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2/25/2025
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Media Advisory: House Environment Committee to vote on PFAS ban Thursday
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STATE HOUSE — The House Environment and Natural Resources Committee will meet Thursday to vote on a bill banning PFAS chemicals from protective firefighter equipment and to hear bills relating to the recovery of damages caused by greenhouse gas pollution, freshwater lake management and the protection of old growth forests.
The committee is scheduled to meet on Thursday, Feb. 27, at the rise of the House, sometime after 4:30 p.m. in Room 135 on the first floor of the State House. The committee is scheduled to vote on one bill:
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2025-H 5019 — This bill, introduced by Rep. June S. Speakman (D-Dist. 68, Warren, Bristol), would prohibit the manufacture, sale or distribution of any firefighting personal protective equipment containing intentionally added PFAS in Rhode Island beginning Jan. 1, 2027.
The committee will also hear several bills, including:
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2025-H 5424 — The Rhode Island Climate Superfund Act introduced by Rep. Jennifer Boylan (D-Dist. 66, Barrington, East Providence) would establish a cost recovery program to recover funds from entities that extracted or refined fossil fuels and were responsible for more than one billion tons of covered greenhouse gas emissions.
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2025-H 5341 — This bill introduced by House Minority Leader Michael W. Chippendale (R-Dist. 40, Foster, Glocester, Coventry) would authorize the collection of a small additional fee, in addition to the registration fee paid by motorboat owners, to be deposited in a restricted account in order to fund the newly established freshwater lake management program.
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2025-H 5294 — The Old Growth Forest Protection Act introduced by Rep. Evan P. Shanley (D-Dist. 24, Warwick, East Greenwich) would provide protection for state-owned forestland in their natural state prohibiting extractive logging and clearcutting in any forest on state-owned land.
Written testimony must be submitted at HouseEnvironmentandNaturalResources@rilegislature.gov. Testimony must include your name, the bill number and your viewpoint, whether for, against or neither. Sign-up sheets for in-person testimony will be available in the hearing room.
The meeting will be televised live by Capitol Television, which can be seen on Cox channel 61, on i3Broadband channel 15 and on Verizon channel 34. It will be live streamed at capitoltvri.cablecast.tv/.
For more information, contact:
Tristan Grau, Publicist
State House Room B20
Providence, RI 02903
401.222.4935
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