Last month, the Environmental Council of Rhode Island issued its biennial Green Report Card reviewing the Ocean State’s environmental progress, which expressed disappointment in the lack of recent environmental policy advancements.
Out of the 144 bills that ECRI monitored and advocated for in 2025-26, only 39 were passed. Only around half of their top priority bills for the 2025 and 2026 sessions were passed into law.
While the report card notes many legislative highlights, including a stronger Green Bond and increased wildlife protections, ECRI wrote that “the past two years of climate policymaking in Rhode Island have been largely disappointing.”
This Green Report Card marks a departure from ECRI’s positive assessment of the 2021-22 legislative session, which they called “the best two years of environmental policymaking in Rhode Island history.”
In 2021, the R.I. legislature passed their “Act on Climate” bill, which established guidelines for more aggressive emission reduction policies and mandated the Ocean State be net-zero by 2050, The Herald previously reported.
The act “was a huge achievement that really put Rhode Island at the front of the pack in terms of statewide policy to address climate change,” State Rep. June Speakman (D-Bristol, Warren) said in an interview with The Herald. “Anything after that might look like a small achievement.”
But Jordan Miller, the executive director of ECRI, contends that “the legislature could very easily work on legislation that advances the Act on Climate rather than stalling it out.”
In particular, ECRI denounced recent attempts by Gov. Dan McKee to “roll back previous climate progress, including Rhode Island’s renewable energy standard.”
Last year, McKee’s Affordability for All agenda provoked backlash from environmental advocates due to its proposed cutbacks to renewable energy and energy efficiency programs. The House Finance Committee ultimately modified the plan to keep a 2033 deadline for ending reliance on fossil fuels and toned down its spending cuts.
McKee’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
Miller expressed “frustration” with McKee’s policy decisions. “We were not anticipating having to play defense on the Act on Climate in 2026.”
The legislature must focus on “actually passing quality legislation rather than having a huge volume of legislation that never gets discussed,” Miller said, noting that state legislators lack a necessary “sense of urgency” to meet climate goals.
State Rep. Rebecca Kislak ’94 (D-Providence) believes that environmental action in the state has been “much too slow,” she said in an interview with The Herald, but added that the General Assembly is “generally on the right track.”
She added that McKee is “actively undermining our progress” through his proposed energy policy.
“Decreased federal investment and outright federal hostility to some of the really important energy work that we have done have caused us to take a step back,” she said.
“We’re lucky if we can just avoid backsliding, and that’s pretty much what we try to do,” said Speakman. “I expect we’ll make much more progress on electrification and you know building benchmarking and those things once the dynamics in Washington change.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Speakman mentioned a bill passed this year that banned rodenticide, describing it as a “tremendous achievement.”
“That’s not a climate change ban, but that’s really important for the preservation of the raptors” and other wildlife, she said.
Speakman noted that renewable energy credits have been under attack due to rising energy costs in the state. “That is an immediate crisis of affordability for Rhode Islanders,” she said.
Rhode Island has some of the highest residential energy costs in the nation, which have only been worsened by the Iran War.
State Senate Minority Whip Gordon Rogers (R-Foster, Coventry, Scituate, West Greenwich) was one of the politicians that received a failing grade in ECRI’s ranking. In an email to The Herald, Rogers wrote that his priorities on the committee have been to “set goals we can meet, keep pace with our neighboring states and be honest with people about the cost.”
Rogers touted “realism” as his guiding principle, noting that the “original timeline (for the Renewable Energy Standard deadline) can’t be met.”
“ECRI and I disagree about how to get there, not about whether clean air and clean water matter,” he wrote. “Affordability and reliability come first.”
Miller is also looking to the future. “With a new governor in office soon and a new legislative session, we’re hopeful that we’re going to be able to meet those commitments that we’ve already made and make some progress,” he said.
