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6/10/2025
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Senate OKs DiMario bill to fund work to reduce climate emissions
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STATE HOUSE – The Senate today approved legislation sponsored by Sen. Alana M. DiMario to provide a sustainable funding source for the state’s efforts to meet the carbon emissions reductions mandated by the 2021 Act on Climate.
The legislation (2025-S 0246A) would increase the oil spill prevention and response fee on petroleum products from 5 cents per barrel to 10 cents, and allow the activities of the state’s Executive Climate Change Coordinating Council (known as EC4) to be funded by it and the Underground Storage Tank Fund.
“Since passing the Act on Climate, we as legislators have tasked the Executive Climate Change Coordinating Council with doing more and more of the work necessary to meet our climate goals,” said Senator DiMario (D-Dist. 36, Narragansett, North Kingstown, New Shoreham. “The council is funded mostly through federal funds and grants that can only be used for very specific purposes. The council needs more sources of flexible funding to do the work we’ve asked them to do, and it’s clear that we can expect significant reductions, if not elimination entirely, of federal funds dedicated to carbon emission reduction. This legislation creates a steady source of funding, appropriately coming from the industry that has long profited from the pollution the EC4 must address.”
The 2021 Act on Climate was one of the most influential environmental bills approved by the General Assembly in decades. It mandates that Rhode Island incrementally reduce climate emissions to net-zero by 2050, setting a series of emissions-reduction benchmarks that the state must achieve in order to reach that goal, with the first coming in 2030. These goals are enforceable by civil action against the state if it fails to reach these mandates. The EC4 is charged with directing the state’s efforts to achieve them.
“The benchmarks set by the Act on Climate are not mere goals, but mandates that our state is required to achieve. These benchmarks are ambitious, and achieving them will require robust effort. This bill provides EC4 with the support it needs to carry out that critical work,” said Senator DiMario.
The bill now heads to the House of Representatives, where Rep. Terri Cortvriend (D-Dist. 72, Portsmouth, Middletown) is sponsoring companion legislation (2025-H 5779).
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For an electronic version of this and all press releases published by the Legislative Press and Public Information Bureau, please visit our website at rilegislature.gov.
For more information, contact:
Meredyth R. Whitty, Publicist
State House Room 20
Providence, RI 02903
(401) 222-1923
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