Speaker Shekarchi: You need to push back on the anti-conservation and renewable energy narrative

"Please continue with your passion. Continue to fight. Reach out to your legislators individually, call ‘em, write emails to them, rally around them. Together, we’ll continue the progress we’ve made."

At the Environmental Council of Rhode Island (ECRI)’s legislative coffee hour, held annually in the State House Library, Speaker of the House K. Joseph Shekarchi began his remarks with a story about how Representative David Bennett threatened to resign as Chair of the House Environment and Natural Resources Committee. Representative Bennett was resigning, said the Speaker, because he had never passed a significant bill out of his committee. The Speaker assured Bennett that they would “consider every bill on its merits,” and the first bill passed was the historic 2021 Act on Climate.

It wasn’t easy, said the Speaker. The bill was passed during COVID, and everyone was masked. The House was meeting in the Veterans’ Auditorium, and, instead of voting machines, legislators were using iPads.

“It was a very long and lengthy debate, and our iPads were running out of battery life,” said the Speaker. “They wanted to postpone the hearing, and you could see the opposition getting a little bit of momentum.”

The Speaker decided to call the question, which he rarely does, preferring to allow the debate to run its course. Calling the question stops debate and forces a vote. Act on Climate passed.

“That opened up the floodgates to a lot of good legislation, and we’ll continue,” said the Speaker to the ECRI members, supporters, and legislators packed into the library.

“I know things are not satisfactory right now,” continued Speaker Sheakarchi. “Federally, things that are happening are hurting a lot of our environmental initiatives, but we can’t get lost in that. We must remember the progress we have made and continue to make. You need to be active and involved, and push back against the narrative that these programs are the cause of the energy affordability crisis. That is not true.”

The Speaker continued:

“There’s nothing more powerful than the truth. When you hear from people with credibility like Sue Anderbois and Terry Gray, that makes all the difference in the world. We are being bombarded: receiving several hundred emails a day from the Rhode Island Center for Freedom and Prosperity.¹ It’s a form email. Some of you may have seen them. If not, I’ll be happy to send you a copy. It’s the same narrative: Get rid of all of the conservation programs and get rid of all of the renewable energy programs. There will be a rally at the State House in two weeks. I expect everybody in this room to be at that rally. We need to be heard.

“I can confirm that my colleagues and I care about the environment, and we’ve made progress. Progress doesn’t happen overnight. It happens in stages, as with the Bottle Bill. We did the first part of that. Not an easy bill. Everybody wants a Bottle Bill. I want a bottle bill. [Note: It has been pointed out to me that the Speaker was quoting the public when he said “I want a bottle bill” and not necessarilly expressing his own opinion. Iinclude this note in the absense of clarity.] How are we going to implement it? Who is it going to cost? Where are these redemption centers going to be? Who’s going to do redemption? We have committed to delivering those answers within less than a year, and we’ll continue with step two, but step one was important. We needed that real data from the people who are actually going to do the redemptions, where they’re going to go, and how we’re going to make it work.

“Don’t give up hope because it’s not instant. I am not a young person, but some young people want instant success, instant answers, and instant results. Legislation is not instant. Big, effective change takes time, and I have a passion for not doing anything for the sake of doing it. I have a passion for doing it when it’s right and getting it right the first time, as best we can. We’re not perfect. No legislation is perfect, and if we waited for perfect, we’d never get anything done. We don’t want perfect to be the enemy of good, and we’ve passed a lot of good legislation. I stand behind that. I run on that. I’m proud of that.

“I know I speak for the majority of the House of Representatives when I say we want to leave this state and our environment to the next generation in better condition than we inherited. That’s our goal, with the help of all of you.

“You need to push back on the narrative. That means op-eds. If you’ve read the op-ed today in the Boston Globe, you need to push back on it. [Here, the Speaker seems to be referring to an opinion piece from Greg Cornett, President of Rhode Island Energy, “As R.I.’s energy costs rise, we must create a smarter policy that does not put reliability at risk.” (Behind a paywall, sadly)]

“If you receive a series of form emails from the far right, you need to push back on them... We need to change that narrative, and with your help and collaboration, we’ll get it done. Please continue with your passion. Continue to fight. Reach out to your legislators individually, call ‘em, write emails to them, rally around them. Together, we’ll continue the progress we’ve made. Your advocacy makes a difference.”

Here’s the video:

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ECRI also presented its 2026 Emerging Legislative Priorities:

The Environment Council of Rhode Island (ECRI) is a coalition of over 60 organizations, plus individual members, committed to developing and advocating for policies that protect and enhance our state’s environment for the benefit of all Rhode Islanders. Each year, we announce policy priorities that aim to address some of Rhode Island’s most pressing environmental issues.

While we name our official list of policy priorities later in the session (after bills have been introduced), we can outline some of the areas of focus most important to ECRI’s members in the 2026 Legislative Session. In presenting this information, we note that many topics span multiple categories and that legislation aimed at protecting and enhancing our environment also benefits people, the economy, and quality of life.

Meeting our Climate Commitments

As we work to implement the Act on Climate, which sets science-based, enforceable greenhouse gas reduction requirements, ECRI firmly believes we need prescriptive, clear pathways to achieve full economy-wide decarbonization. This includes reducing emissions from the largest contributing sectors and promoting the development of clean, renewable energy resources.

As we implement new policies to tackle our emissions, we need to ensure that we don’t backslide by weakening or eliminating existing climate and clean energy policies. Efforts to roll back renewable energy and energy efficiency programs are short-sighted and irresponsible, yielding only limited short-term savings while creating even greater costs in the future.

Climate legislation that ECRI is likely to support this session includes:

• Addressing emissions from existing and new buildings. This includes measuring and reducing greenhouse gas emissions and promoting the electrification of heating.

• Decreasing the use of fossil fuels in energy production, heating, and transportation.

• Reducing barriers to the responsible siting of renewable energy development.

• Promoting climate resilience in coastal areas-adapting shorelines to be resilient to flooding, sea level rise, and erosion.

• Making polluters pay their fair share of Rhode Island’s climate adaptation costs.

Environmental Justice

ECRI believes that environmental policy must center the needs of those most impacted by climate change and other environmental hazards, including Black, Brown, Indigenous, and other communities of color, and low-income and disabled people facing deep inequities from decades of disinvestment.

ECRI recognizes the intersections of many environmental issues with those related to the justice and wellbeing of all people, including housing, transportation, health, and workforce development.

Environmental justice legislation must be led by the communities impacted, with their voices front and center. ECRI is prepared to collaborate with, support, and stand behind these community voices to promote an equitable and just environment for all Rhode Islanders.

Policies that promote environmental justice, and which ECRI may support this session, include:

• Requiring that decision-making on issues such as permitting polluting facilities and infrastructure include input from the most affected communities.

• Fully funding public transit.

• Prioritizing environmental education and workforce development in lower-resourced communities.

• Addressing air quality issues in neighborhoods most affected by air pollution.

• Promoting urban tree canopy.

• Reducing energy cost burdens for low-income utility consumers.

Protecting our Lands, Waters, and Coasts

Some of Rhode Island’s most valuable assets are our natural spaces. Protecting lands, waters, and coasts is critical to promoting biodiversity, recreation, economic opportunity, and public health. As our climate changes, we must be forward-thinking and make sustainable decisions to protect natural areas. It is time for action. We need laws, not more studies.

Legislation that protects our land, water, and coasts includes:

• Adding funding for key conservation programs to the proposed Green Bond.

• Collaborative land use planning around housing development and conservation.

• Efforts to reduce plastic pollution by incentivizing bottle return.

• Allowing farmers opportunities to preserve farmland and resourcing nontraditional farmland in small or urban areas.

• Reducing or eliminating the use of pesticides, which can pollute waterways and harm animals.

• Encouraging composting and reducing the amount of food waste sent to our landfills.

1. From Sourcewatch:

The Rhode Island Center for Freedom and Prosperity (RICFP) is a free-market think tank and member of the State Policy Network (SPN). The RICFP claims to be a “nonprofit, nonpartisan organization . . . dedicated to providing concerned citizens, the media, and public officials with empirical research data, while also advancing free-market solutions to public policy issues in the state.” SPN is a web of right-wing “think tanks” and tax-exempt organizations in 48 states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, and the United Kingdom. As of June 2024, SPN’s membership totals 167. Today’s SPN is the tip of the spear of the far-right, nationally funded policy agenda in the states that undergirds extremists in the Republican Party.