Latest / News•Feb 12, 2026

Environmental groups and labor respond to Governor McKee’s push against renewable energy and energy efficiency

"I believe [Dan McKee]’s going to roll back on a lot of these things because, honestly, I think he got some bad advice because the numbers don’t work," said IBEW Local 99's Joe Walsh.
Steve Alquist, SteveAlquist.net

Environmental advocates, state legislators, and labor union leaders spoke out at a State House press conference to oppose Rhode Island Governor Daniel McKee’s budget proposals and executive order on clean energy. The event was sponsored by Acadia Center, Climate Action Rhode Island, and the Green Energy Consumers Alliance.

Acadia Center’s Emily Koo put it bluntly: “Cutting clean energy doesn’t protect Rhode Island rate payers. It protects an outdated energy system and keeps us dependent on dirty, expensive fossil fuels. These so-called state mandates, like our renewable energy standard and the charges that support renewable energy and energy efficiency programs, help reduce the largest and fastest-growing component of your bill: supply and delivery costs. It’s a glaring omission to report clean energy costs while ignoring all cost savings, one of the primary reasons for undertaking the energy transition in the first place. Clean energy isn’t at odds with affordability. It’s essential to it.”

Emily Koo, Senior Policy Advocate and Rhode Island Program Director for Acadia Center: Cutting renewables and energy efficiency is not the answer to Rhode Island’s rising energy costs. With this budget proposal, Governor McKee continues to pin the blame for escalating energy prices on the very tools that serve to protect Rhode Island rate payers from volatile supply costs and rising delivery costs – much larger portions of our bill. I’m here to outline the three most egregious provisions in Governor McKee’s budget proposal.

  • First, it levies a substantial, punitive grid access fee and lowers compensation rates for large renewable energy projects, signaling that Rhode Island is closed to clean energy business. The retroactive nature of the changes to both existing and new net metering systems would have a severe chilling effect on the industry as a whole. This will drive the solar industry out of the state. A range of virtual net metering customers, including municipalities, hospitals, colleges and universities, and housing authorities, would lose substantial value from pre-negotiated discounted electricity, and, in many cases, taxpayers would bear the brunt of that loss.
  • Second, the budget proposal delays and weakens Rhode Island’s leading renewable energy standard (RES), prolonging our dependence on dirty, expensive fossil fuels. Delaying the renewable energy standard undermines the linchpin of achieving the state’s emission reduction mandates and renders the climate act and the recent 2025 climate strategy obsolete.
  • Third, the budget caps Rhode Island’s cost-effective energy-efficiency programs at $75 million per year, 48% below the five-year average. These are programs that have delivered deep, lasting savings for Rhode Island. These programs are required to show, and they do, that their benefits outweigh their costs. Throughout the last annual energy efficiency planning process, Acadia Center, the stakeholder Energy Efficiency Council, a large group of legislators (thank you all who signed onto that letter), and other local, regional, and national organizations spoke out against reducing energy efficiency investments and explained why that’s bad for Rhode Island rate payers.

I want to clarify that all parties involved in that proceeding did not support the reduction. The Energy Efficiency Council advocated for greater savings in its intervention before the Public Utilities Commission (PUC), but ultimately, a $93 million budget was approved following the regulatory review. That reduced budget was $93 million. The cap is proposed at $75 million. While we opposed the budget reduction, the outcome shows that the regulatory process is working and that an arbitrary cap is neither necessary nor future-proof.

The cheapest megawatt is the megawatt we don’t use, often called a “negawatt.” Energy efficiency directly lowers bills by reducing demand and suppressing prices across the region. By pinning the blame on state mandates and taxes, Governor McKee’s budget ignores the benefits of clean energy and the primary drivers of energy costs.

Cutting clean energy doesn’t protect Rhode Island rate payers. It protects an outdated energy system and keeps us dependent on dirty, expensive fossil fuels. These so-called state mandates, like our renewable energy standard and the charges that support renewable energy and energy efficiency programs, help reduce the largest and fastest-growing component of your bill: supply and delivery costs. It’s a glaring omission to report clean energy costs while ignoring all cost savings, one of the primary reasons for undertaking the energy transition in the first place. Clean energy isn’t at odds with affordability. It’s essential to it.

To read the full article from Steve Alquist, click here.