It makes clear what the General Assembly meant all along – that when a company wants to build a new, dirty, polluting power plant but illegally refuses to provide information to agencies charged with providing Advisory Opinions, the EFSB must deny the application.

This act would direct the climate change coordinating council to study a carbon pricing program, to incentivize institutions and industry to reduce carbon emissions and would make several other additions to the council's responsibilities.

Municipal aggregation, also known as community choice aggregation, allows a city or town to choose the electricity supplier for residents and businesses within that municipality. It is a model allowing for important energy decisions to be made at the local level rather than by an investor-owned utility or by a for-profit competitive electricity supplier. Current Rhode Island law has too many procedural barriers that prevent town planners from pursuing aggregation.

This act would preclude electric distribution companies from including their gas transmission contracts or cost of facilities in the rate base for electricity customers.

Prohibits the use of an entire family of chemicals called phthalates, which are know endocrine disruptors and can cause other health issues, from being used in flame retardants that are applied to furniture and children's products.

This legislation increases penalties for people who cut trees, steal stone walls or otherwise intentionally vandalize or damaging protected lands. Current penalties are so low that they are not a deterrent. The legislation, patterned after an effective law in Connecticut, increases the fines for people convicted and enables land trusts and municipalities to recoup costs for restoring protected lands that are willfully damaged.

This bill would eliminate all user fees for access to any state beach thereby reducing the revenue used to manage state beaches.