Rhode Island
Will the environment be a big topic during the legislative session? What to expect
How will RI be different in 2050? Forecast on hitting climate targets
Sen. Dawn Euer, who was an architect of the Act on Climate, still firmly believes that Rhode Island can and will get to its goal of net-zero emissions by 2050.
Two years ago, the state Senate approved legislation that aimed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from heating and cooling buildings in Rhode Island, but the measure was held up in the House.
Last year, roles were reversed, and with the Senate demurring, it was the House’s turn to pass a version of the bill that advocates say is necessary to meet the net-zero by 2050 mandate of the Act on Climate.
The Building Decarbonization Act is set to be reintroduced again this year in the General Assembly and once again, it will most likely be on the list of legislative priorities for the coalition that represents leading environmental groups across the state.
“I could see that getting a lot of support,” said James Crowley, president of the Environment Council of Rhode Island. “We haven’t taken much action yet on the heating sector despite it accounting for a third of emissions.”
As the new legislative session kicked off last week, Crowley and other advocates have measured hopes for environmental action in the General Assembly. Many believe this is a pivotal time for Rhode Island, just four years out from the Act on Climate’s next interim target, a 45% reduction of planet-warming emissions from 1990 levels by 2030.
But they also know that the lack of support for anything climate-related from the Trump administration will complicate state efforts. And with a gubernatorial race on the cards, state leaders will be wary of doing anything that potentially raises costs for Rhode Islanders, especially as they look for ways to fill gaps in federal funding for things like health care and education.
“We have to be mindful of the moment that we’re operating in,” said Jed Thorp, director of advocacy for Save The Bay. “That will make it relatively hard for environmental issues to break through.”
Session follows approval of new state climate action plan
After years of inaction on environmental priorities, the General Assembly appeared to turn a corner in 2021 with the passage of the Act on Climate, a law that underpins all policymaking in the state around transitioning away from fossil fuels. It was followed a year later with a commitment to offset all electric usage in the state with wind, solar and other renewable sources by 2033.
But there’s been little movement since then in the legislature to address emissions from buildings, transportation and other sectors of the Rhode Island economy, leading to questions about the state’s commitment to its climate goals.
At a meeting last month of the state Executive Climate Change Coordinating Council, Emily Koo, Rhode Island director of the Acadia Center, a clean energy advocacy group, spoke of a “vacuum of climate leadership” across state government.
Meg Kerr, vice chair of the climate council’s advisory board, urged greater urgency.
“We really need a whole-of-government approach and a whole-of-economy approach to achieve the Act on Climate,” she said. “We need state leadership and state vision.”
They spoke at a Dec. 18 meeting of the council, which is made up of agency directors and staff and directs the state government’s climate policy. Its members were meeting to approve a strategy that had been in the works for more than a year and is supposed to lay out the ways the state could meet the Act on Climate’s goals.
But some critics said the plan fell short of expectations, with too much focus on the federal government’s hostility to climate policy. Bill Ibelle, a member of Climate Action Rhode Island, described the tone of the report as “defeatist.”
While the report assumed big upticks in the adoption of heat pumps and electric cars and projected the state would reach the 2030 target, it didn’t lay out a plan to get to later goals, he and others complained.
“It’s really important that these are things that we should push hard on,” Ibelle said. “What I’d like to see this group do is do more then mention them, but endorse them.”
In a statement, Terry Gray, director of the state Department of Environmental Management and chair of the climate council, said that state agencies are “fully committed to action” and that they are already implementing parts of the strategy while also looking at alternatives in the absence of federal backing.
“Recent federal rollbacks of clean-energy initiatives, disruptions to offshore wind, and the loss of critical federal funding have significantly altered the policy and financing landscape that many states, including Rhode Island, have relied on,” he said. “As those impacts continue to unfold, states must reassess how best to advance their climate goals under these new conditions.”
Measures to reduce reliance on fossil fuels are expected
Amid the uncertainty, Sen. Meghan Kallman said she believes the General Assembly needs to do more on climate issues.
The Pawtucket Democrat was the lead sponsor in the Senate of the Building Decarbonization Act in 2024 and 2025 and plans to introduce it again this year. Last year’s version required that new buildings be constructed so that they’re able to switch from heating systems that burn fossil fuels to electric heat pumps. (The House version that won passage, introduced by Rep. Rebecca Kislak, was amended so that it required only that large buildings track and report their energy usage.)
Kallman said she’s also working on a separate bill focused on new hospital construction and electrification, as well as other measures.
“My expectation is that the Senate will continue to lead on these issues,” Kallman said. “The federal landscape is challenging, but that’s a reason why the state needs to take leadership.”
While Crowley, a staff attorney with the Conservation Law Foundation, said that the Environment Council won’t vote on its priorities for several more weeks, he thinks Kallman’s bill would almost certainly be on the list again. So, too, would a move to reduce reliance on cars by finding more funds for the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority. A bottle bill aimed at improving recycling would also be a priority if it’s proposed again.
On the latter, the legislature voted last year to study the costs of implementing the redemption system for used bottles and cans that the bill calls for. The report is due by the end of the year, so Thorp doesn’t expect approval of the new recycling program in the meantime but he expects a bill to be filed to keep discussions going.
Koo said she’s hoping for more attention in the General Assembly on reducing the state’s reliance on natural gas. She mentioned a proposal to limit new spending on the gas delivery system. She also said that reduced electric rates for heat pump users and variable rates that could make it cheaper to charge electric cars would also help.
Crowley said there’s hope that with a new Congress after the mid-term elections and a new president in three years, the political landscape could change once again.
“Even in this difficult climate we can still do the work,” he said.
Gray’s Ice Cream has been scooping cones at a Rhode Island crossroads since 1923. That kind of staying power is what keeps these eight towns on national favorites lists year after year. Newport carries the Gilded Age mansions and a 3.5-mile shoreline walk past their lawns. Woonsocket holds a former church that Yankee Magazine named the Sistine Chapel of America. Tiverton trades on windsurfing beaches and a colonial village full of galleries. Each town here earns a full day, and several reward a whole weekend.
Newport
Newport faces the Atlantic from the southern tip of Aquidneck Island, and USA Today 10Best readers voted it the No. 6 coastal small town in America for 2024. The Cliff Walk runs 3.5 miles between Easton’s Beach and Bailey’s Beach, a National Recreation Trail since 1975, with surf on one side and Gilded Age lawns on the other. Along the way stands The Breakers, the 70-room summer home Cornelius Vanderbilt II completed in 1895, open for tours through the Preservation Society of Newport County. Downtown, Touro Synagogue, dedicated in 1763, remains the oldest synagogue building in the United States and still houses an active congregation. Bowen’s Wharf now stacks restaurants and galleries beside the docks. Newport fits anyone who wants beach days framed in marble.
Middletown
Middletown stretches across the center of Aquidneck Island, and its shoreline carries the day. Sandy crescents at Second Beach and Third Beach bookend a peninsula that ends at Sachuest Point National Wildlife Refuge. Those 242 protected acres host more than 200 bird species on migration, and snowy owls sometimes winter there. Inland, the Norman Bird Sanctuary keeps seven miles of trails across roughly 300 acres; the Hanging Rock route looks down on the refuge and the beach below. Newport Vineyards pours its tastings in Middletown, despite the name, an easy stop on the ride home. Middletown is the pick for visitors who measure a good day in shorebirds and sand.
Portsmouth
Portsmouth crowns the north end of Aquidneck Island and has been settled since 1638, second in age only to Providence among Rhode Island municipalities. Green Animals Topiary Garden clips more than 80 figures from privet, yew, and boxwood on a seven-acre estate above Narragansett Bay. The oldest topiary garden in the country stays in bloom through the warm months, roughly May into October. Glen Manor House, a town-owned French-style manor on the Sakonnet River, presides over the old Glen Farm estate, with the walking paths and picnic groves of Glen Park alongside. Greenvale Vineyards pours estate wines in a tasting room of former horse stalls beside 27 acres of riverside vines. Families head for the shallow water at Sandy Point Beach. Portsmouth works for anyone who likes a coastline with topiary elephants on it.
Tiverton
Tiverton lines the east bank of the Sakonnet River, where shore roads and stone walls funnel day-trippers toward Tiverton Four Corners. Galleries, antique shops, and the Four Corners Arts Center fill buildings dating to the 18th century. Gray’s Ice Cream has been scooping at the crossroads since 1923, with a summer line to prove it. Behind the village, Weetamoo Woods and the adjoining Pardon Gray Preserve spread hundreds of acres of oak forest, old mill ruins, and walking trails. Fogland Beach is a black-stone beach located on Fogland Point, where steady wind draws windsurfers and the views run across to Aquidneck Island. Tiverton makes the case for a slow afternoon that ends with a cone at the crossroads.
Warren
Warren gets introduced as the smallest town in the smallest county in the smallest state, and its few square miles hold an outsized food scene. Blount Clam Shack offers clam cakes beside the docks on Water Street, while the Hope & Main food incubator keeps hatching new food businesses a few blocks inland. The East Bay Bike Path is a 14.5-mile path between Providence and Bristol, dropping riders within a short walk of the waterfront. History holds the center of town too: the Historic Warren Armory still fronts a downtown that grew up on shipbuilding and marine trades. Warren belongs on this list for travelers who plan trips around lunch.
East Greenwich
East Greenwich climbs from Greenwich Cove in a district known as Hill and Harbor, with Main Street running the ridge a block above the water. The Greenwich Odeum opened on that street in 1926 at the tail end of vaudeville and reopened in the fall of 1994 as a performing arts mainstay. Sailboats crowd the cove below Scalloptown Park, named for the shellfishing grounds that once ran the local economy, with walking paths along the bay. The 1773 Varnum House Museum on Peirce Street preserves the home of Continental Army General James Mitchell Varnum. East Greenwich suits travelers who want dinner with a marina view and a show afterward.
North Kingstown
North Kingstown keeps its showpiece in Wickford, a harbor village holding one of the largest collections of 18th-century homes in the Northeast. The Old Narragansett Church was built in 1707 and moved to Wickford in the 1800s. It is also believed to be the oldest Episcopal church building in the northeastern United States. Just north of the village, Smith’s Castle dates to 1678, one of the oldest houses in Rhode Island, built near the site where Roger Williams ran a 1637 trading post. Each summer, the Wickford Art Festival, held since 1962, brings roughly 200 juried artists to Wilson Park. Kayaks trace the edges of one of the best-protected natural harbors on the East Coast.
Woonsocket
Woonsocket bends around the Blackstone River at the state’s northern edge, where mill-era fortunes paid for a cultural inheritance that still surprises first-timers. The St. Ann Arts and Cultural Center holds the largest collection of fresco paintings in North America. Guido Nincheri painted the former church interior over eight years, using hundreds of Woonsocket residents as models. Yankee Magazine later dubbed it the Sistine Chapel of America, and seasonal tours run on Sundays. On Monument Square, the 1926 Stadium Theatre survived the end of vaudeville and a long closure before a 2001 restoration; it now books national acts alongside community productions. The Museum of Work and Culture walks visitors from a Québec farmhouse into the mills that drew thousands of French Canadian families south. Autumnfest closes the season each Columbus Day weekend with carnival rides, craft booths, and fireworks. Woonsocket rewards travelers who like their art with mill-town history attached.
Eight Towns, One Small State
What links these eight towns is less geography than staying power. Newport has drawn visitors to its mansions for more than a century, and Gray’s has scooped at the Tiverton crossroads since 1923. Woonsocket’s frescoes and Wickford’s 18th-century streets reward an afternoon as readily as Newport’s Cliff Walk does. The reputations came from different sources, mansions in one town, a wildlife refuge in another, an art festival in a third, but each holds up to a close look. That is what keeps them on the lists.
JAMESTOWN, R.I. (WJAR) — It was just a normal day at a home on Sloop Street in Jamestown until Stephen Santoro happened to glance up.
“I looked up at the peak and saw a very large nest of bees,” Santoro said.
Thousands of them.
“Well, I don’t mind honeybees, but just not that many,” he said.
That’s when he knew he had to call the Jamestown Swarm Chaser, Jim Turenne.
NBC 10’s Patrice Wood reports on the unique talents of the Jamestown Swarm Chaser.
Turenne is a beekeeper and member of the Rhode Island Beekeepers Association.
You can often find Turenne collecting honey at the Godena Farm, Conanicut Island Land Trust.
“They’ve actually been considered to be the most important species on the planet. They pollinate about one-third of the food we eat,” Turenne said.
But when someone needs help, the Swarm Chaser jumps into action, climbing up the side of the house on Sloop Street.
“The swarm basically had moved into the person’s house here,” Turenne said.
Turenne removed those on the outside and another beekeeper cut into the house to get the rest.
“That was one of the biggest clusters I’ve ever seen. That had probably 20,000 to 30,000 bees,” he said.
The homeowner was relieved.
“Oh, I’m extremely grateful,” Santoro said.
Swarm-catching is a unique talent.
Turenne has had 14 swarm rescues so far this year, all volunteer.
Nominate someone in your community volunteering to make our community better by filling out the short nomination form for “Community Treasures”
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WJAR) — Providence Mayor Brett Smiley called on city councilors to take action so the city can launch the RENT fund program.
According to city officials, Rental and Essential Needs Transition (RENT) would provide one-time grants of up to $3,000 per household to prevent eviction during times of financial crisis.
At a Wednesday press conference, Smiley called on the Providence City Council to approve the ordinance before its summer recess so the program can launch in July.
“I am incredibly disappointed that the city council is blocking the final approval to launch the RENT fund. Providence families are struggling to stay in their homes. They need help now more than they need delays,” Smiley said. “This act by the council can’t be viewed as anything other than a baseless political ploy aimed at obstructing progress during an election year, while our neighbors are the ones that have to pay a price for it.”
Providence Mayor Brett Smiley called on city councilors to take action so the city can launch the RENT fund program. (WJAR)
In a statement, City Council members said they have not yet approved the RENT fund ordinance because it does not include enough protections for tenants.
“The Council supports direct rental assistance—we already approved $1 million to fund it. But after vetoing rent stabilization, Mayor Smiley wants us to pass a program that sends public money directly to landlords without requiring them to limit rent increases or halt evictions. A landlord could take a $3,000 check from the City on Friday and raise the rent or evict the tenant on Monday. We are not going to be pressured into yet another Brett Smiley landlord giveaway. The Council will take the time necessary to put real tenant protections into this ordinance so that taxpayer dollars actually provide stability for neighbors in crisis,” Councilor Miguel Sanchez said.
Council members also said that they will continue working through the recess to strengthen the proposal.
Mayor Smiley disputed that claim, saying the organization selected to run the program, Community Action Partnership of Providence (CAP), would help protect tenants.
According to Smiley, the agreement with CAP includes tenant protections, such as ensuring tenants remain housed after receiving assistance and requiring landlords to fulfill their lease obligations.
Smiley also said the city would take action if a landlord violated those obligations.
“If they had an issue with the ordinance, they’ve had multiple opportunities to fix this. This has been in their hands for months. We got a letter flagging these concerns last night,” Smiley said. “We believe these concerns have already been addressed in the agreement with CAP, and if they had these concerns, they should’ve asked in the last four months.”
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