Providence – It’s been another busy day in what is shaping up to be a packed session at the Environment General Assembly.
On Tuesday, the bills moved closer to enacting legislation to buy more offshore wind power, permanently limit concentrations of so-called chemicals in drinking water, ban food packaging containing the same type of man-made chemicals, and ban the distribution of plastic that is used for one time. bags.
Permit for plastic processing factories
The House leadership also announced that a controversial bill passed in the Senate that would make it easier to allow the use of intense heat to break down plastics into combustible fuels and other products will not continue this year. The legislation was widely opposed by state environmental groups and was not passed in the Senate until after several senators were absent from the vote.
“We are a member-driven body and our members have spoken to us loud and clear that they have serious unresolved questions about this bill,” House Speaker K. Joseph Schicarchi and Majority Leader Chris Blazewski said in a joint statement.
The statement was released minutes before the start of a rally against the bill by environmental and community groups. The event was led on the steps of the state building by the Rhode Island Environmental Council, the coalition representing all of the state’s major environmental organizations, and the People’s Port Authority, an organization working to reduce pollution in and around the Port of Providence. Opponents have raised concerns that ProvPort is an area where a plant could be built that uses a high-temperature process called pyrolysis to turn plastic waste into other goods.
While the plastics industry heralds pyrolysis as a solution to the mounting problem of plastic waste, which fills landfills and washes landscapes and oceans, environmentalists say it is energy-intensive, poses public health risks, and will do nothing to reduce demand for plastics made from fossil fuels. .
Shekarchi and Blazejewski framed their opposition to the pyrolysis bill by referring to the plethora of environmental legislation so far at this hearing. This year’s activity follows last year’s enactment of the Climate Act, a landmark law that requires the state to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
Senate President Dominique Rogerio also referred to recent work on the environment in his response to the House resolution, saying, “The Senate has led the way in environmental initiatives including the climate law” and other laws.
“We respect the position of the House of Representatives on [the pyrolysis] bill, and we look forward to continuing to work productively with them to enact strong environmental legislation,” he said.
It’s been a fruitful session so far on environmental policy, as agreed by Priscilla de la Cruz, president of the Rhode Island Environment Council. With bills that would boost the state’s supply of renewable energy, she said, lawmakers are building on the foundation laid by the climate law.
“I think this session sets the standard for the kind of climate action that is needed,” she said.
Pushing for more renewable energy in RI is complicated by financial incentives for power utilities
The session included an update of the Renewable Energy Standard, the key state law that drives support for the development of offshore wind, solar, and the like. With Senate approval, the House of Representatives passed legislation earlier this month that would require all Rhode Island’s electricity sales to be balanced with renewable energy by 2033.
On Tuesday, another big chunk of expanding clean energy use in the state moved on the brink of approval. The House Committee on Corporations has approved legislation that would require Rhode Island Energy, the company formerly known as Narragansett Electric, to solicit proposals for up to 1,000 megawatts of offshore wind.
The Senate passed a different version of the bill, but it stalled in the House due to questions about an incentive for the state’s dominant energy utility. A compromise has been reached that allows Rhode Island Energy to pay up to 1 percent of what it pays for energy from new offshore wind development. The new bill, which goes to the House floor on Wednesday, gives the state’s public utilities authority the power to set the level of incentives.
PFAS ban could take effect by 2024
As taken out of the committee on Tuesday, by the Senate, was a bill that would ban the distribution of wrappers, bags and other food packaging containing per- and polyfluorolalkyl substances, or PFAS. Compounds are known forever as chemicals because they persist in the environment over time and accumulate in the human and animal body, and compounds have been linked to cancer, low birth weight, and other health problems. The ban, which has already been passed by the House of Representatives, will go into effect in 2024.
The chemicals are widely known to pollute water supplies, including in the village of Burrillville a few years ago. On the floor of the house on Tuesday, members passed a drinking water standard for chemicals that have been in place for years. The bill, which would limit concentrations of some of the most common chemicals from PFAS, has already passed the Senate.
Rhode Island House’s plastic bag ban may pass this year
The full House of Representatives also adopted another bill that was introduced in previous sessions but was never put to a vote until this year. On Tuesday, members approved a Senate bill that would ban the distribution of single-use plastic bags in most retail outlets. The House of Representatives has already passed the accompanying bill, which will go to the Senate on Wednesday.
Despite the progress, de la Cruz said lawmakers should not rest on their laurels. There is still work to be done to prevent the loss of forests to solar projects, to decarbonize buildings and the transportation sector, and to protect low-income and minority communities from pollution. And she warned, the Pyrolis bill will likely come back again.
“We have this solid foundation,” she said. “There is more to be done.”