Conservative group criticizes transportation climate plan

PROVIDENCE — Rhode Island’s leading conservative advocacy group argues in a report released Tuesday that the costs of a regional program to cut transportation emissions would far outweigh the benefits.

The report released by the Rhode Island Center for Freedom & Prosperity comes a month after Gov. Gina Raimondo signed Rhode Island onto the Transportation and Climate Initiative, joining Massachusetts, Connecticut and the District of Columbia as founding members of a cap-and-invest program aimed at helping to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that drive climate change.

The initiative has won broad support from environmental and public health groups who say that cutting pollution from the transportation sector, which is responsible for about 40% of all carbon emissions regionally, will have far-reaching impacts.

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Hank Webster, Rhode Island director of the Acadia Center, which signed the letter of support for the initiative released on Tuesday, said the center’s report aims to deceive policymakers by focusing on the 2019 legislation.

“Ignoring climate change and the rapid shift away from fossil fuels won’t help Rhode Islanders, and neither will false information,” he said.

Read the full article in The Providence Journal here