducted several virtual webinars throughout the Covid-19 pandemic and the transition to a new governor and House leadership in 2021. Acadia Center worked with legislative sponsors to strengthen the law and testified in support of the latest versions of the Act on Climate in 2020 and 2021. In recent weeks, Acadia Center played a key role in correcting a steady stream of disinformation coming from fossil-fuel aligned opponents to climate action.

Acknowledging the longstanding efforts of advocacy groups like Acadia Center, State Representative Lauren Carson, lead sponsor of the law in the House, said, “To the environmental advocates, I say years and years of work in the legislature have culminated in a bill that has moved a tremendous percentage of voters in the state of Rhode Island.” Attorney General Peter Neronha said, “I want to recognize the advocates that pushed elected officials—people like me—to do what is best for the people of the state of Rhode Island and around the country. The time to act is now.”

With the Act on Climate now in statute, Acadia Center is urging the state to implement key findings from numerous state-led energy studies, including the recommendation to plan a heat pump conversion effort outlined in the Heating Sector Transformation process and to implement the bipartisan, regional Transportation and Climate Initiative, as recommended by the state’s Mobility Innovation Working Group.

Climate Change Already Impacting Rhode Island

General Assembly leaders in attendance at the bill signing ceremony spoke about the importance of Rhode Island developing plans to address climate change and the ongoing energy transition away from fossil fuels. Senate President Dominick Ruggerio told the crowd, “climate change is happening more rapidly than we anticipated. We have a number of pieces of legislation in the Senate and House that we will be addressing this year to make significant changes to our policies. Obviously, we are looking to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels.”

Senate Environment & Agriculture Committee Chair Dawn Euer, the lead sponsor of the legislation in her chamber, noted that Rhode Island is particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, recalling that the site of the ceremony was underwater during Superstorm Sandy in 2012. “I think that we’ve seen the effects of climate change have been increasing and the reality is that the energy transition is coming.”

House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi spoke about the moral imperative of climate action: “My colleagues in the House came to me and said we need to do this. We need to do this for the future of Rhode Island. We all have to do our part and we have to leave this state better than we found it.”

Indeed, Governor McKee noted that “With 400 miles of coastline, the Ocean State is on the front lines of the climate crisis.” McKee also told the crowd of supporters that climate change threatens the “tourism industry and the countless small businesses it supports. This is especially true right here in Newport.” Governor McKee also touted the economic opportunities Rhode Island could seize by taking steps to address climate change, referencing efforts at the federal level to advance a federal infrastructure plan. “Rhode Island must seize this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. This means growing green jobs and promoting resiliency.”  

Next Steps

With the Act on Climate now in statute, Acadia Center is urging the state to implement key findings of the organization’s EnergyVision 2030 Roadmap and from numerous state-led energy studies. As part of the state’s initial climate action plan due by the end of 2022, Acadia Center will urge state policymakers to develop a heat pump conversion program as outlined in the Heating Sector Transformation process, to implement the regional Transportation and Climate Initiative recommended by the state’s Mobility Innovation Working Group, and to update the state’s Renewable Energy Standard to 100% by 2030. 

For more information:

Hank Webster
Rhode Island Director & Staff Attorney
hwebster@acadiacenter.org
401.276.0600 ext.402