With freeze on federal funding, cutting emissions in RI just got harder.
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Despite the freeze on EPA grants, work on RI's climate action strategy continues, with the state using its own funds as a temporary measure.
The freeze impacts other energy programs, including those promoting electric vehicles and energy efficiency, potentially costing the state millions in federal funds.
Some environmental programs, like Clean Heat RI and coastal resilience planning, remain unaffected as they are funded through different sources.
PROVIDENCE – The development of a strategy that is fundamental to the state's efforts to cut planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions is continuing despite the federal funding freeze.
But implementing the recommendations of the plan is expected to be more challenging with an administration in Washington that is openly hostile to efforts to fight climate change.
The Rhode Island Executive Climate Change Coordinating Council voted this week to approve the transfer, if needed, of $225,000 in state funds to pay the consultants and other groups that have been working on the climate action strategy, a comprehensive plan that will detail what Rhode Island has to do to meet the emissions targets required by the 2021 Act on Climate.
Work on the plan started at the beginning of the year and was being paid for through $3 million that had been allocated from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Carbon Pollution Reduction Grant program.
The state has been paying the bills for the work up front and then seeking reimbursement from the EPA under the terms of the grant's binding contract. Those reimbursements had continued smoothly until President Donald Trump late last month signed a sweeping order affecting a raft of congressionally mandated programs and another more specific one that targeted climate spending.
There have been a series of government directives, lawsuits and court orders since then, but it's still unclear what will happen to Rhode Island's climate planning grant.
'The news is literally changing daily and sometimes hourly,' said Terry Gray, director of the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management and chair of the state climate council.
Climate strategy will set ways to cut emissions in Rhode Island
After the EPA froze its online reimbursement portal, Gray asked the climate council for permission to move $225,000 from DEM coffers in case it's needed to continue paying for development of the climate strategy.
The money originally came from the climate commission's budget, which is funded by Rhode Island's share of payments from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a cap-and-invest program aimed at cutting power plants emissions in the Northeast.
The bulk of the money given to the DEM was going to be used on a pilot program to switch over lawn maintenance equipment used in state parks to electric models. That program will have to wait.
'Because the climate plan is such a priority, I want to have a backup plan,' Gray said at the council's meeting on Monday.
The DEM money would pay for work on the plan through the end of the fiscal year on June 30. At that point, if the federal funds aren't flowing, the climate council will have to figure out another funding source.
The strategy, which is due by the end of the year, is crucial to the state's climate policies because it will set out a framework for Rhode Island to comply with the Act on Climate, the bill signed into law by McKee that requires the state to reach net-zero emissions by 2050.
It will look at everything from switching to electric cars to phasing out the use of fossil fuels for heating.
Federal funding frozen for state energy programs
While work on the plan will continue, other federally funded programs that have been helping to cut carbon pollution in Rhode Island have been put on hold by Trump's orders.
The state Office of Energy Resources has said that it's facing a freeze on $125 million in federal funding that has put on hold programs aimed at helping businesses and homeowners conserve energy and invest in renewables.
The total includes about $35 million that was set to come to Rhode Island through a second allocation from the EPA's Climate Pollution Reduction Grant program, according to acting state energy commissioner Chris Kearns. That money was due to the state from a $450-million grant awarded in July to help half a million homeowners across New England purchase electric heat pumps, which are more efficient than fossil fuel furnaces and can be cheaper to operate.
The freeze is also affecting a program that aimed to expand the number of charging stations for electric vehicles in Rhode Island. The state was among the first in the nation to complete phase one of the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program by installing fast-charging stations along the Interstate 95 corridor.
It was set to embark on phase two by expanding funding to private and public entities that would have supported the installation of more than 200 publicly accessible charging ports. But after having spent $2 million so far, the state is poised to lose the remaining $21 million that it was awarded, according to the energy office.
'OER and [the Rhode Island Department of Transportation] are monitoring closely all federal matters on electric vehicle charging infrastructure funding,' said Robert Beadle, spokesman for the energy office. 'Clean transportation programs are important in advancing our Act on Climate objectives.'
The state energy office has also put a hold on a $32-million program to help homeowners buy energy-efficient clothes dryers and stoves and update wiring.
U.S. Rep. Seth Magaziner, D-R.I., has decried the freeze affecting energy programs.
'This could mean higher energy costs, a dirtier environment and fewer jobs for RIers,' Magaziner wrote on X.
Some federally funded environmental programs are unscathed so far
One state climate program that hasn't been affected, according to Kearns, is Clean Heat RI, which offers incentives to property owners who purchase heat pumps.
The $25-million program was funded entirely by COVID stimulus funds from the federal government. So far, the state energy office has awarded 3,800 rebates through the program totaling $15 million.
The development of a coastal resilience plan being led by the DEM is also unaffected. The plan, which will identify areas vulnerable to coastal storms, erosion and rising seas, is being funded by the General Assembly.
Environmental programs that receive federal funds through the Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank have also continued uninterrupted so far. They include work to help drinking water providers filter so-called forever chemicals from their supplies and replace lead service pipes.
The final phase of a decades-long project to protect Narragansett Bay from combined sewer overflows is also still getting federal money through the infrastructure bank.
'If EPA funds were to be frozen, it would have a significant impact on our ability to continue critical projects,' said Ben Smith, a spokesman for the bank. 'Upwards of $180 million could become inaccessible.'
On the climate strategy, Gray said that it's still on track for completion by the end of the year. Meeting the goals of the strategy will 'be more challenging now,' he said.
'Not having the federal support and the grants that have already been committed and promised to the state, that makes a big difference,' Gray said.
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